In 2008, I put samples of three novels on my website for free download. I’ve now made the entire manuscript of The Hermit of Turkey Hill available for personal use. This novel is based loosely upon events that happened when my grandfather, Charlie Milroy, was Chief of Police in Ludlow, MA. Those events closed out around 1938 or so.
This book is under a somewhat restrictive Creative Commons license which is included with the manuscript. See Unpublished Novels for a description and for the link.
[This is a copy of an entry at Acts of Being.]
In 2008, I put samples of three novels on this website for free download. I’ve now made the entire manuscript of A Man for Every Purpose available for personal use. This is a book that queries the human self-consciousness, the moral self-awareness: Where do you live? Past? Present? Future? All or none or one or two?
This book is under a somewhat restrictive Creative Commons license which is included with the manuscript. See Unpublished Novels for a description and for the link.
[This is a copy of a posting on my other blog, Acts of Being ]
In 2008, I put samples of three novels on my website for free download. I’ve now made the entire manuscript of Corporate Sex available for personal use. This book is under a somewhat restrictive Creative Commons license which is included with the manuscript. See Unpublished Novels for a description of the book and for the download link.
Catholics and some other Christians are worried about the loss of a right by medical personnel to refuse participating in procedures which they consider wrong on moral grounds. That seems appropriate, but so does the statement:
You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’ [Mat 5:38]
But Jesus tells us that isn’t just inadequate, but fully wrong. He demanded of His followers:
But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; and if any one would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well; and if any one forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to him who begs from you and do not refues him who would borrow from you. [Mat 5:39-42]
The followers of Christ are commanded to act in a way different from the morality of the world. We’re called to live as followers of Christ, obeying His commandments and trying to imitate His ways of speaking and behaving. Does that mean that when confronted with threats of evil from those who might be either willfully evil or merely misguided and deluded, we are to arrange for campaigns to swamp Pilate’s telephones with protests and to bury the Sanhedrin’s poor secretaries under mountains of post-cards asking that they respect the conscience of that poor Jesus of Nazareth?
I say this tongue-in-cheek but such campaigns of moral pressure might be appropriate, they might work, if our Pilates and our High Priests are in substantial agreement with us but prone to stray because of the temptations and pressures of power. That’s not the case in 2009. Our leaders, even when they make great shows of attending Christian worship services, clearly don’t feel bound by the Sermon on the Mount. Many clearly don’t feel bound by the Ten Commandments. Many radiate a sense of self-righteousness as they propose and carry out programs which violate the traditional moral teachings of the West but can be presented as a compassionate response to the sufferings of those with horrible diseases or those who feel sexual urges not allowed by traditional Christian morality. Some probably are truly motivated by subjective moral urgings to try and solve those problems. Certainly, that seems true of many of the medical researchers involved in stem-cell research which might involve embryonic lines of cells and might be moving towards human cloning to produce creatures with diabetes or Lou Gehrig’s Disease for experimentation, creatures which will never move beyond an embryonic stage and will never live outside of some antiseptic and glistening laboratory container. Years ago, doctors associated with Harvard Medical School made available lines of embryonic stem-cells for such experimentation and every so often announcements are made that someone has managed to engineer a line of stem-cells, maybe embryonic and maybe not, to have a certain defective gene or metabolic condition. We also have to remember that the techniques developed even in moral lines of research on adult stem-cells could be deployed rapidly to clone human beings or human-animal hybrids. In an age of moral disorder, all technologies can be deployed for questionable or downright evil purposes.
I’m willing to claim that nearly every research hospital in the United States, including probably most that were founded by Christian organizations — even Catholic religious orders, engage in activities which are in violation of at least the more demanding moral systems developed from the Sermon on the Mount and may well be in violation of the most lax interpretation of the Ten Commandments. At the very least, Catholic hospitals will ship poor and uninsured patients to ‘welfare’ hospitals in the same way as for-profit corporate hospitals. Finances force them to do so, you say? Why did they reorganize their finances so that they would be in such a position? Was their no one in those hospital systems, no one in the bureaucracies of the dioceses, no one in the ranks of Catholic businessmen serving on boards of trustees, no one at all who could see that they were transforming Catholic institutions into servants of the Principalities of this world? I would conjecture similar statements could be made about all those hospitals founded by other Christian groups, some of which still bear terms like ‘Presbyterian’ or ‘Methodist’ in their names.
