Saturday, December 8, 2012

Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception
of the Blessed Virgin Mary

I really don't like the dogma we celebrate today. It flows from a place within our hearts that cannot conceive of God dwelling within something as sinful as us. God is pure; we are dirty. Therefore, Mary must have been made pure before she could conceive God in her womb. But this goes against all that I see revealed in the Incarnation. Jesus did not pre-sanitize the people with whom he came into contact; just the opposite. He delights in touching precisely those we throw away because they are too dirty for us. Does that sound like a god who would care about the cleanliness of his mother? God became human so that we might open our eyes and see that we are far more beautiful than we allow ourselves to believe. We may do dirty things, but we are never dirty.