The Language of the
Immaculate Conception
A sermonette on the
novena of the Immaculate Conception
Keith Amodia, SDB
I delivered this sermonette last December 6, 2014.
Good morning!
I hope you’ll all be awake to listen to me speak Tetun
although I also don’t understand what I’m speaking.
I wanted to give my sermonette in this language but I
doubt I’ll be able to.
If you understand me, give me a clap!
Dader di’ak!
Ha’u hein / imi
sei matan nakloke / hodi rona ha’u / ko’alia Tetun / maske / ha’u mos / la
kompriende / saida mak / ha’u ko’alia daudaun.
Ha’u hakarak / atu
hato’o / ha’u nia sermaun / iha lian ida ne’e maibe / ha’u duvida / se ha’u
bele duni.
Se imi kompriende
ha’u / fo basa liman ida mai ha’u!
---
Apologies to those who don’t speak and understand Tetun
like me. I was just reading the introduction that was written by Bro. Gersio
for me. You can ask him later what it meant.
Language is an important marker for human culture. If the
event of the Immaculate Conception is such importance to our salvation history,
in what language is it spoken? It was Fr. Rey dela Cruz who introduced us to
the method and style of the TheoDrama. If so, in this drama between God and
man, how did God speak to man and man to God?
Airline ticket office, Copenhagen: We take your bags and send them in all directions.
Doctor's office, Rome: Specialist in women and other diseases.
In an Italian cemetery: Persons are prohibited from picking flowers from any but their own
graves.
It is too easy for us to be lost in a language and with
it meaning. It is too easy for us to celebrate our Christian feasts and not
really fathom their meaning. When I asked the question, what is the language of
the Immaculate Conception, I had to look deeper to better appreciate this great
mystery. Let me offer you my insights.
The Immaculate Conception was spoken in the language of
obedience. This is how the dialogue came about.
Before time began, the Son spoke the first line of
dialogue when he submitted himself to the will of the Father. The Word of God
was prophesied to be made Incarnate. Christ heralded obedience through his
Kenosis:
Who, though he was in the
form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather,
he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and
found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even
death on a cross. (Phil 2:6-8)
It was the initiative of God that the Son be made man,
and for this Mary was chosen and prepared to bear the Son:
We declare, pronounce and
define that the doctrine which holds that the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the first
instant of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace of the Omnipotent
God, in virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of mankind, was
preserved immaculate from all stain of original sin, has been revealed by God,
and therefore should firmly and constantly be believed by all the faithful.
And so, it was Mary who responded in dialogue with the
Son through her obedience. Her obedience was not that she was singularly conceived
immaculate but that this purity was kept until she too would conceive the Son.
And not only that, she had lived this purity from sin until the end of her
earthly life. This obedience to the Will of God is the perfect response to the
obedience of Christ.
I would have liked to see Bro. Donnie perform a solo in
tonight’s concert, or his duet with Bro. Marc Will would be good. Choral songs
however are heard well in more voices. Add Bro. Moise’s and you would form a
triad chord.
And so it is that after Christ gave the first obedience
and Mary responded with hers, that such dialogue should also be completed with my
obedience. I may not have been immaculate conceived but I can always be reborn.
This is our story with Jesus and Mary. I firmly believe that the Immaculate
Conception was not meant to be a singular event but an invitation to join in
the conversation. Can we speak the language?