If the medical systems in the United States operate in ways that are morally objectionable to Catholics or other Christians, if the American government — duly elected by the American citizenry — increasingly subsidizes acts which Catholics and other Christians consider to be evil, why do Christians wish to participate in those systems and why do they accept money and other gifts from that government?
I’ve seen arguments that any who disengage from these increasingly evil institutions need time to do so gradually but now we see that such doctors, nurses, and others might have no place to go. If it were ever possible to aim at some sort of separation, the time has likely passed. We, and our parents, have forced us into a position where we have but two choices, suffering as did our Lord Jesus Christ or surrendering to the Principalities of the world.
In allegorical terms, Christ is being freshly crucified in these United States of America, and few Christians have picked up their crosses to march alongside their Lord. Those who take their beliefs seriously are more likely to be canvassing the crowds of those watching in confusion or horror or glee as Christ moves by under the burden of His cross. Why are those Christians canvassing the crowds? Apparently, they think to convince Pilate and the Sanhedrin to change their ways of thought and behavior. They think to convince the Principalities of the world to give up what supports their worldly power and take up with beliefs that will deny the authority of earthly rulers to dictate what is right and what is wrong.
They think the world is to be redeemed not by acts of suffering and martyrdom but rather by political processes by which we’ll somehow achieve that fantastic result of non-believers and weak believers choosing to live by Christian moral laws. Didn’t Christ give us those laws in the Sermon on the Mount? Well, yes, Christ gave us those laws in a very emotional way that provided for some of the most moving scenes in the history of Hollywood productions. I’m sometimes proud and sometimes ashamed when my emotions lead me to tears as I read those words of our Lord.
Such emotions played no part in our Lord’s own ways of showing compassion, nor in the ways of the greatest of saints, detached as they have to be when relieving spiritual or corporeal sufferings. The Sermon on the Mount isn’t validated by those subjective feelings, warm or shivery, which they draw forth, nor were they validated by internal coherence nor by natural law reasoning but rather by His later submission to the unjust acts of His own creatures. When Christ hung on His cross, His authority to make extraordinary demands upon us was validated, not because He was suffering for us but rather because He was offering Himself to the Father in an act of obedience beyond our understanding. If we take Christ’s own actions seriously, His refusal to so much as preach to Pilate or the Sanhedrin, we are forced to believe the only way to change the behavior of non-believers and weak believers is through suffering and death, that of Christ first but that of His followers when necessary. Not all ages are filled with martyrs and not all forms of martyrdom have been the same but we Christians in 2009 seem to be in the position of having to pay the bill for a lot of sins over a number of generations.
Let’s think seriously again about our situation in 2009. Having corrupted even knowledge of God’s own Creation to our own purposes, having accepted gifts from men who value money and power above all conflicting moral demands, we wish to claim to be loyal followers of the God whose commandments we’ve disobeyed. We tell ourselves that it might be true that even Catholic hospitals accept money from a government which helps to kill American children in the womb and actively kills Iraqi and Pashtun children on the ground, even Catholic researchers accept money from government agencies or private foundations which are also paying for research into such horrors as human cloning, even human-animal hybrid cloning, but we tell ourselves we can remain above that. We’re part of the system but the evil work is being done in the lab down the hallway and we never go past that doorway into that evil place.
Our bluff has been called. Satan has come to claim our souls and Daniel Webster doesn’t seem to be near to rescue us by verbal trickery. The government is saying, more or less, “You’re on our payroll and you’re accepting our money for chemotherapy. You have to be good, loyal citizens and participate in abortions as well.” We object.
