There can be some confusion about what we are celebrating in this feast. What we are not celebrating, although it is part of the faith of the Church, is that Mary remained a virgin after the birth of Jesus. What we are celebrating is that Mary, from the very first moment of her existence, was free from any taint of original sin, that tendency to evil with which we are all born into this world.
This has not always been the explicit teaching of the Church from the beginning. It really dates from St Anselm who lived in the Middle Ages. Even the great St Thomas Aquinas could not quite see how Mary could be preserved from original sin. But it is clearly implied in the New Testament and especially in the Gospel of today's Mass.
Full of grace
The Gospel is the account of the Annunciation from Luke. As the angel comes into the little house at Nazareth, he greets Mary. "Rejoice, so highly favoured! The Lord is with you" ( ' Chaire, kecharitomene! Ho Kurios meta sou) . The older translation with which we are familiar in the prayer is, "Hail, Mary, full of grace." It is this term, 'full of grace' which led theologians to asserting that Mary, not only at the moment of Jesus' conception, but at every moment of her existence was totally free from any kind of sin.
We call Mary the "Ark of the Covenant", as the place where God's Son was sheltered for nine months. Jesus himself, though sharing in every other way our human nature, was totally free from sin from the first moment of his conception. It somehow did not seem right that the mother of Jesus, who from her own body contributed to the formation of the body of Son, should herself be even slightly tainted with sin, even an orientation to sin.
Mary and Eve
There is then a striking contrast made between our first parent, Eve, and Mary. This contrast was expressed by the juxtaposition of the words "Eva" (the Latin for Eve) and "Ave" (the Latin for 'Hail!') as in "Ave Maria!" The First Reading is from the Creation story in the book of Genesis. As the result of the seductive temptation of the serpent, the man and his wife have eaten the fruit that they were told not to touch. As soon as they had done so, they realised what they had done and were overcome with shame and grief. Aware now of their nakedness, formerly a sign of their innocence, they are hiding from God. When God hides them, the man blames his wife for persuading him to break God's commandment. The woman in turn blames the serpent.
Crushing the serpent
The serpent then is cursed to crawl on its belly and eat dust and it will become the eternal enemy of the woman and her offspring. That is to say, the devil will become the permanent enemy of the human race, the descendants of the woman. "It will bruise your head…" in Greek should be translated "He will bruise…" This is a hint that one descendant will overcome the evil one, which has led some of the early Fathers of the Church to see a reference to the Messiah and Jesus. The Latin version has "She will bruise…" and, as the Messiah and his mother appear together, Mary is seen to be indicated. And that links the text with today's feast: Mary, through her Son, has overcome the evil chain of events that were set in motion by the sin of the man and the woman. At the end of the story, the woman is given the name 'Eve' "because she was the mother of all those who live". In time, this title will pass to Mary.
Called from before the beginning of time
The Second Reading is from the opening of the letter to the Ephesians and is a beautiful prayer of blessing and thanksgiving. It applies to all of us who are baptised in Christ but today is particularly applicable to Mary. Let us change "we" and "us" into "she" and "her":
Before the world was made,
God chose her, chose her in Christ,
to be holy and spotless
and to live though love in his presence,
determining that she should become his adopted daughter,
through Jesus Christ,
for his own kind purposes to make her the glory of his grace,
his free gift to her in the Beloved.
God's own
And the letter continues:
It is in Christ that she was claimed as God's own,
chosen from the beginning,
under the predetermined plan of the one who guides all things as he decides by his own will;
chosen to be, for his greater glory
one who would put her hopes in Christ before he came.
This text, applied to Mary, argues strongly for her immaculate conception, "chosen before the world was made to be holy and spotless". We have also been chosen for that but, in our case, it is something which in effect only follows our conversion and baptism into Christ.
The message from Lourdes
One place in particular is linked closely with the Immaculate Conception and that is Lourdes. When Mary appeared to a young girl, Bernadette Soubirous, just outside the town of Lourdes in 1858, she identified herself as the "Immaculate Conception". In fact, the doctrine had only been infallibly declared a doctrine of faith four years previously in 1854. It was most unlikely that a girl from an impoverished family without access to the "media" of the day would have been familiar with such a theological expression, still less that she could have made it up. In spite of much scepticism on the part of both civil and church authorities, Bernadette won through and Lourdes became a place of pilgrimage. Today millions of people go there to find healing in body and soul. Anyone who has been there will tell you that there is something special and unique about the place.
Mary as guide and protector
Today we thank God for all the blessings and graces he showered on the Mother of his Son. We ourselves have been far from immaculately conceived and are aware of both the sins we have committed and of all the tendencies, appetites and urges which drive us away from God and into conflict with our brothers and sisters.
Let us pray today to Mary our Mother to be with us, to guide us, to protect us through her prayers of intercession with her Son. Above all, let us ask her to respond as generously to God's call as she did and to be as faithful a disciple of her Son as she was.
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