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| Peter Paul Rubens [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons |
By Melanie
Rigney
The
man called his wife Eve, because she became the mother of all the living. (Genesis 3:20)
Sing
to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous deeds. (Psalm 98:1)
Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ
with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as he chose us in him, before the
foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him. In love he
destined for us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with
the favor of his will for the praise of the glory of his grace that he granted
us in the beloved. (Ephesians
1:3-6)
Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be
done to me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her. (Luke
1:38)
Piety
Hail, holy Queen,
Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of
Eve. To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning
and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn then, most gracious Advocate, thine
eyes of mercy toward us, and after this our exile, show unto us the blessed
fruit of thy womb, Jesus, O merciful, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary! Amen.
Study
It was a
Friday, December 8, 1854, to be exact, when Pius IX set forth as dogma that
Mary “at the first instant of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace
of the Omnipotent God,” was conceived without original sin. The belief had been
generally accepted by theologians for a couple hundred years, though earlier,
there had been some debate as to Mary’s pre-redemption.
While any
statement of dogma is important to faithful Catholics, it is doubtful a
fourteen-year-old French peasant girl had heard of it, much less understood it,
four years later. After all, the sickly Bernadette Soubirous was functionally
illiterate and had yet to make her First Communion. Yet, it was Bernadette to
whom a beautiful lady appeared on February 11, 1858. And it was on March 25,
1858, a Thursday to be exact, that the lady, after being asked four times by
Bernadette who she was, answered, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”
Bernadette
may not have understood all the theology behind what the lady told her, but she
knew the lady was love, and that she wanted to do whatever the lady asked.
Whether others thought she was a fool was of no concern to her; after all,
people had been ignoring or discounting her all of her short life.
Interrogations by lay and church authorities could not move her from her
account of what she had seen, what she had heard, and what she had been asked
to do.
May we learn
from Bernadette’s example. May we listen to Mary. May we open our hearts and
souls to her beauty.
Action
Contemplate
the ways in which Mary, as our holy mother, may lead you closer to her Son.
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