Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Let us try to change our way of thinking about the main character of Advent, which is the Virgin Mary. It is worth starting with the dogma of the immaculate Conception. In the common sense, the Immaculate Conception is a privilege. In our language, this word is associated with something that gives only benefits, some order. The question immediately arises: why did she get it and I did not? Using this concept, also talking about the privilege of the Assumption or virginity, we make the Mother of God a superwoman and now it is not clear what to do with this Mother of God or even for what is She? Someone may say: the Lord Jesus is enough for me because He is the only Savior.

Meanwhile, it is much better not to speak of a privilege, but of the sign of the Immaculate Conception. In Latin there is a word, munus, that is difficult to translate into English language. This noun means a gift that I receive, but which also involves certain specific responsibilities. This is something good but is also something that I receive in a concrete way.

For example, two people, a boy and a girl, have a crush on each other. The boy walks with the girl and finally says to her, "marry me." If he hears "yes", then it is known that he is the happiest man in the world, he receives from this woman munus of being her fiancé, then her husband. Of course, it is a great honor to become the husband of this woman and the wife of this man, but it has certain consequences and a specific task to perform. Marriage is the charism to receive. And it cannot be renounced. According to Catholic teaching, one cannot renounce being husband and wife. Once you swore – it is until death. Just as one cannot renounce being the father or the mother of a child. It is for life. For better or for worse. The same is for Priesthood.

The Immaculate Conception is the munus that Our Lady received. No medal. One can say even more bluntly that God gives every man what he needs. And the fact that Our Lady received this privilege, munus of the Immaculate Conception, meant that this was what she needed. We do not. It is shocking, isn't it? Did our Lady need the Immaculate Conception? We did not, but if it were needed, God would have given it to us. But he did not give us, that is, we do not need it. Our Lady for some reason needed this help from God. When we look at Mary, through the prism of the Immaculate Conception, we can look from the individual side. So: why did she get it? Because she needed it, for salvation, for personal sanctification. When we from the global side, or what it really means for us, the meaning of the mystery of the Immaculate Conception of which we speak is that by virtue of the foreseeable merits of Jesus Christ, the Mother of God was preserved from every stain of original sin.

When man begins to struggle with some sin. I am not talking about venial sins, but about getting a certain addiction. His vision of himself was that at the beginning of his life lay sin. If a man neglects the life of grace – confession, sacramental life, prayer, forgets a little about God, it may seem to him at some stage that sin is his natural environment of being. Like water for a fish. And the Immaculate Conception tells us that it is not. There is a beautiful text of St. Paul in the Letter to the Ephesians. Paul says that God in Christ chose us before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless before Him (Ephesians 1:3–4). Every time we are overwhelmed by doubt, it is precisely the sign of the Immaculate Conception that is given to us so that man remembers that before sin happened, man existed in God's desire, in his intention for each of us. Man was without sin, he was immaculate. Our Lady is not shown to us as an icon to admire that she succeeded, that we have to struggle with ourselves. She is shown to us as an icon of purpose/goal. One day God will purify us so that we will be free from evil. We are already preparing for this when we go to the confessional and judge ourselves, that is, we try to separate good from evil. We are trying our best. Although we sincerely try to free ourselves, very often we return to old habits. The mystery of the Immaculate Conception tells us that God will one day purify us in this way. This is His desire. A significant role here is played by a regular examination of conscience. It is not a litany of all our sins, but some help to discover who we really are and where we are on our path. It is like glancing at an atlas while traveling.

Let us see how it turned out for St. Joseph. After marrying Mary, he learned that his wife was pregnant, but he did not know by whom. What should he do in this situation? Suddenly, a young man, from a small village – because Nazareth was, and still is today – discovered an incredible sensitivity in himself: he would let her go and take the blame. Then God revealed to him the mystery of Jesus' conception by the Holy Spirit. In this way, St. Joseph came face to face with God and discovered his true nature, when he was struggling with his conscience.

