.png){kind=small}
The teaching of the immaculate conception has more to do with Christmas than most people suppose, and for very different reasons than is generally offered.
First because the teaching has nothing at all to do with Jesus’ holiness and everything to do with Mary’s;
And second because the star and the beasts of the stable are strangely reminiscent of another time; of something we often call prehistory.
Because it was then, way back at the beginning of creation, that God brought forth the sinless woman from the side of a sinless Adam;
…and so too here, amidst the straw and smells of a location inhabited by God’s creatures, a sinless Adam was taken from the side of a sinless woman.
And as Adam was given the great honour of naming his beloved Eve who sprang from his rib;
…in Bethlehem Mary was now the one to confirm upon her beloved the name of Jesus.
You see it now don’t you?
The sinlessness of Mary has everything to do with Christmas because it thrusts us back to the beginning.
A time when God and man were united.
A time when we walked with God in the evening breeze;
A time when there was no sin to separate us.
So yes, this Christmas remember the teaching of the immaculate conception and how Mary was free from original sin and everything that goes along with that,
…but just make sure that it carries you back far enough…
…to a time, when there truly was peace on earth.
I’ll see you tomorrow.
in Christ, patrick