“‘Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!...’” (Luke 1:26).
Recently we experienced the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. And what a day it is.
It is a day where we celebrate the Blessed Virgin’s eternal YES to God. She was created for the moment when she would consent to the Holy Will of God and become the Mother of His Son. And in that creation, the Blessed Virgin was able to be completely sinless… But sinless does not mean that her choice to remain sinless was easier…
“The angel Gabriel said to Mary, ‘Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you! ...Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end.’” (Luke 1:26-38).
You see, everything in the world is designed to tempt us to sin. The Evil One prowls the world like a ravenous wolf and waits to catch us out with temptations to commit all variety of sins. We are tempted to thoughts without charity. We are tempted to act without conscience. We are tempted to be proud and vain and impatient and uncharitable.
And we make decisions all the time to succumb to these temptations.
When the Blessed Virgin was born, she began to work on her discipline and diligence. That was a muscle that she needed to exercise. If she had decided to live her life without discipline, then she would have been able to very easily slip into sin. After all, that is pretty much how I do it myself. I am undisciplined and undermined. And this means that instead of deciding that I will practice my endurance and my ability to make the choices that God would wish for me to make, I give in – it is easier to think an uncharitable thought. And after all, it is only a thought. Nobody will even know about it – except me, and my Guardian Angel and God. So why should I try to restrain myself – I think. After all, I am actually being good, because the alternative would be to speak uncharitable words to that person and that would be really bad, and I am not doing that.
But when you remove all the lies and deception from this you can see that actually the alternative choice is not to speak uncharitable words, but to restrain myself from even thinking them.
And THAT – that alternative – is the real CHOICE of the Blessed Virgin. And I have been thinking about that as I reflect on the Immaculate Conception. For there is just so far left for me to go to improve. Just so far…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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