CT Blue

This has nothing to do with politics.

I’ve mentioned before that I have an advanced degree in theology, courtesy of the nuns at the aptly named Our Lady of Sorrows Grammar school. But recently I discovered a shocking deficit in my theological knowledge. That deficit has been corrected, and I feel obligated to both confess error and share the fruits of my new found knowledge with anyone who happens to read this blog.

A little background. My son and daughter in law gave my wife and I tickets to The Book of Mormon for Christmas. The reader is free to speculate why my son and daughter felt that I’d enjoy this particular play. Some friends bought tickets for the same March 24th showing, and after the show we met them and my son and his spouse, at a very nice New York City Italian restaurant. The reader should not be surprised that the subject of religion came up during our dinner conversation.

Now my son was raised religion free, and while he may teach at a fancy pants university, the fact is that he just can’t match my academic credentials when it comes to theology, particularly the theology of the one true Holy Roman Catholic Church (see above). So, when he mentioned that Mary (you know, Virgin mother of our Lord Jesus Christ) had been immaculately conceived, I immediately pulled academic rank and stated that only Jesus, god’s only son who died for our sins on a crucifix, without singing so much as a single verse of Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, was immaculately conceived.

But I was wrong, and my smarty pants, unbaptized and therefore Limbo bound (at best) son was right!

During my rigorous religious training I was made aware early on that Mary was a virgin, and remained a virgin throughout her life, even after giving birth to our Lord Jesus Christ, who was sired, not by a bull, like in those Greek fables, but by God the father, even though the Lord Jesus Christ actually existed prior to his own birth. (We shall leave that conundrum aside) Truth to tell, during the first several years of my theological education I was a bit hazy on precisely what a virgin was, except for that it was a very good thing, but I did manage to piece it all together, no thanks to the nuns, before I got my degree. So anyway, Jesus was immaculately conceived because Mary never once “did it” with any mortal man (just the also aptly named God the Father, and that has no effect on virginity, apparently). We are left to speculate how Joseph felt about all that, but really he’s just a bit player and he had to take one for the team.

So, when my professorial offspring said Mary had been Immaculately Conceived, I leapt to the conclusion that he was saying that her mama and daddy never “did it” either, or at least didn’t “do it” the time Mary was conceived. I, e., that God the Father “did it” with Mary’s Mom, before he “did it” with Mary, which really seems a bit much, when you think about it.

But it turns out, Mary’s Mom and Dad did “do it” after all. But Mary was still immaculately conceived.

Okay, now we have to step back a bit. As we all know, we are all born sinners, carrying the stain of “original sin” which, so far as I can gather from all the evidence, is a result of the fact that we got here because our parents “did it”. Not a big deal (for Catholics, deadly for all others), because it’s easily washed away by a properly conducted Catholic baptism, all others being totally ineffectual. I should pause here and say that my fellow theology students and I could never quite see the fairness of blaming a newborn child for someone else’s sin (even if we didn’t quite know what “doing it” was at first, not to mention the confusion engendered by the story about the apple). Now, it turns out that inasmuch as God (the Father) had plans for Mary, he gave her a free pass and even though her parents “did it” she was born with a clean slate so to speak. That way she could be sin free when she “did it” with God, because back then they didn’t have baptisms, and even if they did, they didn’t count because they weren’t Catholic baptisms. And she did indeed live a sin free life, which again was easier back then, since she didn’t have to come up with any sins (“I lied to my parents three times”) to satisfy the priest during confession. So Mary was immaculately conceived as was Jesus, only in a completely different way.

Some people might say that you can’t make this stuff up, but somebody did! Now compared to the stuff Mormons have to believe, you can easily swallow this stuff with one gulp, and you’d better, because if you don’t, you’ll spend eternity in the fires of hell, and if the Church could bring back the good old days, you’d get there by being pre-burnt here.