Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary – Dec 9, 2024
The annual singing of the Easter Exsultet proclaims, “O truly necessary sin of Adam, destroyed completely by the Death of Christ! O happy fault that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!” Today’s solemnity memorializes the church’s teaching that Mary was conceived without original sin, that “happy fault” we inherited from Adam and Eve.
From Mary’s first moments of life in her mother’s womb, she is freed from the effects of the original lie given by the Father of Lies: “You certainly will not die! God knows well that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, who know good and evil” (Gen 3:4–5).
By accepting the angel’s invitation on our behalf, saying, “May it be done to me according to your word,” Mary co-labors with the Creator, recognizing that only with God and with one another may we through Christ bring holiness to birth in the world.
To be like God, knowing what is right and just—this is not the sin. It is precisely what God originally desired for us when we were made in God’s image. It is what God promises us in Jesus, whose paschal mystery sanctifies the whole human race.
The sin from which Mary is safeguarded is the false belief that we can become what God made us to be by ourselves. By accepting the angel’s invitation on our behalf, saying, “May it be done to me according to your word,” Mary co-labors with the Creator, recognizing that only with God and with one another may we through Christ bring holiness to birth in the world.
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