The devil might own our souls but, “Damn it, we have our pride and our integrity. We have a claim to a spot in Heaven even if we’ve sold our souls to the devil.”
Evil may be brought under some control for a short while. The Church may recover and begin to grown again. But this recovery can come only when Christians are willing to suffer, even to accept painful and degrading deaths, rather than accept the gifts of an increasingly evil medical system, rather than to accept the gifts of an increasingly evil government.
Christ suffered to save us and gave us no other way to defeat evil than to suffer along with Him. Yet, even before we suffer to save others, we have to remember the simple common-sense rule:
If you don’t wish the Principalities of this world to make a claim on your soul, don’t accept their gifts and don’t let yourself become dependent upon them.
After taking a break, I’ll be posting occasional entries here. I’m concentrating on new books and upon some work at my other blog, Acts of Being. In fact, I’ll be posting a new entry soon.
If anyone is out there…
[Added on 2009-04-12:
I'm back to writing occasional pieces for this blog but it's a low-priority effort relative to my other projects.]
As the title says, this blog will be discontinued. There seems to be a dwindling readership and I’ve decided to concentrate on my other blog, Acts of Being where I’m exploring the frontiers of theology and philosophy and empirical knowledge more freely. I’m also trying to get going on some books, despite the lack of sales for my two published books and the lack of interest in my novels on the part of publishers. This means, of course, that I’m discontinuing my weekly commentaries which were to follow the 2008-2009 liturgical year.
Eventually, I’ll identify the material from this blog which I consider of some long-term interest and move that material to my other blog. Some of this material might even show up in books.
I wish my few readers a happy new year and I pray God will grant you His blessings.
Readings for Vigil Mass: [Isaiah 62:1-5; Acts 13:16-17, 22-25; Matthew 1:1-25 or 1:18-25]
Readings for Midnight Mass: [Isaiah 9:1-6; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14]
Readings for Mass at Dawn: [Isaiah 62:11-12; Titus 3:4-7; Luke 2:15-20]
Readings for Mass During the Day: [Isaiah 52:7-10; Hebrews 1:1-6; John 1:1-18]
In the Gospel reading for the Vigil Mass, we learn of a seemingly irrelevant genealogy, that of Joseph, the husband of Mary and legal father of Jesus but he’s never referred to as the biological father of Jesus.
In the Gospel reading for Midnight Mass, we learn that Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem to fulfill a call to enroll in a census (which has left no historical evidence though the Romans were nothing if not good bureaucrats and documenters). Moreover, shepherds in a field were told to go to the city of David (Bethlehem) where they will find a savior in the form of an infant in a manger.
In the Gospel reading for the dawn of Christmas day, we learn the shepherds did find Joseph, Mary, and the infant. All were amazed by the shepherds’ story of the angels and Mary begins to wonder (didn’t she already supposedly know)? The shepherds go away, glorifying and praising God.
In the Gospel reading for Christmas during the day, we learn of the Word of God, quite personal, with God in the beginning. The Word was God.
Few there are who will follow such a trail of words through the readings of four different Christmas Masses. Perhaps there are even fewer who can follow the trail through the Gospels or the New Testament or the entire Bible if they embark upon a more general reading program.
There are dangers here, some dangers for those who are careful and skeptical readers and some dangers for those who just believe what they are told and happily read the Bible in the same way they once read their books of fairy-tales.
The historian Carroll Quigley once summarized the philosophical teachings of traditional Christianity in these words:
The truth unfolds in time through a communal process.
The Gospels can be read, along with the letters of St. Paul, in such a way that we can see the Good News unfolding in the hearts and minds of a monotheistic people just beginning to understand the Trinity of Persons who live as one God. The idea that God could be embodied in human flesh, while perhaps hinted at in the Old Testament, was shocking to the Jews including those who first followed Christ. In some ways, it would have been still more shocking to the more intellectually inclined pagans who were horrified by the misbehaving and lusty gods of Homer. However well-behaved Jesus was, a higher pagan wouldn’t have been so accepting of a God who needed a mother to change His diapers, a father to teach Him how to live in the world that baby supposedly created.
We know that Jesus of Nazareth entered a public mission which is usually described as three years long though it might have been a bit longer. We know that He scandalized the Jews by claiming that loyalty to Jesus of Nazareth was more important than loyalty to even father and mother. He even told one disciple to leave his father to be buried by others because the primary duty of men is to follow Jesus. [Matthew 8:21-22] Are we not bidden by God to honor father and mother? Can any but God override that commandment?
Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life…” [The entire story is told in John 6:35-65.] No wonder the pagans thought Christians to be cannibals.
Before His mission years, Jesus of Nazareth was said to have lived in obscurity. Mark tells us that this man who supposedly was announced as the Savior at His birth was not even acknowledged as having any authority by His neighbors. “A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country and among his own kin, and in his own house.” [See Mark 6:1-6 for the more complete story.]
He multiplied loaves and fishes, using small amounts of fish and bread to feed thousands of those who’d followed Him to listen to Him preach. [Mark 6:31-44.]
He healed the sick. [Luke 4:38-39.]
He forgave sins. [Luke 8: 36-56.]
He exercised control over storms. [Luke 22-25.]
He turned water into wine. [John 2:1-11.]
Of all these, the forgiveness of sins is the most remarkable, but surely, we should be shocked by the power to overrule the commandments God gave to Moses.
The truth unfolds in time through a communal process.
As the early Christian preachers and teachers came to understand more clearly that Jesus Christ, Son of God, was true man and true God, they struggled to communicate that great truth. It doesn’t seem all that hard to identify the parts of the Gospels which are history, stylized only in the Gospel of St. John. In the other three Gospels, most of the narrative is gritty and broken up and generally inconsistent. It has the smell of stories told by simple men who were there. Those parts give us no reason to believe the Savior was glorified at His birth. There is no reason to believe, and not a shred of historical evidence, that Herod or other powerful men knew something had happened to endanger their positions. The Gospels aren’t even consistent about Mary’s understanding of her son, until she stood at the foot of His cross, or maybe not until the Holy Spirit came upon her once again at the Pentecost. This much we know:
God became man that man might share the life of God.
The early Christians saw this truth unfold in time, within their communities. It was a process that involved deep thinkers, preachers, social organizers, and charitable workers. It was a process that would extend over time, reaching the clear statements in the creeds promulgated by the Church Fathers at Nicea, Chalcedon, and other conferences. Those clear statements were not finalized until more than three centuries after the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. But the matter has not ended there.
Matthew and Luke saw the truth unfold and felt compelled to speak of a Kingly birth and of visits from great men acknowledging the Kingship of the son of Mary, though there is no evidence that even the miracles or shocking words of Christ were sufficient to convince many to seriously contemplate His divine royalty. John saw the truth unfold and produced the most wonderful poetry in the history of theology:
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
This was something new, not Greek as some have falsely claimed. It was something beyond the reach of the human imagination. If it hadn’t happened, we could have never guessed at the possibility.
The truth continues to unfold. In the modern world, we have been particularly successful at learning truths of God’s Creation, starting with the physical universe but going deeply into more abstract truths. Even the more mundane truths of Creation lie beyond the reach of human efforts at schematic knowledge and we sin greatly in presuming that the origins of the human race or the nature of time and space will correspond to the thoughts of our minds untutored by proper responses to the Creator and His works. If not for those bones in the sands of Africa or the openness of the likes of Einstein to unfolding truths, we’d not have known about the evolution of the human race or the existence of black-holes.
We know much about the history of the human race before Abraham, much that is disturbing to those who would accept the story of Adam and Eve as literalistic truth. Still more disturbing is what our new knowledge of human nature tells us of the sheer wonder of God becoming man.
We know enough about space and time to know they’re one creature and not two absolute truths. What does that tell us about the journey of the Son of God as He entered Creation to embody Himself as one of His own creatures? What does it say about the possibilities of Heaven or the nature of our Creator?
