Today we celebrate a special Holy Day of Obligation – The Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The readings for the day can be found at https://www.usccb.org/nab/120808.shtml . Thanks for reading…
What are you destined to be? What is it that God wants you to do with your life? How will your life give voice to the psalm that sings “Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marevelous deeds?”
Today’s readings and today’s feast on one very significant level all speak of vocation. What God calls us to be; what did He design us for; what does He have in mind in creating us?
The first reading takes us all the way back to the beginning of scripture, and the beginning of Creation to Adam and Eve. Here we have the first two human beings, living in harmony with God. Their vocations were simple – to maintain that harmony with God – to Love Him as he Loved them. Their sin wasn’t simply eating a piece of fruit. Their sin was that they didn’t trust God’s goodness, they didn’t believe His lavish, generous love was enough. They reject who they were created to be. And because of that, they are overcome with a panicky sense of personal shame and fear in God’s presence.
The Gospel gives us the complete opposite example. Here we have Mary, who like Adam and Eve are created without Original Sin. God preserves her from the “fall” of Adam and Eve because he has created her, he has destined her, he wants her to do something very special with her life. He wants her to give birth to His Son, Jesus Christ.
But her freedom from Original Sin (which is what we celebrate on this feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary) doesn’t mean she has to do what God asks. She too has the freedom, she has he choice of those two other human beings freed from Original Sin.
In Mary, we have the complete opposite response to Adam and Eve. There’s no fear in her response, there’s no questioning, no assertion by her or protest along the lines of saying “Uh God, yeah, that’s nice, but I have a better plan.”
Simply, humbly, beautifully – her heart and soul cry out – Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord – May it be done to me according to your word.
By our Baptisms, we have been freed from Original Sin. We have become new creations, experiencing new life in Jesus Christ. I think it’s fair to say that for you and I we fall somewhere in between these two examples of humanity at it’s finest and lowest moments. There’s a part of us that wants to say to God “Let me do what it is you’re asking me – let me do whatever that is according to your word” while a part of us thinks we know better, we know what we want, we want to take that fruit and assert our own will.
As we celebrate what God has done for Mary, we can’t forget the Lord has done tremendous deeds for us as well. We look to Mary for inspiration, we’re left simply with the question: Will we trust God and put our lives into His hands?
