What Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception reminds us of

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

TO put it bluntly, what Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception reminds us of is that, like Our Lady who is our Mother, we are supposed to be immaculate and sinless from our very own conception all the way to the end of our earthly life and our definitive life in heaven. That was the original plan of God for us.

Though we lost that privilege and honor because of our sin, we should not worry too much because Christ has secured our salvation. And all we have to do is to correspond to Christ’s redemptive action on us which is always an ongoing affair for us by waging a continuing struggle against sin and against our weaknesses and temptations.

That may be an impossible pursuit, since we all know that we all have weaknesses and are most prone to commit sin, but it should not prevent us from doing our best to struggle to be as sinless as possible. In this regard, we should never forget to develop and strengthen our personal skills in handling our weaknesses and temptations. This concern never goes passé, and it touches a basic, indispensable aspect of our life in all levels.

We know that these days, temptations can come to us in the subtlest and trickiest of ways. This can be due, at least in part, to the increased level of sophistication both in people’s thinking and in world developments, especially in the area of technology and ideology.

With these developments, temptations can easily come undetected, and sin can be committed in a most hidden way and can even be easily rationalized. How important therefore it is for us to always grow in humility and simplicity, aggressively finding practical ways to achieve them! If not, we would just be lost. That’s for sure!

What makes things worse is that, as can be easily noted these days, the healthy fear of God is disappearing. In its place, a most heinous sense of self-importance is dominating. The criteria to determine what is good and bad have become blurred. They have gone almost completely relativistic and subjective, declaring total independence from any absolute and objective rule or law that comes from God.

Truth is, we always need God in our battle against temptations. We should disabuse ourselves from the thought that with our good intentions and our best efforts alone, we can manage to tame the urges of temptations.

We cannot! That’s the naked truth about it. We only can if we are with God who provides us with all the means and power to resist sin. And we have to be with him in a strong, determined way, not in a passive or lukewarm way. Do flies flock on a hot soup? No. But they do on a cold or lukewarm soup.

We need to do everything to be with God. Our mind and heart should be fully and constantly engaged with him. We always have reason to do so—at least, we can thank him for what we are having at the moment: health, food, air, work, etc. We should never dare to leave him aside and depend solely on our powers.

Also, we should help others in their struggle against temptations and sins. In this regard, we have to learn how to fraternize with everybody, especially those in some bad spiritual and moral conditions. Like Christ, we should learn how to fraternize with sinners to help them.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com