The God of peace will shortly crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Romans 16:20

I was reading the exchange between Jesus and Nicodemus, the exchange in which Jesus speaks of being “born again;”

He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with that person.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. John 3:2-5

At first glance we may want to laugh at Nicodemus for such a literal interpretation, but Jesus does not tell Nicodemus he is dumb.  He merely states that to enter the Kingdom of God you must be born of water and the spirit.  He knows that Nicodemus doesn’t understand what He is saying.

It occurred to me though, that Nicodemus’ question is not too far off the mark.  We know from Blessed John Duns Scotus and from Saint Maximilian Kolbe who expounded on Scotus’ teachings that Mary is pre-redeemed as the created Immaculate Conception.  According to Fr. Peter Damian Fehlner, FI, who summarizes Kolbe, she is;

“the only human person who has no other reason to be, nor in fact ever existed in any other way except as ‘the Immaculate Conception’, thereby making our becoming immaculate possible in being freed from sin. (St. Maximilian Kolbe, Martyr of Charity Pneumatologist, His Theology of the Holy Spirit, by Father Peter Damian Fehlner, FI, page 88. – emphasis mine)”

This means, that by virtue of the cross outside of time, Mary was preserved, but also that when we are baptized we are partaking in those merits of the cross through the Immaculate Conception.  In other words, even though we are conceived in sin, we are “born again” from our mother’s immaculate womb through the action of the Holy Spirit, the uncreated Immaculate Conception, who is bound as spouse to Mary, the created Immaculate Conception.  This makes Mary our Mother and since we are the church, she is Mother of the Church.  We do come forth from our mother’s womb cleansed.  Nicodemus may not have understood, but his question was far from foolish.

Our baptism makes us “born again” cleansing us of our original sin, which saves us, but it does not elevate our nature.  We still suffer from concupiscence.  The journey to heaven is a journey of purification where we rely more and more on God to elevate our fallen nature back to the purity in which it was created, but even more mature.   A journey that was shown to us by Jesus with his Mother at His side. Baptism cleanses the sin, but it does not elevate our nature which desires sin.  The road to this cleansing is the road to the cross.  So our life is really a dual conversion.  The first takes places when we recognize Jesus as Our Lord and Savior.  We are redeemed. The second takes place when we deny our desires for the sake of God’s desires, which is to say, we take up our cross and follow him after accepting Him as Lord and Savior.  We are restored. It is a cooperative action which requires us to try. 

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life? Matthew 16:24-26

The first conversion recognizes who saves.  The second conversion is a path of handing over the human will to the Divine Will whereby the Will of God elevates our desire from our fallen nature to a place of divinization where He totally fills us with Himself.  It is a path of action, but the action involves the surrendering to the Savior our fallen desires.   We conform ourselves to the Cross and we proclaim the goodness of God.  This proclamation of the goodness of God is something concupiscence steals because it corrupted our vision and we fail to see his goodness in our suffering.  Our lower desires for comfort take over.  The temptation is to do what is easy.  But we can cooperate with God. It begins with our recognition that we have a path to take and that our restoration is not as instantaneous event.  The fall didn’t happen in an instant.  The thought or desire to “be like god” started in the hearts of Adam and Eve before the action of sin took place.  In other words, their nature began to be corrupted prior to the actual sin of when they fell.  We can see this happening when Eve converses with the devil while Adam stands there and does nothing.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’ ” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die,  for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.  Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.  Genesis 3:1-7

This corruption (along with sin) is what the Lord is trying to purge. He wants our conversations to be with Him, not the devil. He wants our relationship to be with Him, not the devil.

So we can see, God in His mercy gave us a way back.  It is a way through the Immaculate Conception and the Cross.  The Way is forged forward because of Christ by the Church and her Sacraments, but also by Our Holy Mother who guides us.  Baptism removes the sin and lets us partake in the Immaculate Conception so as to be born again.  Confession keeps us reliant on God’s mercy.  The Eucharist purifies our hearts and our vision. 

Mary did not have the fallen desires, or concupiscence, because she was full of grace, but she still had the free will to choose.  There was never any corruption that began in her heart.  She had total unitive relationship with God as a daughter, a spouse and a Mother.  And because we have a share in her Immaculate Conception by virtue of our being baptized and born again, we have a Mother who will walk with us and intercede for us in the journey to the Cross; the one where we nail our human will to that cross.

Because of sin and concupiscence we are born into a relationship with evil.  But scripture tells us what kind of relationship that should be;

I will put enmity between you and the woman
    and between your offspring and hers;
he will strike your head,
    and you will strike his heel.” Genesis 3:15

Though most of us tend to desire what is evil, this is not what we should give into.  Our relationship with evil should embrace the enmity that God instituted as stated in the scripture.  Enmity is a Holy Hatred that was instituted by God.  Mary, though sinless and without concupiscence would have had perfect enmity.  Her knowledge of evil was the knowledge of our sin. That would have been her only relationship with evil.  But as she traveled the path of the cross, she, like Jesus, grew in wisdom;

And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man. Luke 2:52

Mary as a creature, grew in perfect love.  Jesus is perfect love Himself and here is what we know about the perfect love of Jesus and what the cross did;

having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace,  and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. Ephesians 2:15-16 *

That is to say that Jesus, who is perfect charity, conquered evil which conquered death.  He did the Will of the Father perfectly and Heaven has no evil.  Jesus’ Resurrection and Ascension abolish enmity.  It is a raising to no knowledge of evil; no thought, word, or action of evil. You could phrase this abolishment of enmity as saying, “I never knew you.”

Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you who behave lawlessly.’ Matthew 7:21-23

Jesus is recognized in His authority by the demons, but Jesus doesn’t even let the demons speak and banishes them. He gives them no voice;

 In the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice,  “Leave us alone! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be quiet and come out of him!” Then the demon, throwing the man down before them, came out of him without doing him any harm. Luke 4:33-37

Mary, who is so filled with the Spirit can also declare, “I never knew you” in her bodily Assumption into heaven.  She is totally pure in mind, body and soul and did the Will of the Father. This relational break with the devil, this abolishment of enmity, does not recognize the identity of the devil.  This is the devil’s humiliation.  He cannot stand not being recognized as the god he can never be because of the victory of the cross.  This is why he fears Mary so much.  She is so bound to the Holy Spirit through the mediation of her Son that the two cannot be distinguished in his eyes.  And for her part his banishment is the only result.  It’s why in exorcism the Holy names of Jesus and Mary convey such power.  While an exorcist may seek the name of a demon, this is to enhance enmity, and identify what needs to be expelled, both the sin and the demon.  But heaven has already expelled this evil so when heaven shows up here, demons flee in humiliation.  Saints in heaven have a share in all of this.

But this path is for us as well.  Jesus and His Mother desire our cooperation and this cooperation is the path to living in the Divine Will.  We must cooperate and do our part, but we must also wait on God to complete our perfection.  We will never be like Mary, but we can be her children, the children of God, not just redeemed but eventually, in the plan of God, restored.  Until then;

Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff— they comfort me. Psalm 23:4

*Typically I use the NRSV bible translation, but the newer translation says “hostility” instead of enmity. I used the NKJ version which says enmity for this quote. Though both are correct usages, for the sake of clarity, I used the version with enmity.