Back in the years that I was stationed at St. Peter’s in Chicago’s Loop, I remember answering the phone on a particular December 8th and being asked when we would be celebrating Mass for the Immaculate Exception. Obviously the caller did not have the title of the feast correct. However, throughout the day I found myself remarking to myself that this incorrect expression was, in fact, accurate. We celebrate an exception to the rule today. Mary was conceived in her mother’s womb without the stain of Original Sin. This privilege was proclaimed as a dogma in 1854 by Pope Pius IX.
As is often the case when we celebrate a feast of the Blessed Virgin, we hear the story of the Annunciation of the birth of Jesus. We will, in fact, here two more times before the Feast of the Nativity. Perhaps it is because of the proclamation of this Gospel that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is sometimes confused with the dogma of the virgin birth of Jesus. What we celebrate today is the restoration of our ability to have access to God. The story of the expulsion of Adam from garden is a story of the loss of access. Before his sin Adam was able to commune with God as they walked through the garden in the evening breeze. It is access to God that is lost through sin.
However, through the willingness of Mary and the obedience of Jesus, that access has been regained. Life with God is a real possibility for those who walk in the footsteps of Jesus and who imitate the disponability of his mother, Mary.
The first reading from the Book of Genesis records that God immediately set in motion a plan to undo what Adam and Eve had, through their disobedience, imposed upon humankind. In a sermon by St. Anselm, we hear him reflect on the effects of that plan of salvation: “Blessed Lady, sky and stars, earth and rivers, day and night – everything that is subject to the power or use of man – rejoice that through you they are in some sense restored to their lost beauty and are endowed with inexpressible new grace. All creatures were dead, as it were, useless for men or for the praise of God, who made them. The world, contrary to its true destiny, was corrupted and tainted by the acts of men who served idols. Now all creation has been restored to life and rejoices that it is controlled and given splendor by men who believe in God.
Just as Mary was chosen to be the Mother of God, St. Paul tells us that we have also been chosen to share in that life through adoption. The letter to the Ephesians introduces this idea which is thoroughly based on Greek and Roman cultural values. Adoption was not a familiar concept in the Jewish world. If a child lost his parent, his situation ordinarily would not have changed since he or she would have been living with the brother of the father and among all of his kin. The sense of family in Israel protected them from most cases of being parentless.
However, the Roman and Greek cultures, with which St. Paul was familiar, did practice adoption. St. Paul uses the concept to explain how we have come to be included in Christ’s resurrection.
The Immaculate Conception is the patronal feast of our country. So today we also pray for our national government and those who frame and protect our laws. May God look kindly upon us today as we celebrate this great exception that was made for our Blessed Mother.
Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator