Immaculate Conception (Gen 3:20) by Bonnie Sabin

08 Dec Immaculate Conception (Gen 3:20) by Bonnie Sabin

The man called his wife Eve, because she became the mother of all the living. ~ Gen 3:20
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Reflection:  Today we honor Mary as the Immaculate Conception.  She is “the new Eve.”  This relates to the “nuptial mystery” of the Church as bride of Christ.  The hearts of Adam and Eve became divided by sin; the hearts of Jesus and Mary are perfectly united.  In their self-giving, Christ becomes the revelation of the Father’s love, and Mary becomes the “mother of the living” in the order of grace.  But in the modern age there continues a war against the woman and her offspring—meaning against Mary and the Church and literally any mother and child of today.  Pope Paul VI affirmed life as a  gift from God in Humanae Vitae.  But, as Christopher West writes, “No encyclical in the history of the Church has been more widely and openly rejected—and none more tragically so. For the culture that rejects Humanae Vitae replays the “dynamic” of original sin ad infinitum.”  Women reject childbearing; men reject the responsibility of fatherhood; we deny the Fatherhood of God and the Incarnation of his Son.  In affirmation of Humanae Vitae and in response to the culture of death, Pope John Paul II developed the Theology of the Body.  With it the Church can more fully understand and embrace her own “nuptial mystery” and share it with the world in a new evangelization.

Challenge:  We must go forth with our faith to the world.  Let us not be content with isolation or too much comfort.
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Pray LIFE Runners Creed to End Abortion.  
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Inspiration:  The love of Christ urges us on!
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All In Christ for Pro-Life,
Bonnie
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* Bonnie Sabin is a coordinator for the Life Ministry and the Faith and Justice Committees at St. Catherine Laboure Parish in St. Louis.  She is a Lay Missionary of the Gospel of Life (lay association of Priests for Life).  She and her husband, Ed, have five grown children.