Out of Nothing Everything is Sprung

The virginal conception of Christ is a doctrine that lays emphasis on the divine Sonship of the Lord Jesus. But in addition to this, the miraculous form of conceiving the Virgin Mary experienced also teaches us how God acts: He acts on His own accord.

The annunciation account in Luke's Gospel (c.f. Lk 1) makes the connection of the coming of the Messiah with Isaiah's prophecy of the virgin bearing a son (c.f. Is 7:14). Yet, the purposes of God having Mary conceive as a virgin are by no means exhausted by the mere fulfillment of prophecy. Gabriel's announcement must also be heard with Genesis' creation account ringing in our ears (c.f. Gn 1). For it is out of nothing that God's creation "In the beginning" initially sprung and it is similarly out of nothing (i.e. no positive human action) that the Second Creation is sprung in the womb of the Virgin Mother.

With what emphasis do the gospels speak of Mary's lowliness, her humility, her nothingness- as if she were the perfect figure to remind us of the nothingness from which the world arose. Indeed, "Be it done to me,"(Lk 1:38) a passive phrase, is what allows the incarnation to happen within her womb, within our world. Nothing else is necessary in the eyes of God than her willingness to being acted upon. It was by first regarding the low estate of His servant that God then chose to do great things for her (c.f. Lk 1:48).

Is this not a lesson in our salvation? There is utterly nothing that we do to commence it. "Our highest activity must be response, not initiative," says Lewis (C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain). We ourselves did not choose the Lord, He has first chosen us, says Christ (c.f. Jn 15:16). "The beginning of justification must be attributed to God's prevenient grace through Jesus Christ, that is, to His call addressed to [men] without any previous merits of theirs" (Council of Trent, Decree on Justification, chapters 5) says the Church. In the words of the Catholic author Evelyn Waugh: "Grace is the unmerited and unilateral act of love by which God continually calls souls to Himself."

This is why the Church not only allows but compels us to baptize infants even though they be ignorant as to what is happening to them at the font. It is to emphasize that we are all as helpless as babes in the attainment of the divine life. He is the Efficient Cause, the Initiator of our salvation (c.f. Trent, ibid., chapter 7). The life of God Himself is the gift we call grace and this sanctifying life is offered to us without any doing on our part. If it did require any good work of ours it would not truly be considered a gift, which in all reality is what is (c.f. Rm 11:6). And just as He can make the humble maiden bear His physical life in her virginal womb through her humility, He also can give to us a participation of this same life in the midst of our nothingness.

In some circumstances the Lord even gives this gift of His love to us amidst our errors and failings. He seizes us in spite of our sin in order to deliver us to safety. His love for us is similar to the action of the angels sent to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Because Lot lingered and tarried along in the city, the angels seized him- in spite of his own inaction- in order to bring him and his family outside the perimeter set for destruction (c.f. Gn 19:15-17). Often enough, the Lord acts as that strong man breaking in and taking hold of the house (c.f. Mt 12:24-29) to save us in spite of our own guard.

For what is the love of God if not a fire that consumes even the most unseasoned wood? What is the love of God if not a biological conception that is physically wrought within a virgin's womb? What is the love of God if not the bringing forth of His life in a unique and individual way in each of us, even when "nihil est in homine, nihil est innoxium [there is nothing in man, nothing that is innocent]" (The Golden Sequence, Pentecost Sunday Liturgy)? For this is the hope of all Christians: He gives this life to us in spite of what- if anything- we bring to Him!

Nevertheless, as Mary's response was giving the Lord permission to work in her, so too this life of grace cannot remain in us in spite of ourselves. We eventually have to be passively remade in it, for although "man is not worthy of God, [he] is not incapable of being made worthy" (Blaise Pascal, Pensees, 510). This is precisely what St. Paul teaches: "We have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, to lead a life worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God" (Col 1:9-10). It is in this process of being made worthy of God that our own voluntary reception of His grace is quite necessary even if it is His work that will accomplish it.

And so, the Christian's life is a participation in that divine action that commences with God's movement and continues with our permitting this action to reshape a new image within us- a divine image- an image that was meant for us when He first brought us out of nothing. A virginal womb was a fitting arena in which the Lord chose to enter the cosmos for it announces to all creation that "with God nothing will be impossible" (Lk 1:37).