Mary's conception, free of original sin, was
unique among all created persons. But it is our re-conception in Christ, our rebirth in Christ, our re-creation in
Christ and our vocation to be holy and blameless, without blemish, immaculate
before the face of God in love. This is something we all share with Mary. It
seems an impossible vocation. Mary, our
model, teaches us how to follow it and prays for us as we do.
There is a famous quote: “Pray as if everything depended
on God and work as if everything depended on you.” But if we were to ask the Virgin Mother Mary
about it, she would perhaps say: “Pray and work knowing that it all depends on God.
Everything depends on God.” She would be
in agreement with St. Paul in his saying, “What do you have that you did not
receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a
gift?” The notion that each of us is
called to be “holy and immaculate before the face of God in love” only seems
impossible when God is left out of the process. Mary learns from the angel that nothing will be impossible for God: she, a virgin, but she will have a son who is the Son
of God.
In the Magnificat, Mary never once uses the
pronoun “I”. Her prayer is not a prayer
of praise about herself, but about what God has done for her, for Israel, and for
all generations of the lowly who know that nothing is impossible for God. Mary prays in praise of him who is her savior, a
God who looks not on egocentric accomplishments but rather on our lowliness
and poverty and hunger for Him, a God who ever remembers to have mercy upon us
to make us blessed and holy and immaculate as we live and pray before his face.
Reflection by Father Luke.
