Daily Reflection Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception

The solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, along with that of the Assumption in August, are the two major Marian feast days of the Church’s liturgical year. Both are based completely on a theological understanding of the Blessed Mother that are somewhat outside any biblical witness. However, both understandings are very much in keeping with who Mary was (and is) in the history of our salvation. They are also entirely based on the very unique nature of her son, Jesus Christ. It is because of his nature, and not Mary’s, that we say these things about her.

The Immaculate Conception is sometimes confused with the conception of Jesus that Luke’s story of the Annunciation proclaims. This confusion, I suppose, isn’t helped by having Luke’s Annunciation as the gospel passage of our feast day today. But it is not the Lord’s conception (the great mystery of the virgin birth) that the feast celebrates, but his mother Mary’s. We believe that a singular grace of God enabled Mary to be born without, as it was put for many years, the stain of original sin, the sin of Adam and Eve that has followed all humanity from the beginning. 

This, to me, makes perfect sense. One of Mary’s titles is “Ark of the Covenant.” In her womb was the Word made Flesh. Mary’s purity, as it were, is almost demanded by the divine nature of her son. No other woman will ever be chosen for such a purpose again and none ever were before her. Her role is unique in all the world, in all of history. How could God not prepare her for it from her very conception? It is literally the reason she was born. No one else has such an honor, not because of anything about her other than that she was chosen from the beginning, which is something we do not fully understand.

The Assumption is like it. How could the body of the Mother of Our Lord, the body that conceived and bore him in her womb, ever undergo corruption? It is finally all about Jesus and who he is that we so understand his mother, singularly blessed, necessarily blessed like no other. It is why she is also the Mother of God and the Queen of Heaven. It is all to actually honor her son. In order to be human, Jesus had to be born as every other human is born even though he is also unlike any other human who has ever been or ever will be born. But through our faith in Christ, we too share in something of the same blessings (if not to the same extent) that Mary has. We too are freed from sin and death through Jesus, as was his Mother. We too are bound for glory, it was just not at our conception that that happened. 

The Blessed Virgin Mary will be forever highly honored (“Blessed art thou among women”), but we share in that honor in our repentance and in turning our lives over to her son and following him. No one can ever have the singular privilege and honor that Mary has. But we share in it, through faith, in an almost equally amazing way. “The Lord has done great things for me and holy is His name,” sings Mary in her Magnificat. “The Lord has done great things for us, and we are glad indeed,” sings Psalm 126. And for that, let us forever give great thanks to the Father.