Groucho Marx once said, “I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members.” We can feel a similar sense of unsuitabilty about our membership as one of the people of God. We know our faults and failings which would seem to disqualify us from the kingdom of heaven. However, St. Paul reminds us that it is not our own virtues that earn us a place as part of God’s family but the divine choice. God chose us in [Christ], before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him. In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ. Today’s feast of the Immaculate Conception reminds us that from the first moment of her existence Mary was “holy and without blemish.” This was not her doing but God’s anticipation of the redemption of Christ. She is our model then that God chooses even the likes of us to be “adopted” as belong to the children of God not because of our goodness but because of God’s goodness.
