Genesis,
Chapter 3, verse 8-10:
8 When they heard
the sound of the LORD God walking about in the garden at the breezy time of the
day, the man and his
wife hid themselves from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9
The
LORD God then called to the man and asked him: Where are you? 10 He answered, “I heard you in the
garden; but I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid.”
Before the fall both Adam and Eve were unafraid of being exposed to God and they were innocent in that they knew not that they were naked. Adam states I heard the sound of you in the garden. We do not know what the sound of God is from the verse. Was it the same sound as a man walking in the garden? Or was it the sound of a rushing wind? We do not know; but Adam heard God and he was afraid because he was naked.
On the cross our Lord who always heard the Father
was now utterly alone,…And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice,
'Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani?' which means, 'My God, my God, why have you
forsaken me?' and he was also naked nailed to a tree. Tradition states that our
Lord’s cross rested on the skull of Adam in payment for the fall. Our Lord paid the ultimate price for our
sins.
Christ on the cross reversed the taking of the
fruit and the eating by Adam and Eve and became the fruit of life. Christ on the cross reversed the nakedness of
Adam and Eve by being naked himself.
Christ on the cross no longer heard the Father and He was afraid.
The greatest fear is a world without the
Father. Christ brought us at a great
price to bring us back to the Father. We
need not fear for God is now in us through the accomplishment of the Holy
Spirit. We must listen to His voice and follow
Him.
Mary who was conceived without sin on the Feast day
of the Immaculate Conception is our example of courage in the presence of God
and His angels. Then
the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with
God. Behold, you will conceive in
your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. (Luke 1:30-31)
ON this and the following eight
days the Church celebrates, with particular solemnity, the immaculate conception
of the ever-blessed Virgin Mary, who, from all eternity, was chosen to be the daughter
of the heavenly Father, the spouse of the Holy Ghost, the Mother of the divine Redeemer,
and, by consequence, the queen of angels and of men. The consideration of these
prerogatives convinced the most enlightened fathers and teachers of the
Catholic Church that she was conceived immaculate, that is, without original sin.
It is very remarkable that among the shining hosts of saints who have, in every
century, adorned the Church no one wrote against this belief, while we find it confirmed
by the decisions of the holy fathers from the earliest times. Pope Pius IX., forced,
as it were, by the faith and devotion of the faithful throughout the world, finally,
on December 8, 1854, sanctioned, as a dogma of faith falling within the infallible
rule of Catholic traditions, this admirable prerogative of the Blessed Virgin. It
is, therefore, now no longer, as formerly, a pious belief, but an article of the
faith, that Mary, like the purest morning light which precedes the rising of the
most brilliant sun, was, from the first instant of her conception, free from original
sin. (Goffine’s Devout Instructions, 1896)
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