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| Donna Rougeux, ARCWP |
First Reading: Proverbs 9: 1-6
Second Reading: Excerpt from VII document The Church in the
Modern World #16 about primacy of conscience
Gospel Reading: Luke 1:39-56
The
feast day of the Assumption of Mary will be celebrated in the church this
Saturday and the gospel reading that we just heard will be used. Have you spent much time thinking about the
ex cathedra teaching about the assumption of Mary that was given by Pope Pius
XII in 1950? Maybe that has not topped your list of things to ponder but it is
a good place to start as we think about our theme tonight of primacy of
conscience. This infallible teaching of
the 1950s has some flaws as it was based on the common theology when original
sin was predominant.
The
premise of this ex cathedra teaching says that our bodies undergo the
corruption of death due to original sin that all people are born with except
Mary because her body was assumed into heaven. One hundred years before the
teaching about Mary’s assumption another infallible teaching was proclaimed
that said Mary was conceived without sin. The teaching of original sin lead to
elaborate theologizing in order to keep Mary untainted and well preserved. I
don’t think Mary would approve especially if you look at the way she is
pictured in the gospel of Luke.
Mary
bravely accepts the angel’s news that “the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and
the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born
will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in
her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who
was said barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Mary rises up after
this mindboggling news and goes on her own to visit her cousin Elizabeth. Mary
embraces her call from God to do the impossible and then rejoices with her
cousin Elizabeth who is also the recipient of a call to the impossible. The
virgin and the barren woman are both pregnant and know that what is happening
is of lasting significance and importance. They know that they are doing what
God has called them to do. Mary responds from the depths of her soul by
praising God. She sees how everything is being turned upside down. She sings praises to God, “You have scattered
the proud in their conceit, you have deposed the mighty from their throne and
raised the lowly to high places. You have filled the hungry with good things,
while you have sent the rich away empty…” (Bridget Mary would call this a holy
shake up.)
I
just can’t see this Mary in need of being proclaimed as one who was born
without sin or as one who was assumed. Can you? Wasn’t it good enough that she
bravely answered God’s call to be the mother of Jesus?
Fast
forward from the time of Mary and Elizabeth to 1953, just a few years after
this infallible teaching about Mary was given. The world was a place with rigid
ideas about what was right and wrong or what was sinful or pure. The following
scenario played out in the world in many ways and can give evidence to the need
for us to follow our informed conscience even when the world around us beckons
us to do otherwise.
A
nineteen-year old young woman was dating a soldier and got pregnant. She was
afraid to tell him. Instead she went to her parents. She asked them to let her
move away and live with her aunt in another state so that she could quietly
have the baby in a place where no shame would come to the family for this
horrible sin of being unmarried and pregnant. Her parents did not hear her. Instead her mother insisted that she go to a
doctor who would “take care of the problem.”
What
does this girl do? Just what she is told…she gets in her car alone and drives
by herself to the doctor’s office. She tells him her mother sent her there. He
gives her directions to the home of a woman who will “help her with her
problem.” She returns to her car and drives to the woman’s home. The woman
invites her in and performs an abortion.
After driving home home, the young woman goes into the bathroom, begins
to hemorrhage and then passes out. She wakes up in the hospital. “You almost
died,” the doctor told her. “I wish I had,” she responds.
Things
have changed since then and some for very good reasons. Listen again to part of
our second reading from a Vatican II document, “ Deep within their consciences
all people discover a law which they have not laid upon themselves but which
they must obey. Its voice, ever calling them to love and to do what is good and
to avoid evil…For all people in their hearts is a law inscribed by God.”
The
nineteen-year old woman went against her own conscience. She moved against the
law on her heart that was inscribed by God.
In doing so, she sentenced herself to a prison of deep pain and
self-judgment that affected each of her relationships in a negative way
throughout the rest of her life. Her
story is similar to the many people who have served in the military and suffer
from PTSD. All through history many have been unable to stand up to sinful
structures, systems and abusive authority figures despite the voice of God in
their conscience. We honor and remember those who did.
In
a Sunday Angelus address in 2013 Pope Francis reiterated Vatican II teachings
about the importance of primacy of conscience, resurrecting what his predecessors suppressed. “May Mary help us,” he said, “to
become more and more…free in our conscience, because it is in conscience that
the dialogue with God is given-men and women able to hear the voice of God and
follow it with decision. Jesus wants neither selfish Christians, who follow
their egos and do not speak with God, nor weak Christians, without will,
‘remote-controlled’ Christians, incapable of creativity, who seek ever to
connect with the will of another, and are not free. Jesus wants us to be free,
and this freedom-where is it found? It is to be found in the inner dialogue
with God in conscience.” Will Pope Francis put actions to his words and lift
the excommunication of women who have followed their consciences and were
ordained as priests? How about the people like you who worship in these
liturgies? Wouldn’t it be fitting for the Pope to lift threats of
excommunication and loss of diocesan jobs?
We
must admit that many solid teachings of the past have been proven wrong. We now
know that the world is not flat, that the earth revolves around the sun and we
come from original blessings not sin. We
are always learning new things about our world and ourselves. The more we learn about ourselves the better
we know God. With knowledge comes responsibility. We know how to send a person
to the moon and how to genetically create an animal. We live in the information
age and in a world of rapid change. Just because we can do something should we?
In
this fast paced changing world it is imperative that we learn to make choices
with an informed conscience. We must
prayerfully listen to the God voice inside and stay connected to our souls as
we face each day that is filled with a multitude of decisions. There are many
reasons we must listen to the law inscribed on our hearts by God. What tops the list is what Pope Francis said:
we can only be free the way Jesus wants us to be when we are in dialogue with
God in conscience. If we are free in this way we will be able to rise up like
Mary and embrace God’s call to do the impossible. Maybe we can even reframe the
Assumption of Mary to the Rising Up of Mary. On this feast day she urges us to
join her in courageously following what God has inscribed on our hearts. Then
we will be filled with the same joy she had when she sang praises to God
saying, “ My soul magnifies God—Let the oppressed hear it and be glad! Glorify
God with me and let us exalt God’ s Name together!”
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