The Immaculate Conception & Advent

While preparing for my homily for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, I caught myself waking up from bed one morning asking the question "What's the connection between the Immaculate Conception and Advent?" We all know that the Immaculation Conception "cuts" through the Advent Season, and oftentimes we go through life as Catholics without having reflected upon this "cutting." Hence I wrote the following thoughts. I first gave it as a conference to the Pink Sisters, the third congregation founded by our common Father and Founder St. Arnold Janssen last Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2006. I also gave this reflection to the communities I got invited to celebrate the Eucharist for this year's Solemnity.

The Church's Dogma of the Immaculate Conception

The Church dogma on the Immaculate Conception, declared in 1854 by Pope Pius IX, tells us that God the Father had kept the Blessed Virgin Mary free from the stain of original sin. That is what "immaculate" means, to be free from stain, to be totally clean. Since all of us born into this world share in the sin of our forefathers and ancestors as early as Adam and Eve, Mary's Immaculate Conception thus reveals a particular privilege granted her in view of her pending motherhood of the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ. This salvation given her is one of "anticipation." A beautiful and convincing article describes the analogy of two people and a pit. A man, (and everyone who falls into the pit for that matter), who gets a hand reaching out to him gets "saved" from the pit. The Blessed Virgin, about to fall into the pit, has a hand reaching out to her before she falls, thereby also getting "saved" from the pit, and without having been mired by the dirt of the mud in the pit. Indeed what a "glorious" salvation she has been given. This must be the meaning of the Greek κέχαρίτομήνη, Mary's being "full of grace," a characteristic quality which we Christians hold about Mary, something she was given from the moment of her conception onwards.

Advent and the Immaculate Conception

This Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, placed in the context of the Advent season, heightens the ideas of preparation and waiting. God Himself prepared for the coming of His Son by keeping Mary free from the stain of original sin which all human beings share with the first parents Adam and Eve. Thus, if the Church asks us to prepare for the coming of the Son, we are shared a model - God Himself - preparing for His Son's coming. We can hereby say that when we faithfully prepare for the coming of Christ, whether it be the Parousia or His Birth, the act can be said to be divine in itself. We share with the Father this active desire to have for the Lord a ready place when He comes.

Of course waiting comes immediately with the thought of preparation. Preparation is actually an active stance of waiting. We wait for someone we know. And when we look at our experiences, there are times when we wait also for someone we consider important. And most of all, we wait especially for someone who said he will come. Our waiting reveals to us the value we give to the one we await for. The preparations we make as we wait show the joy we have for the one who will come. Our preparation as a sign of our waiting manifests our faith in the promise of his coming.

In the Immaculate Conception, we have seen for ourselves the Hand of God that kept Mary from being mired in the dirt of the pit (of original sin). That Hand of God has also kept Mary from the trauma of having "fallen" into the pit. In these recent days here in the Philippines, two men fell into a well which the owner had requested opened and cleaned after a long time of keeping it closed. There was a water shortage in the area, and remembering the well that was closed for a long time, he called for a company to have it ready for home consumption. The first man went in and started to brush the concrete circular walls down the pit. But he accidentally lost his grip and plunged into the water. The other man tried to save his companion, and upon reaching out to the hand of the one in the water, he couldn't take the weight of the guy, hence he also slid into the water. The well was more than 100 feet deep, and efforts to save them proved futile until the decision to siphon out the water was chosen. The bodies of the two were taken out only the next day, lifeless of course.

Granted that both were saved and continued to live, they would most likely have agonized through the memory of falling. The harrowing experience of falling into the pit can give temporary memories of helplessness and inadequacy which oftentimes reveal to them some weakness in their part. Those who have weaker egos further weaken with this experience, and self-blaming may ensue. There are people I've talked to who've gone through traumatic moments in life, and who manifest signs of difficulties in their faith, often asking "why God allowed it to happen" to them. Having been saved thus becomes an occasion to learn from that dreadful moment, and the salvation becomes an occasion for deep gratitude. Mary's Magnificat "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior" only shows the deep gratitude she must have felt being given such a great honor and dignity in this way of salvation.

Hence, in the Immaculate Conception, we can see the love of God for us so evidently real as to renew everything despite all the sins we may have committed all our lives, and all the lives of men and women down the generations. Her Magnificat may also become our own song as we do all our preparations for the coming of God's only Son Who comes to love and save us all.

In the Immaculate Conception, we can also see how important is the one Who comes whom we await. Like the men who fell into the pit, had they been saved, they could have shared with uswhile there in the pit for the longing they had for someone to keep them out and alive. That someone would have then become for them so important they would grab his hand as soon as it was reached out to them. At Advent, we long for the One Who can save us from our sinful world and sinful selves, and give us another chance to rebuild ourselves so that we too can save others, having learned from our own weaknesses and failures.

Implict in the Immaculate Conception is the plan of God, a promise of salvation through His Son. His Son our Lord Himself told the apostles He will come again. We hold on to this with deep faith. At Advent, this faith is called to be reignited and fortified as it strengthens us in our waiting.

May we be drawn closer to this One Who prepared for His Son. We have seen His ways, the great love through which He did it. We are full of joy like Mary, and we do believe because Christ Himself has said He will come again. When? Let it be In His Time. What matters for us is that we await with deep longing, with deep joy and with deep faith. Indeed in the Immaculate Conception, faith, hope and love are all alive and real, giving us more life, more joy and more love to share.