20211208 HOW COULD THIS COME ABOUT?
08 December, 2021, Wednesday, The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary
First reading |
Genesis 3:9-15,20 © |
The mother of all those who live
After Adam had eaten of the tree the Lord God called to him. ‘Where are you?’ he asked. ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden;’ he replied ‘I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.’ ‘Who told you that you were naked?’ he asked ‘Have you been eating of the tree I forbade you to eat?’ The man replied, ‘It was the woman you put with me; she gave me the fruit, and I ate it.’ Then the Lord God asked the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’ The woman replied, ‘The serpent tempted me and I ate.’
Then the Lord God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this,
‘Be accursed beyond all cattle,
all wild beasts.
You shall crawl on your belly and eat dust
every day of your life.
I will make you enemies of each other:
you and the woman,
your offspring and her offspring.
It will crush your head
and you will strike its heel.’
The man named his wife ‘Eve’ because she was the mother of all those who live.
Responsorial Psalm |
Psalm 97(98):1-4 © |
Sing a new song to the Lord for he has worked wonders.
Sing a new song to the Lord
for he has worked wonders.
His right hand and his holy arm
have brought salvation.
Sing a new song to the Lord for he has worked wonders.
The Lord has made known his salvation;
has shown his justice to the nations.
He has remembered his truth and love
for the house of Israel.
Sing a new song to the Lord for he has worked wonders.
All the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation of our God.
Shout to the Lord, all the earth,
ring out your joy.
Sing a new song to the Lord for he has worked wonders.
Second reading |
Ephesians 1:3-6,11-12 © |
Before the world was made, God chose us in Christ
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us with all the spiritual blessings of heaven in Christ.
Before the world was made, he chose us, chose us in Christ,
to be holy and spotless, and to live through love in his presence,
determining that we should become his adopted sons, through Jesus Christ
for his own kind purposes,
to make us praise the glory of his grace,
his free gift to us in the Beloved,
And it is in him that we were claimed as God’s own,
chosen from the beginning,
under the predetermined plan of the one who guides all things
as he decides by his own will;
chosen to be,
for his greater glory,
the people who would put their hopes in Christ before he came.
Gospel Acclamation | cf.Lk1:28 |
Alleluia, alleluia!
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee!
Blessed art thou among women.
Alleluia!
Gospel | Luke 1:26-38 © |
'I am the handmaid of the Lord'
The angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the House of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. He went in and said to her, ‘Rejoice, so highly favoured! The Lord is with you.’ She was deeply disturbed by these words and asked herself what this greeting could mean, but the angel said to her, ‘Mary, do not be afraid; you have won God’s favour. Listen! You are to conceive and bear a son, and you must name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David; he will rule over the House of Jacob for ever and his reign will have no end.’ Mary said to the angel, ‘But how can this come about, since I am a virgin?’ ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you’ the angel answered ‘and the power of the Most High will cover you with its shadow. And so the child will be holy and will be called Son of God. Know this too: your kinswoman Elizabeth has, in her old age, herself conceived a son, and she whom people called barren is now in her sixth month, for nothing is impossible to God.’ ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord,’ said Mary ‘let what you have said be done to me.’ And the angel left her.
HOW COULD THIS COME ABOUT?
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [Genesis 3:9-15.20; Ps 98:1-4; Eph 1:3-6,11-12; Lk 1:26-38]
The dogma of the Immaculate Conception is one of the most controversial and complex doctrines of the Church with regard to Mary. Yet the belief in Mary’s holiness and sinlessness was something that was always held by Christians since the early Church. Many Fathers of the Church would sing praises of Mary’s purity, often comparing her to Eve, calling her the New Eve, just as Jesus is called the New Adam. However, because of doubts, the Church only proclaimed it to be a dogma in 1854.
To go through the theological complexities and intricacies of how systematic theologians argued for or against the Immaculate Conception of Mary would be a very tedious task. Still, we need to be confident that the Immaculate Conception is not a far-fetched dogma so that it could be easily accepted by the ordinary Catholic. We need to ask ourselves how in faith we can accept the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, even if we cannot understand the depth of the implications with respect to the question of original sin and the necessity of salvation of all in Christ alone, and how to explain it systematically in such a way that would not contradict the other doctrines of our Faith in Christ.
Perhaps, we can begin with the same question that Mary asked the angel when she said, “how can this come about?” In other words, how can we be sure that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is a possibility for Mary? Even for Mary, it was difficult to comprehend how she would conceive the Messiah in her virginity. That was why she asked the question, not because she lacked faith but because she could not understand how it could be possible, humanly speaking. How much more for us to dare speak about the incarnation of our Lord, God becoming human is beyond anyone’s imagination, for how could God take upon human flesh. Indeed, this was the biggest struggle the early Church had in trying to reconcile Jesus’ divine and human nature in one person of our Lord. All the heresies were connected to this inability to reconcile the divine and human natures in one person.
