Mary, God's Mansion

No one likes to live in a shabby house. We may not all live in mansions, but we like for our abodes to be clean, respectable, and a place that is both inviting for guests and also comfortable for ourselves. A house is in some way a reflection of who we are, and so we want it to reflect the best version of ourselves.

Today we celebrate the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the woman whom God created to be the mother of his Divine Son Jesus. Mary, as the woman who bore Jesus inside her womb, is sometimes called the Ark of the New Covenant, because her body was the abode of Jesus. If a house is a reflection of who we wish to be, we can say that Mary is the perfect reflection of what God designed a human being to be. In order to give us the gift of his Son, both human and divine, God first had to create for him a fitting dwell place, a vessel which would bring him into the world, and Mary is that vessel.

The Immaculate Conception of Mary is the first action that God took in human history to introduce our Savior Jesus into the world. Following the Fall of Adam and Eve, which we heard about in our first reading, our human nature was tarnished, like a house that has fallen into disrepair. In Mary, God restores the house of our human nature, preparing for himself a fitting dwelling for the Incarnation of the Son and also prefiguring in her the healing mercy that Christ’s sacrifice extends to all of us.

La Inmaculada Concepcion (La Colosal) (c. 1652), Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

Mary’s entire identity is rooted in the role that God had for her to be the mother of the Christ, to speak those words, “Thy will be done,” that she said to the angel Gabriel. And so for this reason, because she submitted herself so fully to the will of God, she is the pinnacle of our human race. As we admire our Blessed Mother, we should remember a great truth of the Christian life: that God is the author of every good gift, every grace. The salvation that he wrought for us in Jesus began before the empty tomb, before the birth in the stable at Bethlehem, before even the appearance of an angel to a young girl in Nazareth. It began first at the depth of Mary’s being, when God foresaw what her Son Jesus would do, and gave her the grace of sharing in that salvation at her own conception.

Perhaps we might think today: in what ways has God been at work in my life in ways that I do not appreciate, or been drawing me to himself in some way that stretches back far before I had realized? And for what might God be preparing me? What does he intend for my life? We might reflect upon the answers to these questions in these Advent days, pondering them as Mary pondered in her heart what God had done for. For all of us, the simple answer is “grace” – God’s free gift of himself that we can share in even now.

Friends, as we prepare to welcome our Savior at Christmas, let’s pause first to praise him this day for the beautiful vessel he created in the person of Mary, whose body was a mansion for the Incarnate Word, and whose soul said "Yes" to God's plan of our salvation. This day, we remember that without her, we would not have our Savior. Like she, may we give thanks for the good things that God has done for us, and rejoice in the grace that he invites to respond to, as she did, with “Thy will be done.”