Immaculate Conception: Mary, Younger than Sin

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Maria Immaculata by Carlo Maratta
Maria Immaculata by Carlo Maratta

Towards the end of the novel [The Diary of the Country Priest by Georges Bernanos] (and of the priest’s life), the connection is made with childhood, with youthfulness. The country priest had been obsessed with his apparent failure to bring about spiritual results in his ministry. The meeting with the countess had been the first time, a meeting centered on a discussion for which he had not prepared intellectually. He had entered into it with all the innocence of his youth. Thinking back on this, he writes: “And I know now that youth is a gift from God, and like all his gifts, carries no regret....There was no old man in me....This awareness is sweet. For the first time in years—perhaps for the first time ever—I seem to stand before my youth and look upon it without mistrust....And my youth looks back at me, forgives me. Disheartened by the sheer clumsiness in me which always kept me back, I demanded of my youth what youth alone can't give, and I said it was a stupid thing and was ashamed of being young.” This is the man whose last words were “Everything is grace.”
Only the one who is “like this child” can recognize grace. That is why the one younger than sin was the same one who is full of grace. (Lorenzo Albacete,  “Younger Than Sin,” Communio, 1995)

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