The Lord of Creation will lie in a manger before the sun rises. He will need to suckle at the breasts of Mary. He will need to be fed and clothed and taught the skills of carpentry by His legal father, Joseph.
It is time to glorify and praise Him and time to open our hearts and minds that the truth might unfold.
[Biblical quotations from RSV, Catholic Edition as printed by Thomas Nelson Publishers for Ignatius Press.]
[2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16; Romans 16:25-27; Luke 1:26-38]
We are told in various ways that the Incarnation of the Son of God was part of God’s plans for His Creation. Through the Church’s selection of today’s reading from the Letter to the Romans and from a more general reading of St. Paul’s letters, we can infer that St. Paul is speaking of this Incarnation when we hear of “the mystery which was kept secret through the ages and is now disclosed and through the prophetic writings is made known to all nations…”
But the Incarnation as understood by the traditions of Christianity is not so easy to accept. It seems in conflict with not only the teachings from high school biology but also from our own observations of human begetting. But, with a serious effort and a willingness to think clearly, maybe we can make sense of the miracle which is the incarnation of Christ. Maybe we can see that miracle as a part of God’s story, which it has to be.
What, then, is a miracle? Some believers, even those who defend high standards of rationality speak of miracles as being suspensions or violations of the laws of this physical universe. I’d propose the following definition:
A miracle is an event, perhaps highly unlikely but not necessarily, which fits into the narrative of God’s relationship to His children in such a way that it gives evidence the Lord Almighty has acted directly in this world He created. He has acted as if a character and not a distant and dispassionate Sustainer of Creation.
A good story obeys its own rules. Unlikely events can happen but not impossible ones which violate the rules which are part of that story. Of all stories, those told by God must be good, the story which is this mortal world and — most certainly — the story which is the world of the resurrected. Notice that God’s story is different from a human story in that the story as actions of its characters is not separate from its setting. The stars and planets and all the events which take place upon that particular planet, Earth, are part of one phase of Creation and have a unity and coherence which are appropriate to the works of a God who is both rational and loving.
In some ways, God’s story is like a story told by a human being, but it’s not a story in which characters act within the context of a given world. God creates this world as He tells His story. He doesn’t tell a story on a stage which was given to Him nor even on a stage which He built from raw materials given to Him. God’s acts of creation, of bringing stuff into existence and shaping it into things or living creatures, aren’t separate from the action of His story. They are the action of His story.
I repeat:
A miracle is an event, perhaps highly unlikely but not necessarily, which fits into the narrative of God’s relationship to His children in such a way that it gives evidence the Lord Almighty has acted directly in this world He created.
Miracles may even be ordinary events to human perceptions, but they’ll be seen as miracles to those who have formed their minds to follow along with God’s story. We associate miracles with such acts as spontaneous cures of cancer, not noticing that those occur in the ordinary flow of events and not just when some pious Christian prays for the intercession of Mary or some other saint. That famous random act of charity, a moment of peace in an overly active society, and certainly the pursuit of holiness rather than the pursuit of financial success and physical comfort, are all miracles. They are acts of creatures aligning themselves with God’s own acts, realizations of our true freedom. We are truly free when we move with God and share in His freedom, the only true freedom possible. When we act with God, then the Lord Himself acts directly in His Creation. This was the case when Mary submitted to the Lord’s will. “Let it be to me according to your will.” [Luke 1:38b]
Then God acted directly. The Holy Spirit came upon Mary and she conceived a son. Words are tricky. They mostly speak of reality or of some abstraction related to reality. We hear words and try to imagine their meaning in terms of the world in which we live and breath. We think of the Holy Spirit as somehow invading Creation from Transcendental regions and then entering the holy womb of Mary. God was already present in all parts of Mary’s body as He is present in all parts of our bodies and in all parts of an elephant’s body and in the entirety of a black-hole. God was already present in the egg-cell in Mary’s womb, the egg-cell in which extremely unlikely but physically possible events took place.
