Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
The Immaculate Conception: More Good News than Your Enemies Want to Admit

The Immaculate Conception: More Good News than Your Enemies Want to Admit

Last updated on: December 26, 2014 at 4:29 pm by Jennifer Fitz

The Immaculate Conception: More Good News than Your Enemies Want to Admit 2014-12-26T16:29:06-05:00 Jennifer Fitz

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8th, is a holy day of obligation in the United States, which means you need to go Mass. Answering some common questions:

Dr. Ed Peters, Canon Lawyer, explains that no, you mustn’t try to kill two birds with one stone by counting a Sunday evening Mass as both your Sunday Mass and your Vigil of the Immaculate Conception Mass.
But he adds, any two masses (on the appropriate dates / times) will do, even if the Mass you assisted at wasn’t celebrated in observance of the event that gives rise to the obligation.

Why does the Church do this to us, insisting that we reorganize our lives, often at great inconvenience, in order to get our rear ends into Church an hour a week, and twice in a week when there’s a holy day? Because it is the most important thing.

In the case of the Immaculate Conception, the importance is partly that it is the feast of the patron saint of the United States. You can read the history of how that came about here. It wasn’t what I had guessed.

There is also, of course, an amount of general spiritual significance that shouldn’t be overlooked.

What does it mean to be without sin?

For those who are new to the feast, the “Immaculate Conception” refers to the fact that Mary, mother of Jesus, was conceived in her mother Anne’s womb free from the stain of original sin. This doesn’t mean she didn’t need a Savior, nor that she saved herself. Since we’re talking about stains, you might imagine Jesus saving each of us people-who-are-not-Mary by, say, trading shirts with us when someone accidentally spills red wine on our good clothes mid-party. In Mary’s case, slight variation, He managed to whisk His mother out of the way of that clumsy butler before the splash hit. She was still saved, by Him, just in a different way.

(And as it happens, thanks to His continued work in preserving her from sin throughout her life, He wasn’t even doing it out of fear He’d get a whapping if He didn’t.)

So, to be without sin is to be like Jesus or to be like Mary. Jesus is a pretty good example, but since He is also God, sometimes we can think that in order to be sinless we have to be able to do some of the things He did that were actually His divine nature acting and not His human nature. So, for example, if you can’t seem to calm storms, it’s not because you’re sinful, it’s because you are human. (You might be sinful, indeed we assume you are, but even if you weren’t, you still wouldn’t possess this ability.)

So one of the neat things about Mary is that she really didn’t do anything all that spectacular, other than avoiding sin and doing good.* We don’t read in the Gospels about how her jam won first prize at the County Fair. She wasn’t a ninja. She didn’t even raise ten kids, let alone ten non-divine, original-sin-bearing kids. And though she likely did a bit of homeschooling, her husband and the local synagogue probably did the heavy lifting. She did what God wanted her to do, and that sufficed.

Thank God for Mondays

This year the Immaculate Conception falls on a Monday, which means that if you are praying the Rosary, you’ll be going over the Joyful Mysteries. The fifth Joyful Mystery is a funny one: The Finding of Jesus in the Temple. It’s funny because in order for someone (Mary and Joseph) to find Jesus, first they had to lose Him. Easier said than done when your kid is without sin.

Now it’s easy to just blame Joseph for the whole disaster, but let’s remember that Mary is a bona fide mother. She was on the trip, and her kid got lost. Now if you were on a trip, and you were a mother, and your kid got lost, what would you do? You would blame yourself. That’s what mothers do. “I should have remembered to make sure Jesus was with Joseph.” “I should have double-checked that Jesus was with us when we left the Temple.” “I should have developed a routine six pilgrimages ago about how to communicate before hand so this kind of thing wouldn’t happen.” “I should have known that He’d go back to the Temple, He’s like that.”

Because this blaming thing is so ingrained in us, people will actually tell you that the Losing of the Child Jesus is proof against the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. If Mary had been a good mother, they say, her kid would not have gotten lost.

But here’s the thing about sin, the thing we need to know: You can be a perfect mother, raising a perfect child, and your kid can still get lost. Your kid can even end up tortured to death.

Bad things can happen on your watch that aren’t your fault.

The Immaculate Conception is about a lot of things, all of them worth attending Mass to commemorate. But this particular thing, that we can sometimes be innocent when it feels like we are not, that we can sometimes have done the right thing and still have everything turn out unspeakably wrong? What about that?

People could be blaming you right now for stuff that happened because you don’t know everything and can’t control everything. But God will look on you and say, “Hey, I’m the Omniscient and Omnipotent One, not you, so let Me climb on that cross and take the hit, you’re guilty of plenty but not of this.”

I think that makes the Immaculate Conception a feast day we desperately need.

*This suggests that if you want to avoid sin and do good, it might be better to avoid trying to do spectacular things. Unless, of course, God wants you to do them, in which case, you must. Mary’s life as a model for the Christian life: Usually humdrum, sometimes spectacular, sometimes just absolutely, heart-piercingly awful.

Holy Day of Obligation

Immaculate Conception

Mary Conceived Without Sin

Sunday Obligation

Previous Post

December 7, 2014

To Make Things Beautiful is to Make Yourself Human

Next Post

December 8, 2014 Notre Dame Professor Demonstrates What's Wrong with Catholic Education - UPDATED

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Books Catechesis Catholic Q&A Chastity Church Craziness Come See Me Talk Disability & Chronic Illness Economics Evangelization Facepalm Forgiveness Good Things History Homeschooling Human Rights It's All Catholic Listen to Me Survey Series Liturgical Living Marriage Modesty Not Satire. But almost. Rant-o-Rama Sacred Art & Music Satire South Carolina Spark Clutter Stick that Corner Suffering Thinking Topics Writing Stuff

Select a Month September 2026 July 2026 June 2026 January 2026 December 2025 September 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 November 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 May 2019 April 2019 February 2019 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

How many days are in a week?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Twelve Ten Five Seven