Luke McNamara. Mary’s birthday falls on the 8th of September and therefore we celebrate her conception 9 months earlier on the 8th of December. This year the 8th falls on a Sunday and the celebration is transferred to Monday. Mary’s immaculate conception is the preparation for her role as mother of Jesus through whom we are all one family. We are all the result of an act of love of our parents. Through that love we were conceived, spent 9 months in our mothers’ wombs and then were born. Jesus shares in our human family. Jesus is conceived through an act of God’s love and spends 9 months in the womb of his mother Mary. His conception we celebrated at the annunciation on the 25th of March and his birth we will celebrate at Christmas, the 25th of December. Our human nature is transformed when Jesus comes among us. Death and sin do not have the final word. Instead, we have a new destiny with Jesus and through him become part of the family of God.
God initially placed our first parents in the garden of Eden where he also walked each evening. This closeness to God was to be our destiny but sadly instead of feeding from the tree of life, they took the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which led to their expulsion. One of the first acts after this disaster was for Adam’s wife to be named Eve because she was to mother of the living. Although access to the tree of life blocked, this name points to the promise of future life.
This promise is not without hope of fulfilment. God is always seeking us. As the letter to the Ephesians states: “Before the world was made, he chose us, chose us in Christ, to be holy and spotless, and to live through love in his presence, determining that we should become his adopted children, through Jesus Christ.” Today God prepares our adoption by choosing Mary from the moment of her conception to be the mother of his new holy family, beginning with Jesus and through him, all of us. Mary is the new Eve, the new mother of all the living but this life is to be as God’s children who live in love in his presence.
Mary’s immaculate conception occurs through the power of God’s love. She is holy so that she may bear holiness itself. She is loved so that she may bear love itself. She is the yes to God’s call: “let it be done unto me according to you word.”
This celebration reminds us that we too are chosen to be holy and spotless and to live through love in God’s presence. God is constantly seeking us. God’s powerful love is near – stay close in prayer and allow that love to overshadow you, transform you and make you holy. Rest in love in his presence. By saying our yes to God’s love we discover freedom, life and love, for ourselves and for all those around us, every member of our human family, every child of God.