It is once again the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, which celebrates Mary’s (not Christ’s!) conception, which was without original sin even though she came before Christ’s crucifixion redeemed humanity.
The trans-temporality of this occurance fascinates me. It suggests to me that something else I would like to say is possible; that original sin itself is in some ways trans-temporal, retroactive so to speak. That would allow us to retain a temporal fall while explaining how the world was fallen (and I don’t buy the argument that it wasn’t fallen – sabre-toothed tigers killed and ate wooly mammoths) when it ought to have been prelapsarian.
But asserting a retroactive fall might be going too far. I’m not sure, really. Anyway, it’s three in the morning, and I need to write a paper. Happy feast day everybody.