The Immaculate Conception

Today I wish to let the poet William Wordsworth do my speaking for me. This poem is found in Garlands of Grace: An Anthology of Great Christian Poetry by Dr. Regis Martin.

The Virgin

Mother! Whose virgin bosom was uncrost
with the least shade of thought to sin allied;
Woman! Above all women glorified,
Our tainted nature's solitary boast;
Purer than foam on central ocean tost;
Brighter than eastern skies at daybreak strewn
with fancied roses, than the unblemished moon
Before her wane begins on heaven's blue coast;

Thy image falls to earth. Yet some, I ween,
not unforgiven, the suppliant knee might bend
As to a visible power, in which did blend
all that was mixed and reconciled in thee
of mother's love with maiden purity,
of high with low, celestial with terrene.

The Immaculate Conception has several messages for humanity:

• Jesus Christ is of infinite worth and must be treated as such. A pure vessel was required to bring Him into the world. How many times, Lord, have I failed to be a pure vessel? How many times have I spoken your Word with judgment and malice in my heart? How many times have I prayed only to turn to anger moments later when I re-enter the world around me? How many times have I received you in the Most Blessed Sacrament while holding a grudge? The Blessed Virgin bore Jesus Christ in her womb, an act that surely would have destroyed her the same way a sinner in heaven would be engulfed in the fire of divine love. The only Son of the Almighty Father, the New Covenant, requires a womb made of a material more valuable than the gold of the Ark of the Covenant carried by the Israelites. Womanhood, the crown of creation and the most precious of all God's creatures, offers up her more perfect person, the Queen of Angels, the Mother of the Church, the Immaculate Conception.
• The plan of God is generous. It does not suffice for God to purify from original sin, He must preserve His daughter and the Mother of His Son from the stain of Adam's disobedience. The generosity of the Father reveals itself in that God's grace does as much as it can in accord with the cooperation of man.
• As the readings of the day show, the obedience of Mary heals the rift created by the sin of our first parents. Adam and Eve sought to be like gods, Mary received God in her womb, in preparation for which she was preserved from sin and enjoyed the image and likeness of God. Our first parents also "saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom" (Gen 3:6). They sought to fill their hunger, Mary received the living water that does not run dry and the living Bread come down from Heaven. They sought to please their eyes, Mary beheld the angel of God and contemplated the God's Word in her heart. They sought to gain the wisdom of man, Mary sought to renounce wisdom and embrace the foolishness of man, which is the wisdom of God, choosing a course of action that, were it not for God's intervention on the behalf of His most faithful daughter, would have ended in her demise and death as an unwed mother. The Blessed Virgin therefore teaches us obedience, humility, discipline, poverty of spirit, and wisdom.

Let us be certain to devote ourselves to the School of Mary, learning her lessons with a docile heart. I say this knowing that I am in great need of the education she provides. Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, pray for us!

His Servant and Yours (and the Servant of the Immaculata),

Micah
Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception