Being the pastor of "Our Lady of Lourdes Parish Family" I've already heard all sorts of Marian hymns this month. Often times misunderstood as "Catholic Mary-worship," it's in fact holding up Mary as the first and best disciple of Jesus - an example worthy of our imitation; and it’s also our asking her to “put in a good word for us” with God.
In the apparitions at Lourdes in 1858, Mary’s only words were: "I am the Immaculate Conception," affirming the Roman Catholic doctrine of 1854 that Mary was conceived without ‘original sin’ in anticipation of her role as Mother of Jesus, God’s son.
Many time folks ask: "How could anybody know that? Who was there to observe, to prove it?" But Mary's own words give proof that she was free.. .from sin, and for the doing of God’s will: “I am the servant of the Lord; let it be done to me as you have said.” (Luke 1:38)
Her total lack of ‘willfulness’ can be seen as proof of her sinlessness! And she taught it well to her son, Jesus, who faced with death, could say: “ Father, not my will, but yours be done.” (Luke 22:42). Her example inspired his prayer: “Your kingdom come; your will be done.” (Matthew 6:10)
On the other side of the coin, we who have not been ‘immaculately conceived’ know well the sway original sin holds over us, don't we?
I know, it’s not popular to talk like this. But let’s be honest - we like it 'our way,' right?! Merchants play to this willfulness: "All we ask is that you let us serve your way." We're seduced! Hooked! Drawn in! Such influence, such control 'pushes our buttons.' "Power is the ultimate turn-on.," Henry Kissinger quipped in the 1970's.
And isn't this willfulness the source of anguish, estrangement, violence and terrorism in personal and global lives? As it grows, politeness, compassion, magnanimity and gentleness are choked off. Destructive competition, maneuvering, back-biting and political wrangling all increase! Indeed, stubborn human willfulness - a sign of ‘original sin' controlling us.
Another such sign of our bondage to sin, I think: It is the insatiable thirst for novelty - the ‘latest and greatest’, the ‘new and improved’. It fills our landfills with discarded goods, our relationships too!
Watch the pendulum of history swing back and forth, going over everything to the extreme, over and over through history. But "There is nothing new under the sun." Qoheleth laments.(Ecclesiastes 1:9).
I know they say "Consistency is the hob-goblin of little minds." But it seems that instead of giving good and true things a chance to work by staying with it long enough to see it through, so many times we go in cycles of little more than 20 years.
Fashions reveal it. Who ever thought those cuffed bell-bottom jeans from the 1970's would come back? Our wide zany neckties? But they did! Politics reveal it too!
And even in the styles and tone of liturgy in our Church, pendulum swings pit one group against another over details and stylistic elements which are not essential to what we profess and seek to celebrate - the Victory of Jesus!
By contrast, fidelity requires 'sticking with it," and not being lured away because some novelty comes along, or the time-line for progress is longer than we would wish, or the short-term results aren’t encouraging.
Jesus' short-term results were dismal, even deathly! But His fidelity and freedom to trust made for eternal results beyond all human imagining!
The reality of sin - don't be naive; we'd be ill-advised to over look it. But by addressing our inclination to willfulness with surrender, and our addiction to novelty with fidelity, we can share in the victory of Mary's child, who conquered sin by doing the God's will in all things. Please God, help us do the same!
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