Mary voices our Yes

The Roman Catholic Lectionary for today is chosen to celebrate the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. In the passage from the Book of Genesis, we hear God calling out to Adam who is attempting to hide as he came to realize that he has experienced knowledge of the choice to turn away from God. The serpent acting through the woman, who subsequently is named Eve, has succeeded in making the choice to act against God a part of human reality. The letter of Paul to the Ephesians praises the plan of God to call us to adoption as his children before the foundation of the world. This proclamation is in harmony with ideas of predestination in the writing of Paul.  Theologians think deeply and critically about apparent conflict between predestination and free will. It is the gift of the insight of the faithful rather than the scholarship of the theologians given through the Holy Spirit that declares the state of Mary the Mother of God to be without sin from conception. There is difficult tension between, Sola scriptura, Scripture alone is authoritative for the faith and practice of the Christian, and the many practices, in both Catholic and Protestant churches, that are the result of traditions and not the explicit teaching of Scripture. The Gospel from Luke today is the Yes of Mary; Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ Then the angel departed from her. (Luke 1:38) The model of Mary who chooses to be the servant of the Lord is the reversal of the choice in Genesis. This is our daily choice. We are to bring Jesus into the world daily. The Church recognizes that it was Marian before it was Petrine (or Pauline). The experience of the free gift of grace acting through the Holy Spirit to bring faith to the believer to accept the will of God is catholic or universal.  The Roman Catholic Celebration of the Marion feast today is drawn from a catholic faith experience.