A different Eve

The man called his wife Eve,
because she became the mother of all the living.

So ends today’s first reading (Genesis 3:9-15, 20) on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.

Tragically, she became “mother of all the living” after having chosen the path of sin.

Today’s Solemnity celebrates someone whom the Fathers of the Church called the “New Eve” a woman who, by the grace of her Son and Savior Jesus Christ, was preserved from the taint of sin, who always refused the path of sin, and who chose always and freely to accept the will of God and the most awesome responsibility ever entrusted to a human being.

And so she is called the new Eve: the mother of all the living in Christ.

May we always walk in the path of the new Eve by the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ – son of God and son of Mary.