St Richard, Haywards Heath Vigil of Immaculate Conception 2022

 

I’ve always found it remarkable that an illiterate girl like Bernadette of Lourdes could be moved to ask her priest what the shining lady who appeared to her meant when she said to the peasant girl in her dialect: ‘Que soy era Immaculada Councepciou’. Fr. Peyramale said that a woman cannot have a name like that. ‘You are mistaken. Do you know what that means?’ The priest was shaken, and unable to talk to Bernadette realising in that moment who was appearing in Lourdes. He quickly sent her away, and she left without the privilege of understanding the meaning of the title. She was only told later that afternoon that the Blessed Mother carried that title, that of the Immaculate Conception. ‘She could never have invented this’ wrote Fr. Peyramale to the bishop that evening. The story of Bernadette rings true in so many respects and the Shrine of Our Lady Immaculate in Lourdes does as well if you ever have the privilege to visit it.

The protection of Mary from sin right from the moment of her conception is a widely held doctrine in the western Church though many Eastern Orthodox and most Protestants question its biblical basis. Anglicans as usual are caught in the middle with many, especially in Society parishes, holding to it. The Immaculate Conception of Our Lady is a doctrine about her origins in contrast to another doctrine frequently confused with it, that of the Virginal Conception which is affirmed in the Creeds which speak of Our Lord ‘being conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary’.

To my mind her Immaculate Conception is nothing more or less than Our Lady’s baptism. She is not recorded in the Gospels as having been baptised. The Church holds she was given that grace in anticipation of the saving work of the Son she bore, our and her Saviour, Jesus Christ who came to free us from sin. To us, that freedom is a gift received in baptism and again and again after repentance. To Our Lady, it was a gift from the start so she has never needed repentance. For God to save humanity by his coming, dying and rising in the flesh he needed to enter the flesh of a sinless human being. 

How much we owe to Mary! We owe the formation of the Saviour, no less, and not just in his nine month dwelling within her. With Joseph her husband Mary brought Jesus up. It is an astonishing thought that she would teach Him, the Son of God, to pray – Mary a mortal being inviting God’s Son to pray to His true Father! I like to think of Mary as a woman of great devotion. This devotion is hinted at in her greeting from the Archangel Gabriel in today’s Gospel from the start of St. Luke’s Gospel: 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.

You have indeed won God’s favour, Blessed Mother – and through you we have all won that favour, the favour of Jesus.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus! Amen.