The work of an examination of conscience, it is a great task, so that can man dig into what he really is. On the other hand, God promised: "You will be free from evil, I promise you this." To better understand this mysterious desire for freedom, let us read Thomas Merton's text: “A few days ago I happened to be in a nearby town, which happens very rarely with us. I briskly walked alone on the street. Suddenly, I realized that all people are expressions of wisdom, that in all of them shines extraordinary beauty, purity and timid dignity, although they do not know exactly who they are. Then it was as if I had seen the mysterious beauty of their hearts, those vast corners where neither sin, lust, nor self-knowledge reach. The core of their real being, what they really are in the eyes of God Himself.”

Father Bolewski, theologian and philosopher explains Merton’s thought this way: “it was an almost mystical experience of the mystery of the Immaculate Conception, which, however, was not limited to the Virgin Mary, but expressed the truth of the being of each one of us. Since the fall of our first parents, the Bible has described man's deepening sin. This is what the whole Old Testament tells us: man keeps returning to the same ruts of sin. Suddenly – this is how Father Bolewski explains – there is a breakthrough: God resumes the work of creation. Let us remember that by the Fathers of the Church, Mary is called the new Eve, just as by Saint Paul, Christ is called the new Adam. God begins to create the world anew: he creates the New Eve, the Immaculate Conception. This is the beginning of a completely new chapter in the history of the world, and it can be said that the mystery of the Immaculate Conception, the miracle that happened, that one girl from a village in Galilee, forgotten by all people in the world, was conceived without original sin. On one hand, this is the starting point. On the other hand, this is the point to which the history of the world is heading.”

When we say that Mary is our mother, a model for us, our protector, we mean that she shows us who we really are in God's eyes. What we do in life is a pathological attempt to realize our being immaculate, free from unhappiness and frustration. We all want to be happy, free from evil, but the paths that we take are not always right, because we do not look at the atlas beforehand, we do not examine our conscience, or we are not faithful to this conscience.

The Immaculate Conception has another dimension. Our times are afflicted by the disease of inability to make decisions. And once we do, it is hard for us to persevere in it. Sometimes, when candidates come to the monastery, they say: "I will think about it. I am 37, I am 35, but I will think about it; I will not make a decision". Man is like paralyzed; he is not able to cross the Rubicon. The people whose lives we are considering here, including Our Lady, show us a certain beauty of choice, that is, of loss. Because every choice is a loss. Mary accepts that she will be the Mother of God, that she will become a virgin and be the mother of only one child. Joseph, accepting to take Mary to himself, must also accept that he will never have children of his own and will never approach Mary as a husband approaches his wife. He gains something, but he also loses something. Did this loss impoverish him? Did it make him more flawed, more miserable? This young couple show us the beauty of choice. Precisely through this serene acceptance of their charisms, their munus, including this charism of the Immaculate Conception. Accepting what life brings us always involves loss. We cannot have everything. For example, for a priest it is nice to say mass, hear people's confessions and preach, but this means that we will never have a son. We never will be able say "dear child". It is nice to have a wife, children and so on, but that means that we will never say, "And I forgive your sins."

All this also teaches us to enjoy what another person brings to our lives. Although I do not have a personal share in certain charisms, I am nevertheless enriched by the Church, the community in which I live. I can rejoice that my brothers, my sisters have what I do not have. We are truly like one body, one family. We go together to God. Our Lady, in the mystery of her Immaculate Conception, also shows us this mystery of unity which resounds in this creative plan of the Lord God.

Let us think of the mystery that shows us who we really are and how immense is the holiness of every human being, even if it is covered with the scraps of sin. What Merton wrote: a point of immaculate that nothing can destroy, is the likeness of God that is in each of us. On the other hand, digging up this treasure means a choice, that is, a certain loss. Gaining something always entails a certain loss

In turn, Teilhard de Chardin, in his work entitled “The Divine Milieu,” evokes the truth about the Immaculate Conception of Mary, to show the paradoxicality of the Incarnation. Normally, creation should approach God. In Jesus Christ, in a certain sense, the opposite happened: it was God who approached creation. To this end, he prepared for himself the Immaculate Mother to bring him to our earth: God, when the time came when He decided to realize His Incarnation before our eyes. First, He had to awake in the world a virtue that would be able to attract Him to us. He needed a Mother to give birth to Him in the human world. What did He do then? He created the Virgin Mary, that is, he made such a great purity on Earth, so that in this Immaculate Reality he could focus himself and appear as a Child.

Until Tomorrow

fr. george