Today the Church is invited to reflect on the
Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The icon below (thank you to my friend, Cameron
Abernethy, for sharing it on facebook) is of Jesus in the womb of Mary in the
womb of her mother, St Anne. Looking a little like Russian dolls, it is a
beautiful depiction of the scriptural truth that future generations exist
within their forebears. When the Lord speaks with his childless friend
Abram/Abraham, and promises that his descendants shall be as far beyond counting
as the stars of the heavens or the grains of sand on the seashore, we are to
understand that those future generations beyond number are present, to God,
(with)in the person of his friend Abraham.
We may tend to thinking that God chooses Mary to be
the one through whom the Son will be born into the world on account of her
disposition, that she is particularly devout, or feisty, or whatever it is that
God might be looking for. And, certainly, how we fashion the life we are given
matters to God. But this is less than the whole truth. It may be closer to
suggest that Mary is the young woman whom she is because God chose her before
she was conceived in her mother’s womb, indeed before the creation of the
world. And that you are also chosen, and loved, within the divine purpose to
reconcile all things, within ourselves and between us and our neighbour and us
and Godself.
As you gaze on the human face of God through the
window of this icon, can you dare to imagine it carrying on so as to include
Anne, Mary, Jesus ... you?
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