Praised be Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!
In the recent debates on the RH Bill, Congressman Edcel
Lagman refused to look into the beginnings of life: “This House has no
competence to tell when life begins,” he said. While scientists still debate on
the question, the Church has a very simple answer: at conception. Life begins
at conception. The mystery which we celebrate today tells us so: the Immaculate
Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We believe that God infused an
immaculate human soul into the fertilized ovum in the womb of St. Anne. (On account of the fact that the human soul is infused into the fertilized ovum, it is already a human person.) Mary
has never been touched by sin in any way nor in any point in time. She has
always been ‘full of grace’. The Lord has always been with her. The Holy Spirit
has been dwelling in her soul since the first instance of her conception. (the mere fact that we speak of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in Mary at the first instance of her conception already tells us of the existence of the human soul at the early point of her existence. For if it were not so, where would the Holy Spirit dwell in her?) The
greatness of Mary has been hers even from the beginning of her life.
The book of Genesis speaks of a perpetual enmity
between the serpent and the Woman, between his seed and her seed. The spiritual
battle wages on until today and all of us are in it. We have to take sides,
there is no neutral ground. Either you are on the side of the Woman or on the
side of the serpent. Either you are her seed or the serpent’s own. In this
battle between good and evil, God has entrusted his cause to the Woman who was
conceived without sin. It is to her that God has given to crush the serpent
under her feet. But why? Why did the Lord entrust this spiritual battle to the
Woman? Why to a creature so small and humble? Why to someone who seems utterly
powerless before the rebellious serpent? Why to the Immaculate Conception?
Imagine, the Immaculate Conception refers to Mary at the most vulnerable and
most defenseless point in her life. (The human being is most vulnerable and most defenseless at the moment of conception. Why is it so? Well, a morning after pill is enough to expel a fertilized ovum from the womb ) Why did God make this Immaculate Fertilized
Ovum the general of His army? The answer is found in the epistle of St. Paul: “And he said
to me: ‘My grace is sufficient for thee’; for power is made perfect in
infirmity. Gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of
Christ may dwell in me.” (2 Corinthians 12:9) Our Lady’s humility is so much
the reverse of the pride of the serpent. While he declared “I will not serve,”
Our Lady said, “Be it done unto me according to your word.” While the serpent,
in his arrogance, deemed himself equal to God, our Lady called herself “the
handmaid of the Lord.” In the Immaculate Conception, the Lord reveals to us the
sufficiency of his grace.
And so, while the enemies of God bask in
their self-proclaimed glory, while the enemies of the Church gloat over their
money (63 million dollars) and political power, we kneel before the Immaculate Conception and
entrust to her our humble cause. All seems lost in our struggle against the
culture of death but we continue to have confidence in the Immaculata. To her
hands God entrusted the spiritual battle. To her feet God gave the power to
crush the serpent’s head. “Who is she that comes forth like the morning rising,
fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in battle array?”
(Song 6:10)
O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who
have recourse to thee!
I Hope you will Revise this Sermon,Fr Zerrudo to add the Funny Parts you Preached at High Mass.
ReplyDelete