Hikoi of Faith: God's unfolding plan of salvation

Having arrived from New Zealand and other parts of the globe we had a Mass at the Church of the Immaculate Conception which was a few minutes walk from our hotel...

Readings for today's Mass

Genesis 3:9-15,20

After Adam had eaten of the tree the Lord God called to him. ‘Where are you?’ he asked.
‘I heard the sound of you in the garden;’ he replied ‘I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.’
‘Who told you that you were naked?’ he asked ‘Have you been eating of the tree I forbade you to eat?’
The man replied, ‘It was the woman you put with me; she gave me the fruit, and I ate it.’ Then the Lord God asked the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’
The woman replied, ‘The serpent tempted me and I ate.’
Then the Lord God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, ‘Be accursed beyond all cattle, all wild beasts. You shall crawl on your belly and eat dust every day of your life. I will make you enemies of each other: you and the woman, your offspring and her offspring. It will crush your head and you will strike its heel.’
The man named his wife ‘Eve’ because she was the mother of all those who live.

Sing a new song to the Lord
for he has worked wonders.
His right hand and his holy arm
have brought salvation.

The Lord has made known his salvation;
has shown his justice to the nations.
He has remembered his truth and love
for the house of Israel.

All the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation of our God.
Shout to the Lord, all the earth,
ring out your joy.

Ephesians 1:3-6,11-12

Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us with all the spiritual blessings of heaven in Christ.
Before the world was made, he chose us, chose us in Christ,
to be holy and spotless, and to live through love in his presence,
determining that we should become his adopted sons and daughters,

through Jesus Christ for his own kind purposes,
to make us praise the glory of his grace,
his free gift to us in the Beloved.
And it is in him that we were claimed as God’s own,
chosen from the beginning,
under the predetermined plan of the one who guides all things
as he decides by his own will;
chosen to be, for his greater glory,
the people who would put their hopes in Christ before he came.

Luke 1:26-38

The angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the House of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary.

He went in and said to her, ‘Rejoice, so highly favoured! The Lord is with you.’

She was deeply disturbed by these words and asked herself what this greeting could mean, but the angel said to her, ‘Mary, do not be afraid; you have won God’s favour. Listen! You are to conceive and bear a son, and you must name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David; he will rule over the House of Jacob for ever and his reign will have no end.’

Mary said to the angel, ‘But how can this come about, since I am a virgin?’ ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you’ the angel answered ‘and the power of the Most High will cover you with its shadow. And so the child will be holy and will be called Son of God. Know this too: your kinswoman Elizabeth has, in her old age, herself conceived a son, and she whom people called barren is now in her sixth month, for nothing is impossible to God.’

‘I am the handmaid of the Lord,’ said Mary ‘let what you have said be done to me.’ And the angel left her.

The immaculate Conception is more about Jesus than Mary. Adam, the first man, was created from the dirt of the earth, a virgin earth untouched by sin.

So too, the new Adam, the Christ, had to be born sinless of a virgin untouched by sin. And so in 1854 Pope Pius IX declared the dogma of the Immaculate Conception which state, "from the first moment of her conception, the Blessed Virgin Mary was, by the singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, and in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of Mankind, kept free from all stain of original sin."

But like us Mary had to say yes to God and to his plan of salvation. She said yes at the annunciation, she said yes at the wedding feast of Cana - it's time to start your mission even though this is not your hour, she said yes at the cross as she silently offered this is my body, the fruit of my body, that I offer back to you and to the world for it salvation, and yes to the Church as she prayed with the disciples for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

But even in the midst of Adam and Eves disobedience in the garden God promises a coming salvation... Then the Lord God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, ‘Be accursed beyond all cattle, all wild beasts. You shall crawl on your belly and eat dust every day of your life. I will make you enemies of each other: you and the woman, your offspring and her offspring. It will crush your head and you will strike its heel.’

But Christ is the obedient one.
His state was divine, yet he did not cling to his equality with God

but emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave,

and became as we all are; and being as we all are,
he was humbler yet, even being obedient to death, death on a cross...

You and I are called to participate to embody in our lives the obedience of Christ. God doesn't want to save us without our "yes"... Mary said it for us and the new mother of all those who live, but Mary's obedience shows what is asked of all the disciples of her Son and her Lord.

The disobedience of Adam and Eve was reflected in their being ashamed of themselves in their nakedness and before each other. They hid from God and disrupted their relationship with the earth. This is what sin does - it disrupts and even destroys our relationship with God, neighbour, self and the creation of which we are apart.

Like us, Jesus and Mary had to face the temptations of the evil one.

Let us pray in our pilgrimage that broken or wounded relationships with with God, neighbour, self and the creation might be healed, restored and or deepened.

The head of the serpent being crushed by Mary's yes... the Mary who on the Feast Day of the Annunciation 1858 announced to a poor peasant girl Bernadette in the village of Lourdes I am the Immaculate Conception.