Genesis 3:9-15, 20; Luke 1:26-38; John 1:1-14
Without our appreciation and understanding of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, we cannot fully appreciate Advent in reflecting on the long journey of Christ, coming to us in the human flesh of Jesus, born of Mary, from God the Father in heaven, by the power of the Holy Spirit. So, on this solemn feast of Mary as the Immaculate Conception, let us reflect on her significance to Christ.
*****
So far, we have reflected two prophecies about
Christ’s coming, sent by God the Father.
The first one was made by God Himself in response to
Adam and Eve sinned against Him upon being tempted by Satan in a snake. God told
Satan that the son of the woman will crush his head – will destroy him (Genesis
3:15) – for corrupting the humans to sin.
So, suffering entered in the humans as a result of
the sin of Adam and Eve; women’s suffering is represented with labor pain and
power struggles with men but tend to be dominated by men (Genesis 3:16), while
men had to labor with sweat to sustain until death, retuning to the ground
(Genesis 3:17-19). That is how human life has been, tainted with the sin of
Adam and Eve, Original Sin, outside the
Garden of Eden.
So, God already issues His judgement on Satan: death
by having his dead crushed by the son (Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God )of
the woman (Mary, the Blessed Virgin, the Immaculate Conception, the Theotokos) (Genesis 3:15), and this is
completely fulfilled in Revelation 20:7-9.
The second prophecy of Chris’s coming was announce
by God to King Ahaz of Judah as a sign that the young woman/virgin bears a son,
who is to be named Emmanuel, which means “God with us”(Isaiah 7:14; cf. Matthew
1:23) – so that Ahaz will turn to God from his vassal submission to Tiglath-Pileser
III, king of Assyria to find peace , security, and prosperity with God’s
providence.
Note that in these prophecies of Christ’s coming,
there is the woman, who is indispensable for the coming of Christ.
Who is this woman, mentioned both in Genesis 3:15
and Isaiah 7:14? – the woman to give birth to the son, who destroys Satan, who
is born of the virgin, known as Emmanuel (to dwell among us as God with us).
It is Mary, of course! Who else could this woman be?
And today, the 8th day of December is the solemn feast of Mary, honoring her as
the Immaculate Conception, which Mary identified herself with in her apparition
to St. Bernadette, in Lourdes, 1858 – as set in the dogma by Bl. Pope Pius IX
in “Ineffabilis Deus” (Ineffable God)
in 1854.
Pope Pius IX explains that it is with mercy of God
the Father to spare Adam and Eve from total condemnation in His judgement,
which is found in Genesis 3:16-19, while death was sentenced to Satan in His judgement
against him, having his head crushed by the son of the woman – Jesus, the
Christ, the son of Mary (Genesis 3:14-15).
In “Ineffabilis
Deus”, Pope Pius IX defines the Immaculate Conception as:
..in the first
instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by
Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human
race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed
by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.
Pius XI explains why God the Father arranged the
Immaculate Conception, as defined above, preserving Mary completely free from
the stain of the Original Sin, by gratia
plena – kecharitomene - God’s
special favor (Luke 1:28) solely for Mary’s divine maternity role as the Theotokos (bearer of God, mother of
God). And, according to Pius IX, God the Father was already thinking of Mary
being the Immaculate Conception to serve as the Theotokos at the beginning before the Creation!
From
the very beginning, and before time began, the eternal Father chose and
prepared for his only-begotten Son a Mother in whom the Son of God would become
incarnate and from whom, in the blessed fullness of time, he would be born into
this world. Above all creatures did God so loved her that truly in her was the
Father well pleased with singular delight. Therefore, far above all the angels
and all the saints so wondrously did God endow her with the abundance of all
heavenly gifts poured from the treasury of his divinity that this mother, ever
absolutely free of all stain of sin, all fair and perfect, would possess that
fullness of holy innocence and sanctity than which, under God, one cannot even
imagine anything greater, and which, outside of God, no mind can succeed in
comprehending fully. Ineffabilis
Deus
When Adam and Eve sinned against God, tempted by
Satan, God the Father was sure to send His only begotten Son through Mary’s
divine maternity to us, because He loves us so. Out of His love, by sending
Christ the Son (John 3:16), God the Father wants us to live, though the wage of
sin is death (Romans 6:23) and God does not want us to spend the rest of our
life in suffering as Adam and Eve had to (Genesis 3:16-19; cf. Romans 2:9).
They say that Eden has been lost with the sin of
Adam and Eve. But, the purity of Eden is preserved in Mary through her
Immaculate Conception. And, this is a great hope for us all, the humanity, that
we will have Eden back or something even greater than Eden, in the fullness of
God’s time. And, this is already revealed apocalyptically in Revelation 21-22,
after the destruction of Satan, crushing the head of the snake (Revelation
20:7-9).
Because Satan has put what Paul called “thorn in
flesh”(2 Corinthians 12:7) in our flesh by tempting Adam and Eve, appealing to
human senses (Genesis 3:1-8), our flesh can contribute to our problem with sins
(i.e. Genesis 6:13; Romans 8:13,17; Galatians 5:17; 1 John 2:16). And, as the
two prophecies of Christ’s coming (Genesis 3:15 and Isaiah 7:14) indicate,
Christ is sent by God the Father in response to sins of humans – sin of Adam
and Eve, sin of Ahaz.
So, God has sent the Son in the human flesh, as it
is associated with our sinfulness. However, though in the human flesh, Christ
is unblemished as the Pesach Lamb (Passover Lamb)(1 Peter 1:19). So, his mother’s
flesh, from which Christ has gained his unblemished body in her womb, must be
free from “thorn in the flesh” or the stain of Original Sin. So, God had
arranged for Mary to be conceived and to be born and to live totally immune
from any effect of the sin of Adam and Eve, cunning attacks by Satan. This way, Christ, the Word, Logos-Theos, since the beginning before
the Creation (John 1:1) can be put in the human flesh – human body of Jesus,
unblemished, because his mother is the Immaculate Conception. If not, Christ the
Son of God, the Son of Mary, might not come to us and dwell among us as
Emmanuel (God with us) in the human flesh of Jesus, had God the Father did not
make Mary the Immaculate Conception.
As Pius XI puts it, it is out of God’s mercy for us,
sinners, suffering from consequences of sins to make Mary full of grace through
the Immaculate Conception to fit and worthy to serve God for the divine
maternity.
So, for Mary to conceive the Son of God in her womb
by the power of the Holy Spirit – though she is virgin, the Blessed Virgin for
being full of sanctifying grace – and serve as the Theotokos, Mary was made as
the Immaculate Conception when she herself was conceived in the womb of her
mother, Anna. Otherwise, we would not have Mary as we know as the mother of
Christ.
Behind the Gospel text for Solemnity of the Immaculate
Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Luke 1:26-38), God made her the
Immaculate Conception. And, as Pope Pius IX puts it, this was already planned
at the beginning, when Christ was the Logos-Theos
in heaven with the Father.
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