Feast of the Immaculate Conception y Día de las Madres

Today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. I personally think the idea that the Blessed Virgin Mary was "preserved free from the stain of original sin from the first moment of her conception" to be a bunch a hooey. It's another example of humans restricting God. If the Creator of the Universe decides to Incarnate, I really don't think The Stain of Original Sin is going to be a big worry; it's not like original sin is genetic. At least I don't think that a gene for original sin has been discovered by the Human Genome Project. I tend to be in the Christotokos camp rather than the Theotokos camp, which makes me a bit of a Nestorian, of course, but I've been called much worse things, and at least I'm not a Donatist. But we certainly have a nice icon today, don't we?

Here in Panamá it is also Día de las Madres, Mother's Day, which is a national holiday, so the church office is closed, as well as almost everything else in the country. All the countries in Central America celebrate Mother's Day on different dates. Our first year in Panamá Mona had three Mother's Days; May in the U.S., August in Costa Rica, and then December in Panamá. The streets were clear as I took my morning power walk, which was nice. It seems to me that it would be nice to let mummy sleep in on Mother's Day, but I heard a Drum and Bugle Corp (we gots lottsa dem here) marching and drumming at 6:00 this morning!! Perhaps someone was angry at their mother. My mom lives in the U.S. so no card for her until May. Okay, maybe I'll call her.