When I awakened this morning, I thought, “Oh blast! It’s a
holy day of obligation today! What a way to disrupt my life today!” I got up,
took my daily morning medications, got the coffee brewing, and then began my
normal shave, cleanup, and get dressed routine. I thought about how this being
a Holy Day was going to interfere with what I had planned for today. “God
certainly has a way of disrupting human life,” if further reflected as I headed
out the door. But then, isn’t this what the Immaculate Conception is all about, God
disrupting the complacency of human life?
God has habitually reveled in disrupting human life. If we
travel down Salvation History, we find God disrupting the lives of Noah,
Abraham and Sarah. God enters into the lives of Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses,
Aaron, Joshua, Esther, Ruth, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezechial, Amos, Elijah, Daniel,
David, Saul, Hannah, Samuel to name just a few, and God shakes their lives in
alarming, amazing, horrible and, albeit, wondrous ways.
Did Joachim and Anna realize on that specific moment in time
when they made love, that their sexual union was to result in the conception of
a girl who was to be so special that her life would shake the world to its very
core? Did Mary as she grew from infancy to young womanhood, have a clue as to
how “highly blessed” her life was and how her existence would alter the world?
In spite of all the dubious “tradition” around Mary’s early life (largely based
on spiritual fantasy), the answer is, “of course not!” Were it not for that one
passionate encounter that Joachim and Anna shared, our world would continue to
be locked into complacency and sin.
This feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary is important in so much that we are reminded
that just as God disrupted the lives of Joachim and Anna, then disrupted
the life of Mary, their daughter, and disrupted the life of Joseph, Mary future
husband, God is guaranteed to disrupt us our lives, too. God is going to shake
our lives to the core, and will alter our lives forever. As Joachim and Anna
had no forewarning as to what would happen, and Mary and Joseph had not a
conceivable idea as to how their lives would work out together as a married
couple, nor will we know to what new places God will lead us on our life’s
journey. Mary and Joseph went from Nazareth to Bethlehem to Egypt and back to
Nazareth, again. Mary continued the journey, as a widow, to Calvary, and later
to that upper room in Jerusalem on Pentecost. Oh, yes, God will disrupt our
lives. It is guaranteed in advance. Salvation History is all about adventure, but, oh what an adventurous journey it will be!
Happy feast day!
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