The man called his wife Eve,
because she became the mother of all the living.
Eve was meant to be the mother of all the living but she and Adam ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil of which it was said, "when you eat from it you shall die" (see Genesis 2:17). And while it is true that Eve continued to live for many years and give birth to many offspring it is nevertheless also true that something did die within herself and her husband at that very moment. It was a spiritual death, a death of the soul, a loss of access to the organizing principle of life that God himself was meant to be.
It is amazing how quickly the human story began to look familiar after this death of the soul. There was immediately fear, suspicion, blame, and misunderstanding. Within a generation there was the first murder, a fratricide. Yet although this act of disobedience on the part of our first parents was the beginning of so much pain and sorrow it was also the very moment when God promised to set right and restore what was lost.
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
Eve never attained this enmity with the serpent. She had chosen the creation over its creator, and friendship with the world was even then already implicitly enmity with God (see James 4:4). From then on, none of the sons of Adam or the daughters of Eve would have the enmity with the serpent that they might wish. By this first act of obedience to the Devil, the serpent in some sense gained power over mankind, a foothold within our souls. This was the power of the kingdom of darkness over men, the slavery of sin from which we could never on our own strength be free.
But this enmity which was felt by its absence was nevertheless promised to a woman and her offspring. The power of sin over the human race would not be indefinite. There would be a woman who experienced the true enmity with evil that came from being entirely free of sin even from the moment of her conception. She was to be shielded from the corruption of the original sin of our first parents in order that she might given birth to the one who would finally destroy the Devil forever, together with all his works (see First John 3:8).
Mary, mother of our savior, was given a singular grace by the merit of Christ to share in advance in the blessings that God himself predestined for all of us, which he was unwilling to let the schemes of the devil spoil.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us in Christ
with every spiritual blessing in the heavens,
as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world,
to be holy and without blemish before him.
Mary was chosen before the foundation in the world to be the sinless mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who was himself every spiritual blessing in the heavens. She was made holy and without blemish before him not in virtue of any work she did but by God's own saving power. This was done at the very moment of her conception to be a testament to God's own power and generosity, proof that Mary's merit was not the cause but rather the result of the grace that filled her.
Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.
When we witness the way that Jesus came into the world as humble and poor we might assume that he was demonstrating that he may as well have come anywhere and in any condition. But there was nothing accidental about his plan. It was among other things a demonstration of how a heart completely given over to God was a heart fully open to receive his word. Mary was an example at the very beginning of what could result from surrender to the work of God within an individual heart. She was singularly blessed in this way so that she could be a blessing to others, so that in every age she could magnify the Lord.
Even today Mary continues to teach us to magnify the Lord, to rejoice in him, and to open ourselves to his Holy Spirit and to his word. Her own holiness is does not cause our eyes to rest on her, but on Jesus for whose sake she was made to be holy. She is the ark of the New Covenant, holy for the sake of the one whom she was to contain. She is the new Eve, the one who is truly the mother of the living. We rejoice to be "her offspring … those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus" (see Revelation 12:17).
Mary's prayers can help us break free from a friendship with the world that is actually the influence of the serpent. Her humility is the power needed to crush the serpent's head. Immaculate Mary, pray for us!
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