In teaching that Mary was conceived
immaculate, the Catholic Church
teaches that from the very moment of
her conception, the Blessed Virgin
Mary was free from all stain of original
sin. This simply means that from the beginning, she was in a state of grace,
sharing in God's own life, and that she
was free from the sinful inclinations
which have beset human nature after
the fall. History of the Doctrine There are two passages in Scripture
which point us to this truth. We look
first at Genesis 3.15, in which we see
the parallel between Mary and Eve of
which the early Church Fathers already
spoke: "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your
seed and her seed: he shall bruise
your head, and you shall bruise his
heel." The Jews saw this passage as
referring to the struggle between
Christ and Satan, and so the Church see in "the woman" a prophetic
foreshadowing of the Virgin Mary
(Vatican II, Lumen gentium, # 55).
If there is to be complete enmity
between the woman and the serpent,
then she never should have been in
any way subject to him even briefly.
This implies an Immaculate
conception.
We can also reason from the text of Lk
1:28, in which the angel calls her "full
of grace". If we can validate the
translation--we can, and will do so,
shortly--then in this verse we can see
even more strongly the complete enmity with the serpent--for God's
grace is complete opposed to Satan's
reign. But if Mary was "full of grace," it
seems that she must have been
conceived immaculate.
We turn to the early Fathers of the
Church. First, many, not all of them,
make sweeping statements about her
holiness. That could imply an
Immaculate Conception. Secondly,
very many of them speak of her as the New Eve. They could have reasoned:
the first Eve had an immaculate start in
life--no sin was yet committed. So the
New Eve, who was to share in
undoing the harm of original sin,
should have also an immaculate start. However, none of the Fathers actually
followed this line of reasoning. (A few
Fathers even tried to find sins she had
committed, e.g. St. John Chrysostom,
Homilies on John 21. PG 59. 130ff).
During the middle ages, authors such
as St. Bernard of Clairvaux and St.
Thomas Aquinas denied the doctrine.
At this time, the data from Scripture
and the Fathers was still not clear. In
addition, the understanding of original sin was not as clear as it should have
been--it was often thought of as
having a positive element, instead of
merely being an original lack of the
grace to which God calls us. This
positive element was thought to be transmitted from parents to children
through the marital act (which was
itself thought to be somehow sinful,
though pardoned by God), and so it
was hard to see how there could be
an immaculate conception. This conception had been found in some,
though by no means all, of the Fathers.
Now of course we know it to be false.
Finally, it was not generally seen at this
time how an Immaculate conception
of Mary would not take away from the universality of redemption through
Christ.
After a while, however, the theological
tide began to turn, and the objections
which had long obscured the content
of divine revelation began to be
overcome. This was due especially to
the work of the Franciscan, Venerable John Duns Scotus. He showed that for
God to preserve Mary from original sin
was a greater redemption than to
allow her to fall into it and then rescue
her. Scotus wrote (cited from J. B.
Carol, Mariology I, 368): "Either God was able to do this, and did not will to
do it, or He willed to preserve her, and
was unable to do so. If able to and yet
unwilling to perform this for her, God
was miserly towards her. And if He
willed to do it but was unable to accomplish it, He was weak, for no one
who is able to honor his mother
would fail to do so."
We also note again that behind most
of the objections was the rather
positive notion of original sin. If we
jump ahead several centuries to the
clearer understanding of original sin
we have now, we can remove this objection. Pope John Paul II epressed
this understanding in a General
Audience on Oct 1, 1986: "In context
it is evident that original sin in Adam's
descendants has not the character of
personal guilt. It is the privation of sanctifying grace in a nature which,
through the fall of the first parents, has
been diverted from its supernatural
end. It is a 'sin of nature' only
analogically comparable to 'personal
sin'". In other words: It is only the lack, or privation, of that which God
wanted us to have, which we should
have inherited from our first parents."
Now back to our history. After that this
change in theological tide had gone
far towards removing objections, the
Popes began to make statements of
varying clarity. Sixtus IV in 1477 (DS
1400) praised the liturgical celebration of the Immaculate Conception. The
same Pope added further support in
1483 (DS 1425-26), condemning
those who said it was sinful to preach
and believe the Immaculate
Conception. The Council of Trent explicitly declared in its decree on
original sin (DS 1516): "... it is not its
intention to include in this decree ...
the blessed and Immaculate Virgin
Mary, Mother of God. Rather, the
Constitutions of Sixtus [IV] of happy memory are to be observed."
After Trent, the attacks on the
Immaculate Conception were greatly
moderated. Then Pope St. Pius V, in
1567 (DS 1973) condemned the error
of Baius who said Our Lady was
subject to original sin. And in 1568 the same Pope put the feast of the
Immaculate Conception on the
calendar of the Roman breviary.
