Immaculate Conception December 8, 2021
Fr. Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
Destiny. What is destiny? What do we mean when we say something is a person’s destiny? That they have no choice? That life is beyond their control? I ask because St. Paul tells us we are “destined” for adoption by God through Jesus Christ. We have been “chosen, destined in accord with the purpose of the One who accomplishes all things according to the intention of his will.” And what is his will? “That we might exist for the praise of his glory.”
Is that it, then? We are destined for God’s glory in heaven and there’s nothing can do about it? If that’s the case, then what’s the point of doing anything? It’s all beyond our control anyway, right? Not exactly. It comes back to what you mean by “destined.” Indeed, the Church does have a teaching on “predestination,” but it’s a bit more nuanced than saying everything is decided in advance.
To get to the point, the Church explicitly rules out the idea that anyone is predestined for Hell. It is possible to go there, but that is the result of sin, of a free choice to reject God through mortal sin and to refuse repentance. That’s the touchy part: what is the relationship between destiny and free will?
There will always be some mystery, but here’s 3 key aspects of it: God comes first, God knows everything, goodness depends on God.
God comes first: God, as creator, designed how the universe works and how human nature works. Despite being perfectly happy in himself, he overflowed with generosity to create the world to reflect his goodness. He designed human beings in particular to be creatures with free will so they would have the choice to love him. There’s a certain sense of destiny in that: in order for us to even have a choice to love, God had to give us existence.
God knows everything: God is beyond time. While we live from moment to moment, God sees all moments at the same time. It’s the difference between swimming in a river and looking at the river from above. Because God knows all moments of time, he knows what we’re going to do. But knowing what we’ll do is not the same thing as making us do it. There’s a sense of destiny in that the end is not a mystery to him. It’s like when we re-read a good book. We know the end, but we’re still caught up in watching the characters make choices to get to that end. Unlike a human author, however, God the divine author does not make the choices for us. Our free will is still ours.
Goodness depends on God: Making the right choices to get to heaven requires grace. We cannot get there on our own. So, in order to get to heaven, we have to choose to accept a power and guidance greater than ourselves. There is a sense of destiny in recognizing and following the mysterious power known as grace.
So, what does all that have to do with Mary’s Immaculate Conception? Simply that, in Mary, we have the clearest possible example of destiny and free will at work. All the way back in Genesis, after Original Sin marred our human nature, God gives the promise, the prophecy of a woman whose offspring would strike the head of the serpent Satan. For thousands of years, this destiny was awaiting some mysterious woman.
Then, to fulfill this God, acting above and beyond our limitations, chose to make Mary conceived without Original Sin so that she would be able to become the mother of his son. It was destiny… God’s providence, not her own ability, that made this possible. And yet, when an angel is sent to announce this destiny to her, she recognizes a choice, an option to accept or reject it. God knows she will say yes, but that does not take away that it was a real decision on her part. And she continues to follow a path laid out for her by destiny, all the while freely choosing to embrace it, all the way to the side of the cross with her son.
In a similar way, there is a destiny for us. Some destinies might seem more spectacular than others to earthly eyes, but all of them, if accepted, are meant to end in ineffable glory – the glory of God himself. You did not choose when, where, or how you were born. Many, probably most of the opportunities in your life were completely beyond your control and influence. You had only the choice to recognize and accept them or to let them pass. And those choices matter, but they matter only because the destiny was there in the first place.
So, praise God, sing to him for his marvelous deeds. He has offered you the saving truth. He has made known to you his glory. He has made you his son or daughter through baptism, offered you the forgiveness of sins, and enabled you to receive divinity itself through his son in the Eucharist. You and I, little, broken, and weak as we may seem, are destined for glory. Mary has shown us the way, the only way which comes through her son who humbled himself to make her his mother. Our destiny awaits, but the question still remains: will we accept it?