Feast of the Immaculate Conception

Dear Friends,

Heads up, this will be a Catholic heavy post, and I am going to reference Catholic teaching without explaining it. I assume some of these things will sound crazy if you do not have a Catholic background, but I promise you that they are reasonable once you know the reasons. If you are interested in the very beginning of why I believe these things and how I think of God, please check out Does God Exist? A Socratic Dialog on the Five Ways of Thomas Aquinas by Matt Fradd and Robert Delfino. If you are one of my dear Protestant friends who accept the premise of God but think Catholics are crazy in their beliefs about Mary, please read Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary by Brant Pitre. (You’ll like it because it is all about understanding the Bible as a whole.) If you’re one of my Catholic friend, make sure I don’t wander into heresy!

I went to Nazareth but didn’t see the town; I just spent time in the Basilica of the Annunciation and Church of St. Joseph. The Basilica of the Annunciation is built over and around the cave where the annunciation happened. Friends, this is where the Incarnation happened!

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!”

Down in that little cave with the small white altar is where Mary was living. Nazareth is rather rocky and the people built their houses into the caves.

According to my Cara Magistra — my Latin and Classics professor — in the Greek, Luke is using “Full of Grace” as Mary’s name. “Full of Grace.” This is a name clearer than crystal. The Immaculate Virgin Mary. The Immaculate Conception. Oh Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you!

But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be.

In the Bible, everyone is terrified by angels — except Tobit, but Raphael was in disguise so that doesn’t count. Friends, angels are warriors, do not forget that! “Et subito facta est cum angelo multitude MILITIAE caelestis laudantium Deum.” That’s how Jerome describes what the shepherds saw. My translation, “And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of heavenly ARMIES praising God.” One of these warriors appears to Mary and she is troubled by what he says, not by him. That is incredibly brave. But what struck me is that we each have our own guardian angels. It is really amazing. We each have an angel whose job is to look out for us. These angels are not the horrible, sentimental angels depicted on holy cards. Those look like soft, androgynous floaters who couldn’t lift a piece of firewood or catch a ball (I’m sorry if you like those pictures, but it’s true). No, we have fearsome bodyguards watching over us all the time. I picture mine as carrying a claymore; he has done so much for me! (Yes, I know angels are spirits and don’t have a sex/gender, but I’m not going to call my guardian angel “it” and he’s only one so “they” doesn’t make sense.) Friends, our guardian angels are literally the people we spend the most time with. They know us better than anyone else could because they have been with us from the moment of conception onward. I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but think about it! They can tell when we are struggling even if no one else can; they laugh at our jokes when no one else does because they know our senses of humor and where the joke is coming from. (Someone told me angels can’t laugh because they can’t be surprised; this, I think, is nonsense. You don’t have to be surprised to find something funny. People watch the same comedy skit hundreds of times on YouTube and continue to laugh. Also, I was told that humor is the “recognition of incongruity in the universe.” Angels certainly can recognize that. But that’s not the point! The point is, we have guardian angels and they are amazing! No one is friendless, ever.

And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor 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.”

This is outside the Basilica. The chi-ro is in red behind Mary.

When I was teaching catechism, I told my sixth graders that someone (like most of my sources, I don’t remember whom) said that Jesus is the center of history. Everything prior to Him led to Him somehow, and everything that comes after flows from Him. One of them made this beautiful observation about the chi-ro: she asked if the two halves of the X were intended to show how everything before pointed to Christ and everything that follows flows from him. The X shows all of time funneling to Jesus and opening up from Him.

And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I do not know man?” And the angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, your kinswoman Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible.” And Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

The altar says “Verbum Caro Hic Factum Est” which means “The Word here was made Flesh.”

Please note that by Jerome’s translation, she said, “Ecce ancilla Domini: fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum.” “Ancilla” means handmaid and slave girl. I was taught that slave girl was the primary definition. Mary who thought of herself as a slave of the Lord (“Domini”) became the queen of the angels. She is a queen with armies at her command. Mysterious and wonderful are the ways of God. And this is the place that it all happened! Friends, I was in the place where the world turned on the fiat of a girl younger than me. This is honestly beyond my comprehension. My mind was blown and suddenly all the pains of homesickness were worth it to be in this place.

More on Nazareth to come (check back in on Our Lady of Guadalupe’s feast day).

Have a blessed Feast of the Immaculate Conception and Second Week of Advent!

Debora