(Immaculate Conception 2011: This
homily was given on December 8, 2011 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by
Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read Luke 1:
26-38.)
[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Immaculate Conception 2011]
On December 1, CTV (a Canadian
television network) aired a Christmas special, “A Russell Peters Christmas,” during
which there was a little comedy sketch that involved the Holy Family. Peters, who’s a comedian from Brampton,
Ontario, played the role of St. Joseph in the skit. But guess who was chosen to play the role of
Mary, our Blessed Mother.
Pamela Anderson.
(No, I’m not kidding. I wish I were, but I’m not.)
The woman described by columnist
Brent Bozell as “the ridiculously surgically enhanced former Playboy Playmate,
home-movie porn specialist and ‘Baywatch’ star’,” was hired to play the role of
the all-holy, immaculately-conceived, ever-virgin mother of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ!
Russell Peters and those in
charge of CTV should be ashamed of themselves.
But, of course, they aren’t. If anything, they’re proud of what they’ve
done! In fact, when Peters was
questioned about the matter in late November, he was quoted as saying, “We had
written the sketch and we didn't know who we were putting in it and we thought
hey Pam Anderson is Canadian, we can use more Canadian people in this show. . .
. I didn't even think of the other side of Pam Anderson which is so long ago,
it's like come on, give the chick a break already.”
Have you noticed how often Mary is
blasphemed and ridiculed like this in contemporary western culture? People love to try to “pull her down” to
their level, morally and spiritually. It
happens all the time, but especially right before Christmas and Easter each
year.
And have you ever wondered why? Why would people want to blaspheme and
ridicule and tear down someone like Mary, a woman who was—and who is—so good
and so loving and so holy?
Well, believe it or not I think
the answer to that question is rooted in the feast we’re celebrating today in
the Church, the feast of our Lady’s Immaculate Conception. Let me begin with a little catechetical review:
As Catholics we believe that Mary was the holiest human person who ever lived. (Jesus, remember, is a divine person so he’s in a separate category.) She was, in the words of the poet William
Wordsworth, “our tainted nature’s solitary boast”—and that’s primarily because
of the truth about her that’s contained in the dogma of the Immaculate
Conception.
Many Catholics think that this
dogma concerns the virginal conception of Jesus in the womb of Mary. That, of course, is wrong. The feast that commemorates Jesus’ conception
in the womb of our Blessed Mother is known as the Annunciation, which is celebrated
9 months before Christmas, on March 25. (If
you’re not sure why that is, you should enroll immediately in Biology
101!)
So why was the story of the
Annunciation read as our gospel text today?
It's because Mary’s Immaculate Conception prepared her for that
Annunciation event—and for all that would follow in her role as the Mother of
the Savior of the world.
The Immaculate Conception, properly speaking, refers to the conception
of Mary in the womb of her mother, St. Ann.
It teaches us that, by a special grace of God, given in view of what her
Son Jesus would accomplish many years later on the cross, Mary was preserved
from original sin. The preface for this
Mass says it perfectly: “For you preserved the most Blessed Virgin Mary from
all stain of original sin, so that in her, endowed with the rich fullness of
your grace, you might prepare a worthy Mother for your Son.”
Mary was free from original
sin—which means that she had sanctifying grace in her soul from the moment of
her conception. Not only that, she never
committed even one personal sin—mortal or venial—at any point during her earthly
life.
Mary, therefore, reminds us of the power of God’s saving grace. She reminds of the great things that God can
do in our lives, if we let him. She
reminds us that we can be better people than we now are, with the Lord’s powerful
assistance.
For those of us who are really
trying to live the Gospel, that’s good news—really good news!
But what happens, my brothers and
sisters, if you’re not interested in being any better than you currently are? What happens if you’re perfectly content with
the lust and anger and greed and other sinful attitudes that are in your heart at
the present time? What happens if you
don’t want to change your life in a positive way and become holy like Mary and
the rest of the saints?
Well, then you’ll do exactly what
comedian Russell Peters did. You’ll do
what all the anti-Mary blasphemers do: You’ll
try to pull our Blessed Mother down to your level! You’ll make fun of
her; you’ll ridicule her holiness; you’ll have Pamela Anderson portray her in a
television sketch! You’ll do anything
and everything you can to try to convince yourself that she’s no better than
you are.
You’ll engage, in other words, in
the ultimate delusion.
If we love Mary, we will never, ever
try to pull her down to our level of imperfection and sin; rather, we will constantly
ask her to “pull us up” to her level of holiness! We will say, “Mary, you show me what a human
person can be if they really trust in God and yield to his grace. You said yes to the Lord at every moment of
your life; help me to say yes to him more often in mine. By the grace of God you never sinned; pray
for me that by the same grace of God I will sin less frequently. Sometimes I get discouraged and think that I
can’t be better than I am; sometimes other people tell me that I can’t be
better than I am; but you have shown me by your life that I can always be a
better, holier, more Christ-like person than I am right now.”
That’s the kind of prayer we will
say if we want to be “pulled up” by our Blessed Mother. Or we could keep it really simple and just say,
“Mary, I love you. Please pull me up!
Please pull me up a little higher today.”
She’ll know what we mean.