Megan Mulls It Over

+JMJ

Yesterday the Roman Catholic Church celebrated the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. The term “immaculate conception” is occasionally seen in casual conversation as a synonym for “virgin birth,” as in, “If I’m pregnant, it must be an immaculate conception, because a man’s never so much as looked at me!” But the dogma of the Immaculate Conception refers to the conception of the Virgin Mary, not the birth of Jesus.

And the “immaculate” part does not mean “without sexual intercourse,” although I have seen this idea floating around the Internet.

Rather, it refers to Mary’s being preserved from original sin and concupiscence from the moment of her conception. (A lot of secular dictionaries define “concupiscence” in reference to sexuality, but in Catholic theology the term has a broader meaning.) In practical terms, this means that Mary never committed a sin, nor did she have a disposition or tendency towards sin.

I remember being taught as a child that God had preserved Mary from original sin, but it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I learned more about the “how” of this preservation. The Church teaches that Mary’s preservation from sin was accomplished by the merits of Jesus’ Passion and death. Because He is human, it is possible for Jesus to literally die (not just appear to die, as the Gnostics and others believe). But because He is also God, He is not bound by time. So as He is dying on the Cross, with Mary at His feet, He can “reach back in time” and preserve her from original sin at the moment of her conception.

Mind.Blown. If The Twilight Zone were a Catholic reality series, this would be the sweeps week episode.

I really like this concept for a couple of reasons. First, it highlights the divinity of Jesus. To deny or downplay the human nature of Jesus is no less problematic than doing the same with His divine nature. Nevertheless, I think it is fair to say that our culture is suffering more from a lack of appreciation for His divinity than for His humanity. Lots of Americans, even non-Christians, think Jesus was a “good person,” maybe even “the good-est person who ever lived.”

And too many people who call themselves Christians think that that’s all He was.

This allows Jesus to have all the desirable qualities of a good friend (like patience and being a good listener) without all the less desirable qualities of a deity (like asking His followers to do things that are unpleasant, counterintuitive, or countercultural). But by denying His divinity, we are missing out on the beauty of His Passion. His choice to suffer and die is all the more meaningful in light of His divinity, because His divinity allows this choice to be completely free. We see the freedom of this choice in John 10:17-18, where He says, “…I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have power to lay it down, and power to take it up again.”

If Jesus were only human, we could posit that He chose to die out of a sense of obligation or because He thought that it was the only way to redeem humanity. But because He is God, He knows that He has no obligations, and He also knows that He can redeem humanity in any way He chooses.

In addition to highlighting Jesus’ divinity, the image of Jesus “reaching back in time” to redeem His mother makes Mary more relatable, because it shows that she needs Jesus as a savior just as much as we do. This can be easy for Catholics to forget since the logistics of her salvation are so different from our own. She is preserved from original sin from the moment of conception, whereas we are cleansed from it at our baptism.

But the merits of Jesus are the common denominator in both scenarios. He dies for our sins, and He dies so that Mary will be able to not sin.

Note: In this video from Ascension Presents, Fr. Mike Schmitz uses a helpful analogy about cures and vaccinations to illustrate this point (0:44-1:59).

The Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception is a holy day of obligation for American Catholics, because Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception is patroness of the United States. Fun fact: she was declared patroness of the United States in 1846, but Texas had been placed under her patronage nearly a century earlier in 1760, when she was declared patroness of Spain and all its territories. I suppose this patronage lapsed “on paper” once Mexico won independence from Spain. Lucky for Texas, Mary is not a stickler about whom she loves, e.g., “Come back to me when you have declared me patroness, you worthless peasants!”

And lucky for all of us, Mary is the only Jewish mother in the history of the world who is willing to help a no-good woman marry her son.

Verso l’alto,
Megan