Sat 8th DecCONCEPTION OF THE BVM
Fr David Cherry
Genesis 3 : 9 – 15 & 20 ; Ephesians 1 : 3 – 6 & 11 – 12 ; Luke 1 : 26 – 38
“The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee.”
...we linger in this moment of grace that it may inhabit us and bring us closer to God, and to ourselves.
Versions of Mariology have left us stranded up an unbiblical creek
without a paddle. What is the way home to our fruitful and
grace-filled homeland?
And the creek? It seems to be filled with all sorts:
Original sin, a sense of being tainted, flawed from the beginning
(thanks to St Augustine struggling with the dualism of Manichaeism and
our brother John Calvin)
Avoiding sin, not walking on the cracks, avoiding bodily stuff : sex
Virginity which feminists rightly point out to us as some kind of
deification at the expense of true and fully human womanhood. The
burden of the expectation to be pure.
So I chose – rightly or wrongly – to be Anglican and drop
the word ‘Immaculate’ for it raises all these hackles
and stumbling blocks for people as it did for St Thomas Aquinas and
many medieval theologians who opposed the definition.
It was the Franciscans and Duns Scotus who won the day at Oxford
– the devotion to the Person (not the doctrine) of Mary won the
day. So there should be riotous parties in Oxford today!
Today’s feast is not about a doctrine or a goddess. It is
about the grace, the Spirit of God operating and being perfectly worked
out in a Person like you and me. Her name is Mary.
Her virginity, her purity is the same as that of Israel, the spouse of Yahweh who wedded himself to his nation.
Virginity in the Bible and the Church has a purpose. It is the
sign of a holy vocation (calling), a divine chosing so as to be utterly
for and ready for God.
Mary, the new Eve, recapitulates the Genesis story and re-interprets it
– or rather – I should say, in order to place all the
initiative with God: the Genesis story is recapitulated in Mary by God
so that she is prepared to be the Spouse of God, by his Spirit working
in her from the beginning – from her conception. Thus
she is prepared by God, an earthenware vessel of grace.
The Doctrine, then, is about grace, prevenient - going before,
creative before we think it or become aware of it. Simply and
unavoidably there, holding all things in being.
She is spared the ravages of sin. This is what her vocation
is. And it is the same for you and me: to be so at home, so
united with God, so utterly in love with and trusting in God that we
can stand delivered, redeemed from the ghastly consumerism, rivalry and
competition of our violent world; so that we can be free – free
to be who we naturally are: those who show forth, the new creation, a
new nation, a priestly people, the new Israel, showing what it is to
live by grace - to live graciously.
“Even as he chose us in Him before the foundation of the
world”, writes St Paul, “that we should be holy and
blameless before him....”
The Church, modelled on Mary is to be a Sacrament: a Body which, by God’s grace, brings about that which it signifies.
In Advent, as we wait and hope and expect the coming of the Lord, we
celebrate how this may happen to you and me, in you and me. We
seek to detach ourselves to linger in this moment – how odd in
the middle of a wet Saturday with so much shopping to do – we
linger in this moment of grace that it may inhabit us and bring us
closer to God, and to ourselves.
Grace, God’s Spirit, is active in me and you; and here in Holy Communion he comes to unite himself with you and me.
“The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee.”