Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary
What a wonderful Scripture Reading we have for today’s Feast! (Ephesians 1:3-6, 11-12) I hope that Saint Paul will forgive me if I slightly adapt it to fit today’s celebration.
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed her (us) with all the spiritual blessings of heaven in Christ Before the world was made, he chose her (us), chose her (us) in Christ, to be holy and spotless, and to live through love in his presence, determining that she (we) should become his adopted daughter (children), through Jesus Christ for his own kind purposes, to make us praise the glory of his grace, his free gift to her (us) in the Beloved, And it is in him that she (we) was 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 one (people)who would put her (their) hopes in Christ before he came.
My interpretation of this hymn is that God is to be praised for pouring such blessings on Mary and to be glorified in his plan of salvation which begins with the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin. Yes! Mary was chosen. Yes! Mary responded with generosity beyond our understanding. Yes! Mary fulfilled God’s promises and God’s Will.
But the Letter to the Ephesians uses different pronouns! We have been chosen. We have been blessed. We are called to be spotless. We are made for the purpose of the ‘praise and glory of grace’.
Today we are reminded of how precious is human nature/humanity in the eyes of God. Saint Paul is addressing us. We can hardly take it in. We are conscious of our sinfulness, and blessed to know our lowliness. But Mary is our model, our perfect model. With her as the model for all God’s children Saint Paul could speak with such assurance and faith in what God has stored up for all God’s children.
Each evening in the Prayer of the Church we repeat Marys’ great song, the Magnificat, echoing over and over Mary’s Praise and Thanksgiving. We hesitate to make such prayer our own and yet we stutter to Laud our God in the same way as Mary did. Saint Paul seems to think we can. Our very existence, as part of God’s creation ‘glorifies the Lord’ and, though we may not be remembered by future generations as having been holy or even faithful, we still proclaim the marvels the Lord has done for us.
‘Holy, holy, holy is His name’.