Homily for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception

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The following homily is taken from the readings for the Feast of the Immacilate Conception. You may want to read these scriptures Gen. 3:9-15,20 and Luke 1:26-38 before reading the homily.

Where are you? That’s the question today’s readings asks.

When I was around 5 -6 years old I was up the street playing all afternoon with the neighborhood kids. It must have been nearing supper time because one of my friends came over and told me that my sister was looking for me. We were having too much fun to go home so I decided to hide in this old decrepit barn that the neighbors had. I heard my sister call my name and I just sat there behind an old wood pile thinking she wouldn’t find me and that she’d give up and go away. I stayed in my place there quite a long time- no way I was going home sooner than I wanted to. That’s when I heard the voice! “Joey, where are you?” It was my mother. Now I knew I was in for it. First of all I didn’t come when my sister called, second I was in a dangerous barn that I had been told many times to stay away from, and third my mother had to leave dinner on the stove and to come and get me herself. I was afraid, and for good reason, and so I hid because I knew I was gonna get whacked all the way home and be embarrassed in front of my friends.

That was an Adam response, the first that I remember but not the last. I think everyone has had similar experiences, where we’re too frightened or embarrassed by something that we had done to respond the way we should or the way we want, or even the way that’s best for us.

Poor Adam, all God asked was that he not eat the fruit from one little tree. I’ve often wondered why God require that, just to test him? I don’t think so. That wouldn’t be the God of my experience. I think it was more compassionate. God knew the fruit was bad for Adam and simply had his best interest at heart. But Adam didn’t trust God. Adam thought God had an ulterior motive and so he ate the fruit and it made him “sick.”

“Adam where are you?” God calls. So filled with regret, shame and fear all he could do was hide.

Today’s feast is a contrast to this response to God’s call. On the one hand we have the response of Adam who disobeyed and hid in fear and shame. On the other hand there is Mary who responds as a disciple and said “Here I am. I’ll do whatever you want.”

When the angel appeared to Mary she didn’t cower in fear. She didn’t hide under the bed. She had been God’s faithful servant from the moment of her conception always saying “yes.” She was full of grace.

Mary trusted God totally and she had every reason to doubt. She wasn’t afraid though she had every reason to be. Whoever heard of a virgin birth? Even if it were possible a young, un-married woman, found pregnant in that culture could have been dragged out to the town square stoned to death. She had every reason to be afraid, every reason to doubt and yet she trusted, she said yes. She was ever the faithful disciple, the first to believe in Jesus, the first to receive him and the first to give flesh to the body of Christ.

If we look at Mary’s life from that moment on we see clearly that it was the life of a disciple. She always served God and she always served others. She had a keen eye for the needs of other people and always brought Jesus into the situation. She shared the good news. The first thing she did, the very first thing, was to go serve her cousin Elizabeth, to bring Christ in her to someone else. At Canna she was the first to notice that a young couple would suffer embarrassment when they ran out of wine, and she brought Jesus into the situation.

Mary said yes all the way. Yes to the angel, yes to a life she never expected, yes to the sword that would pierce her heart, yes to the cross and always yes to her Son, and she could have said no at any time. Mary is for us THE icon of discipleship, she is the model of perfect discipleship, exactly the disciple we want to emulate, exactly the kind of disciple we should be.

God always seeks us out, to love us. God calls to us as he called to Adam “Where are you”? How do we respond? We can respond as Adam did, embarrassed by our sins and cowering in fear, looking the other way or we can respond as Mary did by answering “I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me as you have said.”

If my life is any indication, our response to God’s call is somewhat schizophrenic, sometimes responding as Adam and sometimes responding as Mary and often responding somewhere in between. If, like Adam, our sins keep us in fear and shame unable to look the Lord in the eye or answer God’s call as we should we need not lose hope. Continue to seek God in prayer. Find his forgiveness in the sacrament of reconciliation. Draw close to Him in the Eucharist. He calls because he loves us.

This feast of the Immaculate Conception is an opportunity for us to look toward Mary as our model of discipleship, to review our own response to God’s call and re-adjust our own reply. It is also an opportunity for us to see Mary as our hope for what we will some day become when we are able to say as she did “let it be done to me as you have said.”