Adam and Eve had tried to rise up against God, even in a sense to be his equals: "Adam and Eve had tried to rise up against God, even in a sense to be his equals.you shall be like God in the knowledge of good and evil." (Gen 3:5). The consequence of this was not to elevate them but to bring them down, not their exaltation but their shame. "And their eyes were opened to them both, and they found that they were naked; and they intertwined fig leaves together and girded them." (Gen 3:7). This improvised clothing (later God will do a better job, dressing them himself with animal skins: Gen 3:21) is the result of sin: they can no longer look at each other with innocence. Sin has distorted their passions and their relationships. It also distorted their relationship with God, from whom they hide in fear and shame (Gen 3:10).
Basically, sin distorts, like distorted or cracked mirrors. Knowing evil, tasting sin (as Adam and Eve tasted the forbidden fruit), no longer teaches us. It clouds our vision of reality. The greatest falsehood is sin, and therefore the devil, "liar and father of lies" (Jn 8:44), is so keen to promote it.
But, as part of God's plan of salvation, he began by setting a limit to evil in the Blessed Virgin Mary, conceived "full of grace" (Lk 1:28) and a holy creature whom Satan's fetid flood could not even splash (Rev 12:14-16). From this sinless shore Christ departed to subdue the waters of chaos (Jn 21:4; Mk 4:35-39). Mary lived fully in reality because she was profoundly humble. While the first Eve sought to exalt herself, the New Eve is convinced of her own humility and proclaims it (Lk 1:28-29,38,48). She was the person who most lived the words of Our Lord that the one who humbles herself will be exalted (Mt 23:12) and for this reason we see her elevated to glory, clothed in the splendor of grace and the cosmos (Rev 12:1).
This is the Immaculate Conception, the feast we celebrate today with overflowing joy. We celebrate not only the exaltation of our spiritual Mother, but also, in her, the final exaltation of humanity and of the Church. We celebrate the reality that Mary was conceived without sin in her mother's womb as a function of her own divine motherhood. Because she would one day conceive the sinless one, the all-holy God made man, God made his mother herself sinless, the Ark of the Covenant (Rev 11:19), the spotless vessel to receive not only the words of God, but God himself.
Homily on the readings of the Immaculate Conception (C)
Priest Luis Herrera Campo offers his nanomiliaA short one-minute reflection for these Sunday readings.
