Which is more important to stress: the ordinariness of Mary or her being special? Jesuit historian John O’Malley tells us during the Vatican II council that a big debate on this matter was whether or not the Church should have a separate document on Mary. Our very own Cardinal Santos, Archbishop of Manila, led in campaigning for a separate document outside of the Church document to highlight the special character of Mary. We see this developed in the Marian doctrines. Her being the Mother of God, Immaculate Conception, perpetual virginity and assumption into heaven reveal that she was no ordinary person. Others wanted a document on our Lady within Lumen Gentium, the dogmatic constitution on the Church, to highlight her role in the Church, she being the first disciple, the first to learn from Jesus, her humanity, her faith amid uncertainties, her fears, the typical biblical Mary who struggles in her faith journey. After intense deliberations, the Council Fathers decided not to put Mary above or outside of the Church, but within the Church as Mother of the Church, a pre-eminent member of the Church, a model of the Church while maintaining her unique role in the history of salvation.
As we celebrate the Immaculate Conception of Mary, her stainless conception, which incidentally is also found in the Qur’an, we see her fullness of grace as the angel Gabriel puts it in the Gospel: “Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.” Indeed, she is full of grace from the moment of her conception. The Lord is with her from the time she was conceived. With her fullness of grace and the presence of the Lord in her life, sin has no power over her. Still, she remains to be human, with her fears and even imperfections, but she has no compulsion to sin from the first moment of her life. This is as far as I can describe her Immaculate Conception while not getting distracted by the notion of original sin as transmitted all the way from the first parents and to her ancestors, and finally to Joaquim and Anne, her parents.
Thus, in celebrating this great feast, we reaffirm her grace-filled life, the abiding presence of God in her life. It is not so much the greatness of Mary that we celebrate this feast, but the graciousness of God. Her Immaculate Conception will always be linked to Mary’s fiat, her “yes” to God’s invitation, her Magnificat, her humanity, her capacity to embrace the ambiguities and mysteries surrounding the life of Jesus from the annunciation of his conception to the proclamation of his resurrection, her faith journey which is Spirit-led, her role in the work of human liberation – all made possible due to God’s favor on her.
Mary is so special, no doubt, and yet so ordinary at the same time. She is absolutely one with God, but also completely one like us, and one with us.
Fr. Tony Moreno, SJ
Homily delivered on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady
Cenacle Retreat House
08 December 2022