The Immaculate Conception
Fr. Anthony Brankin
You may or may not be aware of the fact that the Catholic Church teaches that we are all brothers and sisters—no matter our nationality—no matter our country of origin—no matter that we are even a different race. We are brothers and sisters. Now the Catholic Church has always taught this truth. And this accounts for the fact that everything the Church teaches—about Jesus—about grace and about salvation, about the sacraments, about the moral life, takes as its starting point the understanding that we are brothers and sisters—really and truly.
Now the world—the politicians, the fascists the liberals—the atheists, the secularists, the ones who don’t believe in anything but power and wealth and willfulness—do not believe we are brothers and sisters. They will admit that there is a nice poetic ring to that notion. They will use that idea to subjugate and oppress people and manipulate them. The world will pretend we are brothers and sisters when such a statement serves their needs. But they don’t believe it. They will declare that we are related to monkeys—but not to each other. They teach that we humans exist by accident—by chance—by luck—but not by means of a God who created us. But we are related to each other—we are brothers and sisters—really and literally and truly—AND— scientifically. The only poetry here is that we are more like cousins. Because each of us—whether we are from China or the Americas—Europe or Africa—each of us have the genetic marker of a woman who lived about a hundred thousand years ago. They know who she was and where she lived—and they can tell by the female DNA, that she is an ancestor of every human being alive today. She is probably not the Eve of the Bible—that Eve may have come before her—but we know therefore from science—which proves the truth of the Bible that we all had one set of parents—and them we call Adam and Eve. So whatever happened to them—is carried on to us.
Our Original Ancestors
We all know the story of Adam an Eve. We know about the great gifts that God gave them and we know also of their act of disobedience. Their Original Sin—the one that is carried on in each of us—right alongside of DNA. Don’t worry about the apple—don’t worry about the tree—the reason that was sinful was because Adam and Eve—at the encouragement of the devil—refused the will of God. They shook their fist at God and said to Him in pride and in defiance—“Not your will be done but ours!” And that set in motion the context for every subsequent human sin. We say to God every time we sin—that even though we know what he wants, we will not do it. We will do what we want to do. We who are so weak and stupid and corrupt, will be masters of the Universe—we shall be as gods! How ridiculous. But that is what we say—every time we sin.
But God so loved us that He promised to send someone—His own Son—to save us from ourselves. God knew that we would have destroyed ourselves in an avalanche of greed and willfulness and stupidity. And to prepare for the coming of His Son—He asked the Virgin Mary to be the Mother of His Son. And God chose Mary from before the world began because He had favored her with His grace—God preserved her from sin—from the first moment of her existence in the womb of her mother Anna. Mary—by the anticipated merits of her son—did not participate in the sin of Adam and Eve—concebida sin pecado Original—And when God asked her to be the Mother of the Saviour, she responded by saying— effortlessly and beautifully,
“Let it be done unto me—according to thy word.” “ I only want to do Lord—what you want me to do. And I will be blessed in doing your will.” And when Mary said that—she reversed the sin of Adam and Eve—she turned back the tide of sin. With those few but beautiful words—she placed all humanity—all her brothers and sisters—all her cousins—from the time of Adam and Eve—on a path back to God. Now we could be saved—but Mary teaches us the way we are saved—by doing Gods will. And what is His will? That we be holy like He is holy—that we be good like He is good. That we be beautiful as God is beautiful and we do so by loving Jesus. This is why Mary is so good and so beautiful and so humble—because she is like her God—and she is like her Son. There is in Mary—no stain, no flaw, no blemish, no mix of the impure and wrong and sinful. None.
Desecration or Consecration?
I think of the act of evil that was done last night—when some poor soul went into the convent yard and decapitated the statue of the Virgin Mary—among other desecrations and acts of hatred. How incredible that in the very moment—during the Novena—on the evening vigil of her Immaculate Conception as we celebrate her goodness and beauty—her innocence and liveliness—someone comes into this space and violates her and her people. Sure this person was a sap and one of Satan’s useful idiots—but who can say that he was not inspired by this ugly culture of ours. Who can say that modern culture—television and movies and all the pop punk you can listen to did not encourage him in his stupid assault against all that is good all that is beautiful. You know—our modern culture—the one we tolerate and pay for—the one that gives us nightly tributes to vampires and zombies and living dead and walking dead—you know the culture that every year in its music awards treats us to scenes of Madonna and Katy Perry and Beyoncé worshiping Satan . You know the culture—the newspapers and internet that never tires of putting out the subtle messages that God and the Church are bad—Not Satan.
This person may think he has done something heroic—by vandalizing church property—he may think he is getting back at the church and the priests and the nuns and striking a blow for freedom from God and the Church. But he is only highlighting—by his ugliness—the beauty of the Immaculata—he is only highlighting by his sin—the sinlessness of the one he would violate. He teaches us a great lesson—that as sons and daughters of Adam and Eve—we are all related to Adam and Eve. And we can be related to them in their willfulness and rebellion against God in their disobedience and ugly stupidity—or we can be related to them through Jesus and Mary—in beauty and good deeds and the blessed willingness to do God’s will.
The choice is ours.