Advent Calendar - Day 8

Today is the feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a holyday of obligation (that means you should have gone to mass today just as if it was a Sunday).  For every Catholic kid who gets tripped up on his or her theology test, let's be clear:  today we celebrate the immaculate conception of Mary, not Jesus.  AND your teacher slapped her head in frustration after you asked why Jesus' conception wasn't free from sin.  (Of course the Son of God was conceived without sin!  God can't sin dummy!)

First, let's review what it's about.  This is one of the Marian dogmas - things you have to believe in order to be a Catholic.  It causes so much confusion until you give it a little thought.  Mary is the Mother of God (also a Marian dogma) and that has been an accepted teaching since the earliest days of Christianity.  The Mother of God cannot be stained with original sin.  So, when Mary was conceived by St. Anne and St. Joachim (her parents), she was preserved from the original sin of Adam which stains us all.  Only four people have been created and born free from original sin: Adam & Eve (sinless before the fall), Jesus and Mary.  Mary is the new Eve - why should she bear original sin when she was going to bear the Son of God?

So what's the point of this solemnity in the middle of Advent?  For me, celebrating this feast in Advent reminds me of Mary's visit to Elizabeth during their respective pregnancies.  When Elizabeth saw Mary, her infant (John the Baptist) leapt in her womb and, full of the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth cried: "Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.  And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?" Luke 1: 42-43.  

It also drives home the critical truth of the Incarnation - God became a man.  He had a human mother and her blood coursed through his veins.  The fact that God came to us is humbling enough (see my post yesterday), but today we are reminded about how God came - He humbled himself to become a man!

This gentle creature that God made free from sin, and saved by her own son is our model.  She doesn't ask why, she gives her fiat and accepts what God asks her to do.  So today we honor her and in the United States we are dedicated to her patronage.  

Mary, the Immaculate Conception, pray for us!

CC