Immaculate Conception 8.12.13 Two worlds
Our Lady is known as the Second Eve. God started in her a new order of things, a world without sin.
With her coming we now have two worlds co-existing, the world enslaved to sin and the world re-created, free from sin.
We are born into the first world and have experienced the oppression of sin. If we have come to faith and baptism we are also born into the second world, and begin to experience what it is like to be free from sin (full of grace).
Living in the world of sin makes us cynical about goodness. We doubt that anyone is really good, certainly not good all the time.
It is wise to be wary of pretended goodness (eg shady salesmen) but we should understand that the world we think is normal is actually a distortion of what God intended.
We should believe in goodness, much as we believe in God Himself. He intends the world to be like He is, full of every good thing.
In Our Lady we have the beginning, the restoration, of how it was always meant to be.
We have a chance to move from one world to the other. The world of darkness to the world of light; the world of despair to the world of hope.
Even if we have not been true to our baptism; even if we have sinned again and again - we can still reclaim lost innocence and start afresh.
It is hard when we have sinned to get the poison out of the system. Yet goodness has its power as well as evil, and also its own attractions.
A world without sin offers us a much greater happiness than the world as we now have it.
We find our way into this new world by grace, prayer, sacraments, self denial, good works, learning from experience. We come to see the attraction of holiness. We develop an increasing loathing of sin. (As we say in the Act of Contrition: we detest our sins above all things).
We live in both worlds, but as yet we are far more familiar with the world of sin.
We can claim entry to the world-without-sin at least at the personal level. If we cannot make it universal for everyone we can at least get it right for our own lives.
So we deal truthfully with each other. If the car I am selling you will not get you fifty metres from here I will tell you. We are honest, truthful, generous, and all the other necessary qualities.
There have always been good people around but never enough at the one time to make the new way of holiness the established way. We have tasted enough goodness to know we need a lot more.
We are trying to bring forth a better world, and it is like giving birth. So has Mary been doing ever since she gave birth to the Christ child. She helps and encourages us in every way to join fully with her and do what she does.
She encourages us to give perfect obedience to God; along with homage and trust. ‘Do whatever He tells you’.
Doing the right thing becomes automatic, spontaneous – once our wills have been corrected and fortified; once we have been filled with the zeal of the Holy Spirit.
This is how we need to be, and we find this in Mary. We get used to life in this other universe, first established in her.
We have much to be thankful for that long ago, a certain baby girl was conceived without sin.
O Mary, conceived without sin pray for us who have recourse to thee.
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