Immaculate Conception

Today's huge feast day has me reflecting on an aspect of Our Lady's Immaculate Conception that had never occurred to me before. The course on the theology of prayer that I have been taking at CTU included some texts by Thomas Merton in which he speaks of the "false self" that is our artificial persona, characterized by (in effect) sin--not personal sins, but the foundational sins of pride, vanity, greed (which I think is our age's dominant sin) and so on. This false self is like a mask that even blocks our relationship with God. "I" am not whom the Father created me to be, but some other self that I want to be, wish I could be, want others to see me being.... I think the major problem of the "false self" is that God's immense truth threatens to unveil the falsity of the self we claim to be. So it is better (for the survival of the false self we think we are) to keep God at a safe distance.

Mary had no false self, ever. She was purely the one the Father had created her to be, and so was fully able to respond to her vocation. There was no secret agenda she wanted to achieve, no ulterior motive in her, nothing to obstruct her awareness and openness to the utter goodness of God's call. She was always true.