Our birthright

We are loved,
We are forgiven and redeemed,
We are chosen.

Every December 8, the Church observes the feast of the Immaculate Conception, most people think that this refers to Jesus’ conception, when it is actually the celebration of Mary being conceived without sin. I want to reflect with you on this dogma of our faith, so that we can truly embrace our true identity, our…. Birthright.

We are loved… we are God’s beloved, it reveals that we are sons and daughters of a God whose love is far greater and desires our love more deeply than we could ever comprehend.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains (491) The most Blessed Virgin Mary was from the first moment of her conception, by singular grace and privilege of Almighty God and by the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race preserves immune from sin. By giving Mary this grace from first conception, God showed us an image of a loving God who intend to reunite Himself with humanity. Just as Mary from her conception was filled with God’s love, from the moment of our conception we too share in that divine love.

We are forgiven and redeemed… Mary’s role in the mystery of salvation was recaptured in the modern men and women of today. The doctrine speaks in the language of the absence of sin, in essence it is all about the presence of grace, for being conceived without original sin means being conceived in grace. In her very being, through the gracious mercy of God, the influence of evil is broken. In declaring her original sinlessness, the dogma celebrates God’s victory over the powers of this world in the existence of this woman, Mary. God’s grace is superior to the reigning power of evil, and because of the goodness of God’s superabundant love, the world is never without God’s mercy and compassion. As St. Paul reminds us in Romans 5:20, “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.”

We are chosen… the Immaculate Conception is an invitation to live in prophetic passion for mission. We recall the Mary of Nazareth who knew that love of her God demanded action for justice. With prophetic passion she prayed that the mighty are put down, the lowly exalted, and the hungry filled with good things (Luke 1:52-53). Her passion for God evoked in her the compassion for the poor. We are also chosen for a certain calling to raise a prophetic voice for the poor of our world, who are enslaved, excluded and deprived.

Therefore, the mystery of the Immaculate Conception is about us, for in Mary we discover our truest self. The myth of the “fall of Adam and Eve” suggests the puzzling and unexplainable fact that we are alienated from our true self. To awaken to the presence of our true self, the false self which keeps us on the surface of reality, must diminish. This spiritual awakening is actually a recovery of our oneness with God, and in God with all reality; it is about being attentive to this oneness in what Thomas Merton calls contemplation: “by being attentive and by learning how to listen”, just like Mary, “she pondered everything in her heart”(Luke 2:19). (S. Ma. Leah Zozobrado, RVM)