Given on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, 8th December 2021, at St Mary’s University Twickenham
Why do good people suffer? If God created the world as good, why do we find the realities of physical and moral evil in the world; physical evil in suffering caused either by natural disasters or sickness; moral evil in the human capacity to bring about the most appalling human acts of violence against other human beings, events which confront us daily in the media.
This is one of the fundamental human questions we face. I know that it will be a question in the mind of every student at St Mary’s University and one which is often a barrier to Christian faith, calling for study of philosophy and theology. It is a question which has come to the fore during the pandemic as it is the first time for decades that the health of all has been under threat. The author of the Book of Genesis provides insight into this mystery.
The first reading from the Book of Genesis recognises the entry of evil in the world because Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. God had told them ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die’ (Gen 2:17). God has given human beings the gift of freedom to choose good or evil; freedom is an aspect of the dignity of being human created in the image and likeness of God. The Tempter promises them that they will not die but ‘when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil’. The temptation to be like God was too great, and so they ate and fell from grace. Fracture between human beings occurs, between man and woman, with God and with the earth. As a consequence, human beings are born stained by this original sin and need a Redeemer. Only God will be able to restore relationships to their former innocence through his grace and the coming of a Saviour. In the reading, we find a sign of hope because God will not abandon his beloved, God says to the serpent, ‘I will make you enemies of each other: you and woman, your offspring and her offspring. It will crush your head and you will strike its heel’ (Gen 3:15). In these final words we see the promise of God that the offspring of the woman will crush the head of the serpent.
In the Legend of the Rood, often portrayed in medieval mystery plays, the dying Adam sends Seth back to the Garden of Eden to ask for an elixir, an Oil of Mercy, to make him immortal. The angel at the gates of Paradise refuses this request but gives Seth a seed from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and tells him to plant it under the tongue of Adam. He does so and buries him at Golgatha.
From this seed, there grow not only the generations of Adam which are named by St Luke in his genealogy ending with Jesus ‘being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph (Luke 3:23) but also the tree of the wood that will become the cross of the Crucified and the cross that gives life. Jesus Christ is recognised as the New Adam and the skull at the foot of the cross in iconography is that of the old, fallen Adam. He will be given new life when the blood and water flow from the side of Christ. In the words of the opening hymn,
O loving wisdom of our God,
When all was sin and shame,
A second Adam to the fight,
And to the rescue came.
The Feast of the Immaculate Conception celebrates the power of the grace of God. To be the bearer of God into the world, to be the Mother of God; Our Blessed Lady is preserved at her conception from the stain of original sin through the grace of God. She is the Immaculate Conception. In one of the traditional litanies to Our Blessed Lady, this mystery is revealed in some of the titles of Our Lady: Spiritual Vessel, Vessel of Honour, Singular Vessel of Devotion, Ark of the of Covenant. She bears the Christ-Child in her womb and is his vessel or ark from his conception by the Holy Spirit. We will share in his New Covenant through our baptism.
The gospel of the Annunciation not only proclaims Our Lady, graced and so worthy of God’s favour, but also the humble response of Mary to the invitation to be the Mother of God, ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord, let what you have said be done to me’. In his Memorandum on the Immaculate Conception, St John Henry Newman writes, ‘As to primitive notion about our Blessed Lady, really, the frequent contrast of Mary with Eve seems very strong indeed. It is found in St Justin, St Irenæus, and Tertullian, three of the earliest Fathers, and in three distinct continents—Gaul, Africa, and Syria. For instance, "the knot formed by Eve's disobedience was untied by the obedience of Mary; that what the Virgin Eve tied through unbelief that the Virgin Mary unties through faith." Again, "The Virgin Mary becomes the Advocate (Paraclete) of the Virgin Eve, that as mankind has been bound to death through a Virgin, through a Virgin it may be saved, the balance being preserved, a Virgin's disobedience by a Virgin's obedience" (St Irenæus, Hæer. v. 19). Again, "As Eve, becoming disobedient, became the cause of death to herself and to all mankind, so Mary, too, bearing the predestined Man, and yet a Virgin, being obedient, became the CAUSE OF SALVATION both to herself and to all mankind." Again, "Eve being a Virgin, and incorrupt, bore disobedience and death, but Mary the Virgin, receiving faith and joy, when Gabriel the Angel evangelised her, answered, 'Be it unto me,'" &c. Again, "What Eve failed in believing, Mary by believing hath blotted out."’
As we enter into the mystery of this Feast, we pray that St Mary’s University will continue to inspire self-offering to the Father in the service of education and for the good of all who cross her threshold. We ask the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary as Mother of the Church.
Bishop John Sherrington