MARY'S IMMACULATE CONCEPTION:
AN ESSENTIAL PART OF OUR SALVATION

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Here’s an interesting question: what if Madonna (that is to say Our Lady) had been a Primadonna? As we approach Christmas, the day honoring the Nativity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, it is quite fitting that a little more than two weeks beforehand we should also have a feast day dedicated to our Blessed Mother's Immaculate Conception.

While many people might make the mistake of thinking of the Immaculate Conception as referring to that of Jesus it was not His conception, miraculously marvelous as it was, but his mother's that we acknowledge here as playing a vital part in our own salvation.

As Saint Alphonsus Liguori noted in his great book The Glories of Mary, after the Annunciation Mary became “The Ark of the New Covenant” in carrying our Lord Jesus Christ in her womb. As such she would indeed need to be free from the taint of Original Sin. As he put it “As it was becoming that a most pure God should have a mother pure from all sin, he created her spotless”.

She had not even a trace of our wretched proclivity to sin, which became humanity’s Satanic inheritance following the fall of our first parents Adam and Eve, as we read about in Chapter 3 of the book of Genesis.

While Mary experienced both joy and sorrow as the Mother of God, we also see her as having great humility, which is matched, both in scripture and in her many church approved apparitions, by a rock solid, thoroughly unselfish devotion to her Divine Son Jesus, on His behalf and ours as well.

As a reminder, we don’t worship Mary but rather we honor her while keeping in mind what could be her credo concerning Jesus: ‘Do whatever He tells you”. (This is taken from John’s Gospel chapter 2 verse 5.) However I’d like to suggest here a wonderfully practical way, as well as the theological one, in which her being conceived without sin was so important for us.

As we read about in church approved private revelations given in the book The Life of Mary as Seen by the Mystics by Raphael Brown, Our Lady was not subject to the types of foibles and temptations in which we in fallen humanity are so beset with constantly. And Our Lady readily embraced arduousness out of love for our Lord!

For example, considering Jesus’ Nativity, think of that extraordinary moment when it comes time for her to give birth to Him. She makes a difficult journey with her spouse St. Joseph, who would be Jesus' foster father, to go to Bethlehem to register for the census there while almost ready to give birth to Jesus.

And yet, as we read in church approved private revelations, she has no complaints about either the long rough journey or what she might see as the humble, rather than humiliating circumstances surrounding her Divine Son’s birth.

Note in this regard that in the Gospels concerning the Nativity, all we read in her reaction to this wondrous event, one of the most significant in human history is that “she kept in mind all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).

Might not a woman tainted with Original Sin like the rest of us have complained mightily about giving birth in a cave? In Bethlehem? Surrounded by animals? With a manger, that is to say, a feeding trough for those animals for a crib? What? No palace? No mansion? Not even a room in an inn? No regal entourage? Just some shepherds at first?

While we are not required to believe what follows as Catholics, Brown’s account does provide good material for meditating on the lives of our Lord and Our Lady. We read in his book that Joseph was understandably distraught when he couldn’t procure decent lodging for his wife as she prepared to bring the Word incarnate into the world.

Brown writes that nonetheless “Mary consoled her husband tenderly. Then he told her of a shepherd's shelter outside the town. And she said: ‘That will be perfectly satisfactory to me. Let us lovingly embrace poverty, dear Joseph, and go gladly wherever the Lord guides us.’ Upon entering the bare grotto which the shepherds used as a stable, they both knelt and thanked the Lord and Mary was filled with joy at being at last in this holy place. She immediately set about cleaning the cave with her own hands out of humility and reverence.”

Clearly our Blessed Mother, conceived without sin, is putting Jesus first and foremost in her heart because it's all about Him, not about her ultimately, and she's fine with that.

Think of those people you might have read about in the Bible including some women behaving very badly. Queen Jezebel comes to mind who had Naboth killed on behalf of her husband King Ahab so that he could get Naboth's vineyard. As we read in the Second Book of Kings verses 33-37, she met a very violent end, as Divine punishment.

Then there's Delilah of Samson and Delilah fame who betrayed Samson which led to his death in Chapter 16 of the Book of Judges. And in the New Testament during the time of Jesus' ministry Herodius and her daughter Salome were instrumental in the beheading of John the Baptist (Mark 7:17-29).

One thing we see in the Bible that attests to its veracity is how often the accounts of various figures there are not presented in a hagiographic fashion, that is to say, as if they never did anything wrong. We see people in scripture with nerves of steel as well as feet of clay. We're not talking about, say, official biographical accounts of the dictator Kim Il-Sung, as told by the North Koreans, for example.

And keep in mind in terms of our Blessed Mother’s resilience in what follows: at Jesus’ Presentation in the Jerusalem Temple after 40 days she’s told by Simeon that a sword would pierce her heart. And again according to Brown, she’s now fully aware that her Divine Son has come into the world to die for our sins later on at the violent end of His earthly ministry on the cross.

And what’s more, the Holy Family (Jesus, Mary, and Joseph) had to undertake another arduous journey on a donkey (as often depicted in artwork) to flee to Egypt to escape the murderous wrath of King Herod. You may remember how he sought to kill Baby Jesus seeing him as a rival for power by ordering the Massacre of all children two years old and under in Bethlehem.

But again in all this we get no sense of her complaining, of saying something like “I didn't sign up for this!”. Mary clearly is not some kind of diva we might see on some TV or movie skit. But rather she is just so full of humility, love, and reverence for her Divine Son, in being full of grace, that her sorrows concern how He is mistreated, not herself.

As St. Alphonsus pointed out “Mary suffered martyrdom in her soul….And, therefore, says the blessed Albertus Magnus [better known to us as St. Albert the Great], as we are indebted to Jesus for what he suffered for love of us, we are also to Mary for the martyrdom which she, in the death of her Son, voluntarily suffered for our salvation.”

She may have felt the pain of Jesus’ crucifixion in her soul, as St. Alphonsus suggests here, but without a trace of resentment or bitterness towards our Creator. She might have prayed for a less brutal outcome than that which our Lord suffered in His Passion and Death, but she accepted its necessity for our salvation nonetheless.

A lesser woman might have felt deep anger, rather than anguish at seeing her Son in His crucifixion, even perhaps saying at an earlier juncture to God the Father about Jesus, something like “He’s Mine! You can’t take Him from me!”

So as we prepare to welcome Baby Jesus in the crib on Christmas, let us also give thanks that His Mother, in being conceived without sin, was such a good loving selfless as diametrically opposed to selfish Mother who was of great service not just to her Son, but to all of humanity!

And she continues to intercede for us constantly with our Lord and for that we can be grateful that as we read about in John 19:26-27 He left us such a good spiritual mother  whom we can turn to at all times for her help and grace!