The answer given to Mary was simply this. “‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you’ the angel answered ‘and the power of the Most High will cover you with its shadow. And so the child will be holy and will be called Son of God. Know this too: your kinswoman Elizabeth has, in her old age, herself conceived a son, and she whom people called barren is now in her sixth month.'” It is possible only through divine intervention and the work of the Holy Spirit. As the angel rightly said, “nothing is impossible to God.” The angel gave the example of the pregnancy of Elizabeth in her old age to indicate the power of God to do what is impossible for human beings.
So too the angel’s message has deep implication in the development of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. The angel greeted her with these words, “Rejoice, so highly favoured! The Lord is with you.” How do we know that Mary has been favoured highly by the Lord? The fact that she was chosen among all women to bear the Messiah is a unique grace privileged only for Mary. No other woman had been chosen for this task. Surely, this is a great grace given to Mary, not because of her merits but simply because the Holy Spirit overshadowed her. Mary is called traditionally “full of grace” simply because she is the epitome of grace. It is not because Mary does not need a Saviour. On the contrary, it is because of God’s plan for her to bear the Messiah that Christ pre-emptively saved her from the stain of original sin in view of His passion, death and resurrection, so that she would be a fitting mother of the future Messiah.
We all need to be saved by Christ because only Christ is the mediator, and as the Second Adam, saves us all. Mary without exception has been saved by Christ but in a different way from us. We are saved after baptism, but she was saved in the womb of her mother when she was conceived. Is this possible? Certainly! We cannot delimit God’s grace and power. Mary made it clear in her Magnificat. “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.” (Lk 1:46-49) She ascribed everything especially her conception of our Lord to God’s power, mercy and grace. Similarly, when the Church declared Mary to be Immaculately Conceived, she did so under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and the devotion of the faithful and the clergy recognizing this gift given to her. The Church in declaring her Immaculate Conception is saying that she is the icon of the work of grace in her.
In truth as St Paul wrote in the second reading, we have all been chosen like Mary in Christ, before we were even born! “Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all the spiritual blessings of heaven in Christ. Before the world was made, he chose us, chose us in Christ, to be holy and spotless, and to live through love in his presence, determining that we should become his adopted sons, through Jesus Christ for his own purposes, to make us praise the glory of his grace, his free gift to us in the Beloved. And it is in him that we were claimed as God’s own, chosen from the beginning, under the predetermined plan of the one who guides all things as he decides by his own will; chosen to be, for his greater glory, the people who put their hopes in Christ before he came.” What St Paul said of us all Christians, should also be applied in a more eminent manner to Mary.
And truly, Mary is not just declared to be holy and spotless, freed from sin but this is virtually testified in the entire gospel with regard to Mary’s holiness. The scriptures always speak favourably of Mary. When the Magi came to worship the Lord at Bethlehem, “all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” (Lk 2:18f) Her attentiveness to the Word of God is again brought up when Mary found Jesus in the Temple. Jesus said to them, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he said to them. Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart.” (Lk 2:49-51) Twice, Jesus praised Mary for being the true disciple when He remarked, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.” (Lk 8:21) And when “a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!’ But he said, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!” (Lk 11:27f)
Being able to respond so freely to the angel’s annunciation of God’s choice for her to be the Messiah’s mother implies she must have had a deep intimacy and relationship with God. When we are able to act freely without hindrance it means that the effects of original sin do not have a hold over us. This is why even for us who are baptized we are given extra graces to resist sin in spite of the fact that concupiscence remains in us as a struggle because of original sin. We have a darkened intellect and a weak will. But in the case of Mary, with all the dangers, obstacles and anxiety ahead of her in accepting conception of Jesus, such as misunderstanding with Joseph, disbelief of her relatives, possible condemnation of death, she did not show any sign of anxiety. She was freed from the fear of death. Indeed, she could carry the pain of being the mother of Jesus throughout her life only because she did not suffer the effects of original sin. Even when Simeon prophesied, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul too” (Lk 2:34f), she was undeterred in carrying out the will of God. Mary’s relationship with the Lord was so intense that at the Wedding at Cana, she simply left it to the Lord after informing Him that the wedding couple had no more wine left for the celebration. She did not pressurize her Son.
Indeed, it is appropriate that the Church considered Mary to have won victory over Satan with the grace of our Lord. She is given the titles, mediatrix and co-redemptrix. This was prophesied in the protoevangelium. Then the Lord God said to the serpent, “‘Because you have done this, be accursed beyond all cattle, all wild beasts. You shall crawl on your belly and eat dust every day of your life. I will make you enemies of each other: you and the woman, your offspring and her offspring. It will crush your head and you will strike its heel.’ The man named his wife ‘Eve’ because she was the mother of all those who live.'” Who is the “it” that will crush the serpent’s head and whose heel would be struck if not Mary’s son? But she together with the Son are enemies of the Devil because both were not overcome by Him. Jesus and Mary were both sinless.
Written by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved.
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