immaculate conception

continuation of conversation with my old friend George...

So, George, you know what just happened to me? I suddenly understood the Immaculate Conception. Or at least I think I did.

I have been thinking about it as something needed for Jesus to come. And it didn't make any sense. Why would the mother of Jesus need to be born without the stain of original sin in order to bring Jesus into the world? That would seem to take Mary out of the commonality of the human race... and defeat the whole purpose of the Incarnation and Christ's sharing in our human nature.

But I just got it flipped on its head. It's not about conditions necessary for Christ's birth. It's about salvation for Mary, as an example of salvation through Christ for us. The Immaculate Conception is about possibilities. Not that we are going to be immaculately conceived, but that we have the potential for salvation and holiness through Mary's Son. Just as the OT is full of "types" which serve as prefigurings, IC is an example, an illustration, of human potentiality in Christ (i.e. sanctity), not a condition to be met because the Catholic Church is squeamish about the Mother of God being born a part of sinful humanity.

Am I on the right track, do you think?



Old friend,

Actually, I think you've described two major aspects of the teaching, and one complements, rather than precludes the other, like looking at two integral facets of the same diamond. I think the emphasis you have insightfully realized provides an approach for you to this mystery of grace. The Immaculate Conception is about the salvation of Mary in anticipation of her being the Mother of God. She is the beginning of the church, carrying the Eucharist in the Tabernacle of her womb. In the restored state of her humanity, a gift of grace at the moment of her conception, she had the power, unhindered by sin, to choose or to reject God at the moment the angel came to her. God is the Lord of second (and third or fourth, etc.,) chances, and this was a second chance for humanity to cooperate with the grace of God in solidarity with Mary. As the Fathers wrote, she is the archetypal New Eve, sinless like Eve before the archetypal fall, as Christ is the New Adam, so her solidarity with humanity is really more profound because the injury of sin also injures the solidarity of our humanity. (Evil is a deprivation of good, which has no substance in itself.) All Marian dogma is an affirmation of who Jesus truly is, just as her fiat to the angel presages the line from the Our Father, "May your will be done," which is what constitutes the kingdom, "as in heaven, also on earth" (the literal order of the prayer in ancient Greek). In other words, I think you have experienced a moment of enlightenment. (Besides, her prayers have literally saved my life more than once, I am deeply grateful to her for her prayers.)

Pax,
George



Hello George,

Okay, so instead of limiting Mary's freewill (turning her into an automaton who is BOUND to obey God), the Immaculate Conception gives her absolute freewill – i.e. the same freewill experienced by Adam and Eve before the Fall, but which we do NOT experience as a consequence of sin. Our freedom of will is always circumscribed by sin (or perhaps experiences static as a result of sin). So she is TRULY able to make a choice to obey God, without the static interference of sin.

These are perspectives that make sense to me. The idea I was reacting to (not expressed by you, but expressed by others with regard to the Immaculate Conception) is that God is too holy to touch anything impure. That, to me, just does not make sense in conjunction with Christ's actual down-in-the-grit ministry. If confronting sinfulness and brokenness on the frontlines were against God's nature, then I don't see where we would get Christ's engaging sinners - in opposition to the Pharisees (who WERE too "holy" to touch sinfulness) – or even where we would get the crucifixion. So the difficulty I was having was in seeing Immaculate conception in the sense of a holy God who did not want to truly embrace humanity... not in the sense of grace that afforded Mary the perfect will to obey freely. In other words, I was perceiving it as essentially anti-Incarnational.

But the idea that in the Immaculate Conception, God offers Mary true freedom of will to obey Him and that the Immaculate Conception anticipates and prefigures our salvation and sanctification – those concepts I can grasp and embrace.

And frankly, if I can work with the Immaculate Conception, then I can work with Papal Infallibility. My issue with Papal Infallibility WAS the Immaculate Conception. (I know you understand the conncetion).

You write:

God is the Lord of second (and third or fourth, etc.,) chances, and this was a second chance for humanity to cooperate with the grace of God in solidarity with Mary.

I write:

I'm usually working on the etc. chances. :-)

You write:

In other words, I think you have experienced a moment of enlightenment.

I write:

Epiphany. :-)

I made an appointment with the parish priest. Sacrament of Reconcilation. Tomorrow (Wednesday night - probably "today" by the time you read this). I'm Catholic at core. And I don't see any reason to postpone my homecoming.