Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Today's Mass Readings

Today we celebrate the patronal feast of Conception Abbey. Interestingly enough, the town in which the Abbey was founded was already named Conception after the Immaculate Conception even before the monks arrived. According to Wikipedia, there was a post office in the town named Conception from 1864, some nine years before the monks arrived.

Years ago, when I first learned that the Immaculate Conception refers to Mary’s conception and not to Jesus’ conception, I was a little surprised. Nobody had yet explained it to me; I had just heard the phrase and made assumptions. But then as I learned that Mary is the Immaculate Conception, and that this means she was conceived without original sin, unlike the rest of us, I got a little jealous. I wondered why I was conceived with the stain of original sin, and so needed baptism to be washed clean, and was still left with that propensity to sin that original sin engenders even after baptism. I also wondered why Mary, out of all human beings, was preserved from that. But then I learned that Mary also went through her life without committing any personal sin. So out of all human beings, she is the only one not touched by sin. In a way, this includes even Jesus; as St. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake [God] made him to be sin who knew no sin… .” Adam and Eve, though they were created without sin, soon fell into sin, as we learn in the first chapters of Genesis. So out of all of us, Mary is the one never touched by sin. She was given the grace by God, through the merits of her own Son, to be untouched even by original sin. And she did not waste this grace.

Once I realized this, I knew why God did not give me the same grace. I would have wasted it, just like Adam and Eve did. I think this is likely true for the rest of us also. So, this is actually a sign of God’s love for us and God’s mercy on us. God has preserved us from the guilt of wasting so great a grace. So today let us celebrate our mother Mary, who was humble enough not to waste God’s grace, but instead was the one worthy enough to give birth to our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Reflection by Fr. Aquinas Keusenkothen, OSB