THE IMMACULATELY WINDING ROAD
“Immaculate” is a charged word. People keep their rooms or floors “immaculate” – spotless and tidy. Feels like an icky word to use to describe anything human. And it feels like a downright contradictory word to use to describe the act that leads to conception. Yet here we are again on this feast day celebrating this paradoxical, mysterious event.
And not only is the Immaculate Conception an event in time, but Our Lady of Lourdes appeared to St. Bernadette saying, “I AM the Immaculate Conception.” St. Maximilian Kolbe further offers that the Holy Spirit is the uncreated Immaculate Conception and that Mary is the created Immaculate Conception, and because the two were espoused and became one flesh, we see in Mary the face of the Holy Spirit. Definitely gives you some things to “ponder in your heart” (Marian pun).
During Advent, we anticipate heaven meeting earth in our God-made-human Savior, Jesus, who comes to us through Mary Immaculate. We pray “thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in Heaven” – we cry out to our loving God to bring the Divine realm to our earthly messiness. And in Jesus, through Mary, the messy becomes the immaculate and vice versa. This is why today's readings – beginning with “the Fall” in Genesis and ending with Mary’s fiat in Luke’s Gospel – are so apt.
In August, I released my debut full length album, Alight Beyond the Sea, one day after I began teaching theology at Immaculate Heart High School. While accepting this position has brought consolation, I’ve also felt grief about not having the time or energy to promote my record’s release as much as I’d hoped. But with God, often the winding road is, in fact, the immaculate one. Recently, while reading Shannon K. Evans’ book The Mystics Would Like A Word, this passage about walking a labyrinth moved me to tears:
“I rounded the outer edge, seemingly as far as I could possibly be from the inside of the spiral, and suddenly, just a few steps later, there I was: right smack in the middle, invited to sit and survey my journey. This, Teresa of Ávila would swear, is the spiritual life. Not a straight line, but a mass of winding steps that seem to take us far away from our goal, while our pilgrims’ feet are pleading with us to trust the process.”
Though it would seem that starting a full-time teaching job isn’t the most conducive strategy for promoting a new album, I sense that I am exactly where I’m meant to be right now. Help me, Lord, to have “pilgrim’s feet” in all things.
Where do I notice the immaculate-ness of the messy in my life? Where might I look for it with expectant hope in this Advent season? Where am I being invited to be a spiritual pilgrim, to trust in what lies just around the corner or to find acceptance in my current circumstances?
Jessica Gerhardt