If Jesus of Nazareth was true man, as the Bible and the ancient creeds tell us, He had a full set of DNA and He developed from a single fertilized cell in the holy womb of Mary. To get from the initial egg-cell in Mary’s womb to a fertilized egg-cell involves some unlikely, almost impossible, events, but we’re talking about real-world states. To get from one to another involves a highly unlikely pathway but the impossibilities are less than some involved in the shaping and stabilization of the expanding universe.
What’s most important is that this incarnation of the Son of God is the beginning of the most important part of the story God is telling in this world He created. This universe is the physical aspects of that story. God doesn’t have to override this universe and its matter to bring about the fertilization of the egg which will be implanted in Mary’s womb. He simply has to act directly, moving the matter He Himself created. We don’t have to suspend our beliefs in the law-like behavior of nature when we enter the Christmas story. We simply have to realize that the Creator can act within His own Creation.
If God is present and always capable of acting directly in His own Creation, then we have no need for miracles of a magical sort. We simply have better reason to fear the Lord and to wonder at His mighty works.
[Biblical quotations from RSV, Catholic Edition as printed by Thomas Nelson Publishers for Ignatius Press.]
[See Isaiah 61:1-2a, 10-11 (8b), 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24, John 1:6-8, 19-28]
Today’s readings might first give the impression that the prologue to the story of the Savior’s birth is dragging on a bit. Isaiah is still speaking of the good which will arrive in the wake of the conquering God. The gospel reading is again about the forerunner, John the Baptist, who reacts righteously this time against any suggestion he might be that mysterious Savior.
Our attention spans are limited. We live in a world where even our so-called leisure time is hectic. Publishers give us works where the action is well under way by the end of the first paragraph, training us to avoid spending the time to learn context and historical background. But we allow ourselves to be so trained, and the publishers and their pet authors aren’t the only ones to give us a distorted view of God’s Creation. Our commercial leaders and bankers make investment decisions as if the world had been freshly created that morn and awaited the shaping hand of one strong-willed executive or another. Our political leaders act in that sort of cynically naive way, waging bloody wars in countries whose histories remain unknown to Presidents and Senators and all their advisers.
In today’s second reading, St. Paul tells us:
Do not quench the Spirit, do not despise prophesying, but test everything, hold fast what is good, abstain from every form of evil.
Encounter God’s world, even corrupted regions if you have the strength and calling, with courage and faith and hope. Speak the truths we have been given in the Gospel, the Good News of our Savior, but remain open to what we can learn about God’s Creation even from pagans and atheists. Test what passes for knowledge in the world around us, test its truth and plausibility. Test any presentation of truths or plausible speculations for consistency with the Good News of Jesus Christ. Hold fast to what is good, remembering that even by standards of self-interest, salvation is worth more than wealth and comfort and prestige in our mortal lives.
Encounter God’s world as a Christian. That means you make your decisions according to your duties to God and then according to legitimate but more ephemeral duties. As we await the Prince of Peace on this globe covered by wars and other acts of violence, we need to pay particular attention to our duties as Christians to not commit acts of violence unless they at least satisfy just-war doctrines and other Christian ideas of justice. (Some may go further and choose to not even resist violence in self-defense in imitation of Christ, but I’ll assume we can at least defend ourselves for now.)
When our government calls upon us or our children to fight a war, do we have a duty to obey the government first and then to do our Christian duty by putting clergymen in uniform to bless us as we do what might be wrong by Christian standards of justice? Do we go to heaven by doing what our governments tell us to do or by doing what’s right by the standards of justice given us by Christ and the prophets who came before Him?
More generally, as we live our lives in marketplaces, political and commercial, do we quench that often inconvenient Spirit or remain open to the movement of the Spirit? Do we turn from the various prophets who seem to speak truly of uncomfortable truths and turn to those who assure us that we can be greedy or hateful in a Christian way? Do we test the claims of the human institutions which promise prosperity and honor if we but obey them or do swallow those claims whole? Do we hold fast to what is good even when there’s a price to be paid or do we prefer to please the gods of the marketplaces? Do we abstain from every form of evil or do we merely avoid those which we don’t find attractive or necessary to our personal success?
