Today we
celebrate one of the glorious mysteries of the Church, and one that has been
the subject of much controversy over the centuries: the feast of the Immaculate
Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I am not so sure that I have the
necessary skills to prove by Scripture the doctrine of the Immaculate
Conception, but I feel it can be adequately talk about the importance of our
blessed Mother in our spirituality[1].
She was born
without sin we were not. And so we need to pay attention to her. Attention not
because of what she has done. No. We need to pay attention to her because of
what God has done for her and how she has responded. We need to pay attention
to her because we cannot live in the Advent season and prepare for the coming
of the Lord unless we pay attention to that singular woman who was the vessel
of the coming of the Lord into our world.
In a sense, the
greeting of Gabriel says it all, Hail,
Full of Grace. Hail to you whom God fills with his love. This is not a
question of what she did to merit this honor and love. This is a question of
what God does. For none of us knows the mind of God. We only know what God
tells us. And today God tells us that this woman is filled with grace. This
woman was so loved by God that she was conceived without sin. She is the
Immaculate Conception.
But Mary did not
know this at the moment when she heard Gabriel's greeting. She had no idea of
her singularity in God's eyes. And even more importantly she did not see her
life unfolding in the manner that it would. She did not understand that she was
to be the vessel of God's touching earth in flesh and blood. I am sure that she
had her own plans, her own ideas, her own future mapped out. But none of that
seemed to matter. All that was important was that God led her in another
direction and she was willing to follow. She allowed God to determine how God
would come into the world. She let God do it God's way.
Perhaps that is
the significance of Mary for us during this Advent season. For she teaches us
that being prepared for the coming of Christ is not a matter of determining how
God will act. Rather, it is a matter of letting God come to us in God's own way
and in God's own fashion. The miracle of Christmas is not that God comes. The
miracle of Christmas is that we, like Mary, are open enough to find God when
God appears ■
[1] Saturday 8th December, 2012, The
Immaculate Conception of the blessed virgin Mary. Readings: Genesis 3:9-15, 20.
Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has
done marvellous deeds—Ps 97(98):1-4. Ephesians 1:3-6, 11-12. Luke 1:26-38.
