Advent Reflection - Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The Apostle Paul famously referred to the risen Christ as the “last Adam,” contrasting him with the “first Adam” who bore our fragile humanity, the moral and spiritual vulnerability that renders us broken and in desperate need of God and one another.  Barely a century later, Justin Martyr contrasted Jesus’ mother with Eve, the mother of all the living. Only a few decades after Justin Martyr, the Church Father Irenaeus went even further, calling Mary of Nazareth the “Second Eve.” 

The ancient intuition that Mary’s fiat - her radical “yes” - is a prophetic type of the resounding “yes” of the new creation, is almost as ancient as the Church itself. It is a profound reminder that in the Mother of God, the Christian people see a prophetic mirror of what we ourselves are called to become. The Immaculate Conception is the mystery of Mary’s radical “yes” to God, a “yes” so absolute that it could only come about through grace; a grace that encompassed the entirety of her existence. We all know that Mary’s fiat is a model of the “yes” God invites from us. And yet, the deeper truth we often miss is that like Mary, our “yes” is a gift of grace that only God can give. May we, by the power of the Holy Spirit, become humble enough to let God fill us with grace, so that on the last day, we too may hear the angel greet us: “Hail, full of grace; the Lord is with you…”