The Immaculate Conception

Yesterday was a Holy Day of Obligation, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, and The Catholic Thing captures its holiness beautifully.

An excerpt.

“Catholicism is an adventuresome religion, not designed for dullards, sissies, or the faint-hearted. Actually, it is not a “religion” at all. Religion is about what obliges men to God insofar as they can figure it out with their reason. Religion is a form of “justice.” It differs from justice because we cannot figure out exactly what we “owe” to God.

“God does not “need” anything from us. Imagine a “god” that needs us to give it something! Yet the best things are beyond “owing.” No one who is given something is complete without acknowledging the gift. We human beings are even given what we are. Our very being is a gift to us. Indeed, we are gifts to one another.

“Revelation is what God has informed us about Himself. The only way we know how to relate to God is if God Himself informs us. “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Catholicism is based on a fact. God did inform us about Himself and about ourselves. We do not deal with a human invention, but a divine intervention.

“Only when the event of the Incarnation happened can we further try to figure out what it means. And we do try. Faith does seek reason, a reason that is actively reasoning. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, officially defined by Pius IX on December 8, 1854, is part of this seeking understanding.”