Sometimes happenstance lands us in the very lap of happiness. Life turns so flawlessly, we cannot help but to see a purpose at work, even if it is one we are far from comprehending. This is the very meaning of the miraculous. It is not determined by the laws of nature being bent or broken, though this may indeed be the case. No, it is our recognition that happenstance has produced too much happiness. It has gotten too purposeful. It must be of God.
Remember in “The Sound of Music,” when Maria and Captain Von Trapp meet each other out in the misty gazebo? They realize they are in love, and they both sing:
Perhaps I had a wicked childhood
Perhaps I had a miserable youth
But somewhere in my wicked, miserable past
There must have been a moment of truth
For here you are, standing there, loving me
Whether or not you should
So somewhere in my youth or childhood
I must have done something good
Nothing comes from nothing
Nothing ever could
So somewhere in my youth or childhood
I must have done something good
In asserting that “nothing comes from nothing” they insist that their love must be purposeful. It must be of God. It must be, in short, miraculous.
Mystics experience something similar. Caught up in rapture, every moment of their life seems purposeful, even the ones that were most happenstance. The same experience will be ours when we see God in the face.
The salvation wrought for us in Christ is too perfect, too complete not to have been the design of God.
Of course, history’s preeminent case of happenstance landing us in the lap of happiness, of God acting miraculously on our behalf, is the salvation wrought for us in Christ. All of this is too perfect, too complete not to have been the design of God. Therefore, Ephesians opens with the acclamation:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us in Christ
with every spiritual blessing in the heavens,
as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world,
to be holy and without blemish before him
In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ,
in accord with the favor of his will,
for the praise of the glory of his grace
that he granted us in the beloved (1:3-6).
Something similar happens in the Immaculate Conception: Happenstance yields too much happiness to be without design. The church does not reverence Mary as sinless because we have a complete record of her life. The church does not declare Jesus to be sinless in that manner either. In both cases, knowing who they most deeply are, which is to say, who they are in the eyes of God, intuition seizes upon the acknowledgment of their sinlessness.
When the created heart of Mary offered her flawless “yes,” humanity itself, in one instance, gave itself, utterly and completely, to God.
It goes like this. In his human nature Jesus was capable of sinning, but, if he had, then his divine nature would have entered humanity as essentially flawed. Yet God’s actions have no flaws. Once the church recognized Jesus as the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, she could easily see, without investigation, that he must have been sinless in his human nature.
Why must Mary be sinless? Because God’s initiative, God’s entrance into humanity for the purpose of its sanctification, its divinization, must, in at least one instance, have been utterly, completely full and successful. The human heart of Jesus offered a flawless “yes” to the Father, but the human heart of Jesus is God’s initiative. It is the Incarnation finding expression within the Trinity. When the created heart of Mary offered her flawless “yes,” humanity itself, in one instance, gave itself, utterly and completely, to God. Greater than all the saints, this is salvation wholly satisfied. Gabriel was not engaging in hyperbole when he called her “full of grace” (Lk 1:28).
The real rub is that Christians, having acknowledged Christ as universal savior, insist that all humans are essentially alienated from God. This is the meaning of what we call “original sin.” It has nothing to do with procreation being judged as essentially sinful. Jesus is born of a virgin, but he is not spared original sin because of this. As God’s initiative—as God—he cannot be alienated from God.
He could have been born to a woman affected by original sin, just as he was born to grandparents touched by it. But having found unutterable delight and design in the salvation wrought in Christ, the church insists that its very purpose must have been ineffably and wondrously realized in one disciple whose complete “yes” leads to her complete “divinization.” Christ is creator. Mary remains creature. In Christ, the offer of salvation is flawless. In Mary, so is the reception.
Yes, it is a question of intuition. Of seeing the purposeful in the happenstance. But then, all miracles are.
Readings: Genesis 3:9-15, 20 Ephesians 1:3-6, 11-12 Luke 1:26-38
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