“CONCEPTA SINE PECCATO.”
December 8, 2023.
Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin
Mary.
A vintage holy card of Our Lady of the Miraculous medal has
this Latin invocation, "O Maria, sine labe concepta, ora pro nobis, qui
confugimus ad te." Transliterated, “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray
for us who have recourse to thee.”
A Nigerian proverb says: “An ant-hill that is destined to
become a giant ant-hill will definitely become one, no matter how many times it
is destroyed by elephants.” A Jewish proverb adds: “Sins hide not in your sleep
but in your dreams.”
I read on one blog this beautiful introit that can open our
meditation on the Immaculate Conception. "From the very beginning, and
before time began, the eternal Father chose and prepared for his only-begotten
Son a Mother in whom the Son of God would become incarnate and from whom, in
the blessed fullness of time, he would be born into this world. Above all
creatures did God so loved her that truly in her was the Father well pleased
with singular delight. Therefore, far above all the angels and all the saints
so wondrously did God endow her with the abundance of all heavenly gifts poured
from the treasury of his divinity that this mother, ever absolutely free of all
stain of sin, all fair and perfect, would possess that fullness of holy
innocence and sanctity than which, under God, one cannot even imagine anything
greater, and which, outside of God, no mind can succeed in comprehending
fully."
What we are celebrating today is the special grace God
endowed on Mary. He predestined her to be the Mother of His Son. And for this
cause, he preserved her from the stain of sin. Though she was a descendant of
Eve and Adam like each one of us, because of the mission God wanted to entrust
her, he did not allow Mary to share in the load of original sin.
Pope Pius IX, in INEFFABILIS DEUS, on December 8, 1854,
declared it as a dogma, a reality of faith that "from the first moment of
her conception, the Blessed Virgin Mary was, by the singular grace and
privilege of Almighty God, and because of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of
Mankind, kept free from all stain of original sin."
Jesus, the Son of God, the Most Holy, intended to enter our
humanity to save us. To do so, he could not be born of a sinner. Consequently,
he sets aside a dwelling worthy of him, Mary’s wombs. She is thus, "sine
peccato." The dogma of the Immaculate Conception, one of the four Marian
dogmas of the Church, holds that Mary was conceived in the womb of her mother,
Saint Ann, and kept free for her entire life, from its very first moment,
without the stain of sin.
Today’s readings point out the reality of predestination.
Mary was destined, even before her birth to be the Mother of God. She was
chosen by the Father. She was chosen for the Son. Among all women, she received
a special blessing, the grace of purity, bodily and spiritual.
In the first reading, we read the event after the fall, the
great tragedy of Eden, how both, Adam and Eve, through the temptation of the
serpent, disobeyed God and ate of the forbidden tree. God, in his wrath,
decided to punish them, expelling them from the garden. And because the
corruption to sin came from the serpent, God announced the perpetual enmity
that he would set between the woman and the serpent, and that would be passed
to their offspring.
Through one woman, sin came into the world, and we all are
made sinners. We are all children of Eve, so sinners. Another woman, however,
will be kept aside, pure of all stain of sin, to become the key that opens the
door to a new dawn, the era of salvation. Through the merits of her Son's
suffering and death on the Cross for our Salvation, Mary was kept free of sin.
She was "Sine Peccato", not for herself, but because of Jesus and for
us. The Immaculate Conception is God's gift to our humanity. One of us was
preserved from sin so that, through her, God should enter our humanity and free
us from sin. Mary, thus, is the door of salvation.
St. Paul, in the second reading, stretches this fact of
predestination for redemption. "In love, God destined us for adoption to
himself through Jesus Christ." Mary, one of us, was chosen, before the
foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before God. Through
her, God came into our human likeness.
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The Gospel gives us a beautiful account of the encounter of
God through the Angel Gabriel, with Mary. “Hail, full of grace! The Lord is
with you.” The Lord is with her, that is why she is Immaculate. He has a plan
for her life. He wants her to become his Mother, the Mother of his Son. Every
one of us has a purpose. God has a project, a plan for our lives. Though we are
not blameless or Immaculate like Mary, we still can open ourselves to receive
God and become a door of his grace in our lives and that of others.
The attitude should be that of Mary, humility, obedience,
and openness to God's will: “Fiat voluntas Tua.” When Angel Gabriel appeared to
this simple virgin, she did not argue too much or ask the up and down about
what could be her interest. Instead, after stating about her situation, “How
can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” Mary’s next reaction was an
act of obedience, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me
according to your word.”
Maybe because of the stain of original sin, we have become
materialistic and egocentric. We set our personal interests before and above
everything. Even our obedience is conditioned. Worst, humility seems to be a
taboo thing for many. As we celebrate the Immaculate Conception of Mary, let us
through the intercession of this humble Virgin of Nazareth, ask the grace to
put God first in our lives, the grace of humility and unequal and unconditional
self-effacement, the grace of faith leading to perfect obedience. May Mary be
our model and channel toward God and our brothers. Ad Jesum per Mariam... Ave
Maria and onward.
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