Alexander VII in 1661 explained the
doctrine much as Pius IX did later: DB
1100. Pope Clement XI in 1708 made December 8 a holyday of obligation.
Further, the Sixth Provincial Council of
Baltimore in the U. S. in 1846 declared
Mary Immaculate to be Patroness of
the United States, and Pius IX on Feb. 7,
1847 confirmed this dedication.
The result was that about a century
and a half before the definition of
1854, the whole Church believed the
Immaculate Conception. Finally, in
Ineffabilis Deus, in 1854, Pius IX
defined this doctrine and added that Mary was conceived immaculate by
anticipation of the merits of Christ. This
is not strange, for to the eye of God, all
time is present.
Now the Church continues to elucidate
the scriptural basis of the doctrine of
the Immaculate Conception. Pius XII, in
Fulgens corona, 1953 wrote: "... the
foundation of this doctrine is seen in
the very Sacred Scripture itself, in which God ... after the wretched fall of
Adam, addressed the ... serpent in
these words... 'I will put enmity....' But
if at any time, the Blessed Virgin Mary,
defiled in her conception with the
hereditary stain of sin, had been devoid of divine grace, then at least,
even though for a very brief moment
of time, there would not have been
that eternal enmity between her and
the serpent ... but instead there would
have been a certain subjection."
Preventive redemption
We have said that Mary needed
redemption, although she was never
subject to original sin. Nor did she
have an "obligation" to contract it, as
some have foolishly said: there can be
no obligation to any sin. We can merely say she would have been in
original sin in the sense just explained,
i.e. , she would have been born
without grace, were it not for the
preventive redemption. The word
"preventive" means anticipatory: the grace she received at her conception
was given in anticipation (Latin
praevenire) of Christ's merits, which
earned that grace.
The nature of Mary's grace at the
Immaculate Conception
In Lk 1:28 the archangel hails her as,
"full of grace". Most versions today do
not use that rendering, but greatly
weaken it. Yet it is the correct
translation as we can see from the
Magisterium (Pius XII, Fulgens Corona, AAS 45, 579, and constant use of the
Church) and also from philology.
For the Greek word in the Gospel is
kecharitomene. It is a perfect passive
participle of the verb charitoo. A
perfect passive participle is very
strong. In addition, charitoo belongs
to a group of verbs ending in omicron omega. They have in common that
they mean to put a person or thing
into the state indicated by the root.
Thus leukos means white, so leukoo
means to make white. Then charitoo
should mean to put into charis. That word charis can mean either favor or
grace. But if we translate by favor, we
must keep firmly in mind that favor
must not mean merely that God, as it
were, sits there and smiles at
someone, without giving anything. That would be Pelagian: salvation
possible without grace. So for certain,
God does give something, and that
something is grace, are share in His
own life. So charitoo means to put into
grace. But then too, kecharitomene is used in place of the name "Mary". This
is like our English usage in which we
say, for example, someone is Mr.
Tennis. That means he is the ultimate
in tennis. So then kecharitomene
should mean "Miss Grace", the ultimate in grace. Hence we could reason that
fullness of grace implies an
Immaculate Conception.
Overflowing grace: Pius IX, in the
document, Ineffabilis Deus, defining
the Immaculate Conception in 1854
wrote: "He [God] attended her with
such great love, more than all other
creatures, that in her alone He took singular pleasure. Wherefore He so
wonderfully filled her, more than all
angelic spirits and all the Saints, with
an abundance of all heavenly gifts
taken from the treasury of the divinity,
that she, always free from absolutely every stain of sin, and completely
beautiful and perfect, presented such
a fullness of innocence and holiness
that none greater under God can be
thought of, and no one but God can
comprehend it."
What about the words of Jesus in Lk
11:27-28 (cf. Mt. 12:46-50 and Mk
3:35)? A woman in the crowd
exclaimed: "Blessed is the womb that
bore you...." He replied: "Rather
blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it."
The dignity of being Mother of God is a
quasi infinite dignity, as we just saw
from the words of Pius XI. Yet here,
our Lord is teaching us that the
holiness coming from hearing the
word of God and keeping it is something greater still. Her holiness
must indeed be great--so great that
"none greater under God can be
thought of, and no one but God can
comprehend it."
Even though Mary was full of grace at
the start of her life, yet she could still
grow, for, as it were, her capacity for
grace could increase.
In general, a soul will grow in
proportion to these things: (1) The
greater the dignity of the person, the
greater the merit In her case, the
dignity of Mother of God is the highest
possible for a creature. (2) The greater the work, the greater the merit: her
cooperation in the redemption was
the greatest work possible to a
creature. (3) The greater the love, the
greater the merit. Love of God means
the attachment of our will to His. Her will adhered supremely, with no
obstacle at all, so that even ordinary
household duties, which she saw as
the will of the Father for her, were
supremely valuable.
From EWTN