The Son of God approaches but He brings justice and not just mercy. And that strange and often obnoxious man in camel hides, he who lives on locust and wild-honey, is staring us in the face, his eyes blazing with passion and accusing us of being luke-warm as he calls us to repent before the Lord arrives. The story is not just that of God come as a cute baby in a manger. The story is that of God who comes to collect those who are His own. Do you belong to God or to the Principalities and Powers? Do you obey God and then do your duty by your country within those Christian restraints or do you obey your country and seek to satisfy your duties to God within the constraints of your country’s orders?
[Biblical quotations from RSV, Catholic Edition as printed by Thomas Nelson Publishers for Ignatius Press.]
The Church has told us that the Blessed Virgin Mary was born sinless, though I think it better to say she was born in a state of grace. The major reason is that grace is of primary importance in our relationship to our Savior. A second reason, important also, is that we’re at a time in history when we don’t have a rational understanding of sin. Indeed, we have a compromised understanding of Creation since we’ve not yet made peace with modern empirical knowledge and many of our ways of speaking of God’s revealed truths are drawn from pre-modern understandings of living creatures and of stars, understandings now known to be wrong. In particular, there’s some serious divergence between the man who is the subject of Christian theological and philosophical discussions and the man who is being revealed by modern scientists, historians, and other explorers of the empirical realm. If our ideas of man, in fact, our ideas of life and of Creation as a whole, are being revised, what chance is there that our ideas of sin remain valid? What chance is there that our beliefs provide a coherent description of God’s Creation?
But sin was never the main issue, nor was sinlessness. Grace was the main issue. “Hail Mary, full of grace.” “Hello Mary, how is it that you already share the life of God?” To emphasize sin or sinlessness is to return to the forms of Law rejected by Christ and, in greater detail, by St. Paul. Mary’s sinlessness followed from her fullness of grace. The grace didn’t come as a result of the sinlessness.
Mary was born full of grace. From her conception, she was in a special communion with God, a communion at least similar to that enjoyed by the resurrected if not exactly the same. The obsession with sin and the possibility or impossibility of sinlessness in our mortal lives can often hide God and His Creation from us rather than bringing us closer to Him. We should instead realize that we are bound to obey not only the moral laws which arise from our biological natures but also the more demanding versions of those laws given to us by Moses and by Jesus of Nazareth. We should also realize that perfect obedience of these laws doesn’t save us; it merely brings us to a more perfect state of humanity. Some Medieval Scholastics discussed limbo as a way of dealing with the supposed problem of the nature of life after death for ungodly but virtuous men. Perhaps this is an important problem but one that is a side-issue when we discuss salvation.
We are saved when God is truly with us. We speak truly when we speak along with God. We do God’s work when we act with God.
God wasn’t hidden to Mary. From conception, she had a relationship to her Creator more intimate than that enjoyed by others after a life devoted to learning the craft of sainthood. Mary gave her flesh to the Son of God and suckled Him at her breasts. She responded properly and without hesitation to God’s direct guidance in matters small or large. The rest of us often feel that guidance, or at least suspect it, but have trouble responding properly, trouble even discerning if that’s really God nudging us to eliminate a bad habit or even to explore the possibility of a religious vocation. Those who move freely with the will of God don’t have conversations with God to discuss the details nor do they get their instructions through angels. Those who wait for God to speak directly to them will waste their opportunities to serve God and His children.
Mary was already aware of the presence of Her Creator and was responsive to Her Creator without reserving any part of herself. From the moment of her otherwise normal conception, she was in that state, already saved but aware of her Lord’s presence and waiting for His guidance.
And now we should contemplate the meaning of this part of the story which the Church tells as we travel with Her through the liturgical year:
Mary bears the Son of God in her holy womb and God prepared her for this maternal task by forming her from conception to be fully aware of His presence and responsive without hesitation to His will.
