(Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception 2022: This homily was given on December 8, 2022 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I. by Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read Genesis 3; Luke 1:26-38.)
[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Immaculate Conception 2022]
Well over a hundred years ago, Charles Dickens wrote a novel entitled, “A Tale of Two Cities.” Along those lines, the entire history of the world can rightly be described as “A Tale of Two Women.”
Tell this to the radical feminists who think that women have sometimes been relegated to the fringes of human history. Not true! The fact of the matter is: everything which has happened since the creation of the first human beings has somehow been connected to one of two women. The first of these two women we call Eve, while the second has often been called “the new Eve”—our Blessed Mother Mary. As we are told in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 511: “The Virgin Mary ‘cooperated through free faith and obedience in human salvation.’ She uttered her yes ‘in the name of all human nature.’ By her obedience she became the new Eve, mother of the living.”
This is one reason why it’s so appropriate that our first reading today was from Genesis 3. To some people, of course, this text from the Old Testament would seem out of place. Why a reading from Genesis on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Mother? What’s the connection between Eve and Mary? Well, the connection comes in the form of a contrast. The disobedience of Eve and her husband, which brought death to the human race, is contrasted today with the obedience of Mary, who was preserved from original sin by the grace of her Son, and who said yes to the Lord at the Annunciation and in every event of her life. This is why our Gospel reading is the account of the Annunciation from Luke 1. Here’s how St. Iranaeus spoke about it way back in the second century: “Just as . . . Eve was seduced by the words of an angel so that she turned away from God by disobeying his word, so . . . Mary received the good news from an angel’s announcement in such a way as to give birth to God by obeying his word; and as the former was seduced so that she disobeyed God, the latter let herself be convinced to obey God, and so the Virgin Mary became the advocate of the virgin Eve. And as the human race was subjected to death by a virgin, it was liberated by a Virgin; a virgin’s disobedience was thus counterbalanced by a Virgin’s obedience . . . “ (Adv. Haer., V, 19, 1).
The contrast between the old Eve and the new Eve runs deep, as St. Irenaeus indicates there. For example,
- The old Eve was selfish. When Satan told her she could be “like God,” she jumped at the chance.
- The new Eve—Mary—was selfless: “Be it done unto me according to your word
[O Lord].”
- The old Eve was ruled by pride.
- The new Eve was ruled by
humility: “I am the handmaid of the
Lord.” “[God] has looked with favor on
his lowly servant.”
- The old Eve led someone else into sin.
- The new Eve leads us to
holiness. (Here we encounter an
important truth about devotion to Mary: She always leads us to Jesus. Thus if our devotion to the Blessed Mother
isn’t bringing us closer to her Son, then there’s something wrong with our
devotion to Mary.)
- The old Eve gave in to the
serpent.
- The new Eve, by her “yes,” helped to crush the serpent’s head.
- The old Eve was the “mother of the living” in the order of
nature. (That’s why we come into this
world with original sin.)
- The new Eve is the Mother of the
living in the new order of grace. What
Jesus said to St. John at the foot of the cross he says to all of us: “Behold thy Mother.”
- The old Eve rationalized her sin. The Bible says, in effect, that she analyzed the forbidden fruit and convinced herself that it was okay to eat it.
- The new Eve never rationalized;
she simply obeyed God’s word. If God
said it, she believed it and did it.
Thus she never sinned.
- The old Eve refused to take
responsibility for her actions. As we
heard a few moments ago, Adam blamed her, and she blamed the snake.
- The new Eve took more than her share of responsibility. Remember, she was probably about 14-years-old when Gabriel appeared to her and asked her to be the Mother of the Son of God. That’s a very heavy responsibility for anyone, let alone a teenager!
So, what does all this have to do with you and me and the world of 2022? Well, as I said earlier, the entire history of the human race is ultimately “a tale of two women.” In saying this, I mean that every single event which has occurred since people have lived on this planet is somehow connected either to Eve’s “no” or to Mary’s “yes.” The Holocaust, the Roman persecutions of Christians, legalized abortion, violence on our city streets, racism: all these have been rooted in Eve’s no. On the other hand, it’s Mary’s yes that stands behind every single act of faith or charity which has ever taken place. Because of Mary’s yes (and only because of Mary’s yes), the world has been blessed with Mother Teresa, and John Paul II, and all the other great saints.
Of course, what applies to the world as a whole also applies to us as individuals. The history of the world is “a tale of two women,” and so is our personal history! That’s because we’ve been born again in Baptism, but we still have the inclination to sin which theologians call “concupiscence.” Consequently, we sometimes say no to God like Eve did, and at other times—thankfully—we say yes like our Blessed Mother did. Whenever we let pride or one of the other 7 deadly sins rule us, whenever we refuse to take responsibility for our actions, whenever we rationalize our sins in any way, we allow the old Eve to win the day. But when we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, when we love and go the extra mile, when we turn away from temptation and do what’s right, we give the victory to the new Eve—our Blessed Mother. So I suppose you could say that the decisive question for us and for every single human person is: In my life, which of these two women will ultimately prevail? Let’s resolve today, with the help of God’s grace, to give the victory to Mary, the New Eve!
