The Primal Sin and Mary

On December 8 we celebrate the Solemn Feast of the Immaculate Conception. The doctrine of the Virgin Birth of Jesus and the Immaculate Conception of Mary are really of the same piece. The early church saw them as necessary correlates of the sinlessness of Jesus. Convinced by their experience of his matchless life, those early followers of Jesus were convinced that he was without moral flaw or spiritual taint. But that meant in turn that Jesus did not inherit the propensity to sin from his parents.

Both Jews and Christians believed that original sin was inherited through the parental line -- one generation passing on that primal sin to another. In the case of the birth of Jesus, however, that chain of inherited sin was miraculously broken -- by Mary's Immaculate Conception and by Jesus' Virgin Birth.  What was that primal sin that, according to our tradition, both Mary and Jesus escaped? According to the Genesis story (Gn 3:9-15,20), the original sin was a matter of disobeying God.

Of course the story is told in symbolic language. Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. But the disobedience was broader than simply avoiding a particular tree in a ancient garden. Their disobedience was a failure to live up the divine intention for their lives. Their disobedience was a failure to take God at his word. Their disobedience was a failure to accept human limitations. Their disobedience was a failure to be content with all the good things at their disposal. Seen in this light, the "primal sin" is not something that happened a long time ago. We struggle with those same temptations and shortcomings today.

We live in a time of great moral uncertainty. Our troubles go deeper than the age-old division between the good people and the evil people. There is a criminal element in our society that preys on the old and the weak, that exploits human appetites and unhappiness. There are also white collar criminals who manipulate the economy and pervert the justice system for their own personal power and financial gain.

We don't need a moral compass to know that such behavior is wrong -- tragically and utterly wrong. The kind of moral uncertainty that is tearing families and communities apart is of a different kind. We are confronted with genuine differences of moral outlook among people who are decent, church-going, God-fearing people. How do we handle such disagreements?

The temptation is to lay down the law -- which usually means our view of the law -- to everyone and to enforce those dictates of our conscience by any means, legal or even illegal. But Isaiah 30:19-21, 23-26, offers a different view. Here we see the foundation for our modern notion of the liberty of conscience. Isaiah speaks of the moral and spiritual life as a path.

Each of us walks that path, making our own choices and pursuing our own goals. From behind, a voice shall sound in our ears: 'This is the way; walk in it." This moral compass is the voice of God. God looks over our shoulder, prompting us to stay in the mainstream of human virtue. Our freedom is always exercised under his guiding spirit prompting us to do what is right and just. We but need to listen. GLP