CHURCH IN FOCUS: The Immaculate Conception 08 December 2011
The church celebrates the feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin
Mary on the 8th of December. The Immaculate Conception refers to the condition that
the Blessed Virgin Mary was free from Original Sin from the very moment of her conception
in the womb of her mother, Saint Anne. The doctrine of the Church tells us that Mary
being chosen by God from eternity to be the Mother of his Son Jesus, was conceived
immaculate, meaning that from the first instant of her existence she was in the state
of sanctifying grace and was free from the corrupt nature original sin brings. In
1858 when Mary appeared to the simple girl Bernadette at Lourdes she told her name
as the Immaculate Conception. This indeed has been the belief of the Church from the
early days that Mary is conceived Immaculate. God in his divine plan preserved Mary
without any stain of sin to prepare a proper dwelling place for his son who was to
come into the world. Today this feast has become a special feast of the church to
extol the greatness of Mary pure and sinless, whose virtues we Christians ought to
imitate. This feast commemorates one of the Marian dogmas that have been proclaimed
by the Holy Catholic Church which 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. The Immaculate Conception was not a precondition for Christ's act of redemption
but the result of it. It is the concrete expression of God's love for Mary, who gave
herself fully, completely, and without hesitation to His service. The Immaculate Conception
represents Christ's saving grace operating in Mary in anticipation of His redemption
of man and in God's foreknowledge of Mary's acceptance of His Will for her. The Feast
of the Immaculate Conception, in its oldest form, goes back to the seventh century,
when churches in the East began celebrating the Feast of the Conception of Saint Anne,
the mother of Mary. It took a long time for this doctrine to develop. While many
Fathers and Doctors of the Church considered Mary the greatest and holiest of the
saints, they often had difficulty in seeing Mary as sinless either at her conception
or throughout her life. This is one of the Church teachings that arose more from the
piety of the faithful than from the insights of brilliant theologians. Even such champions
of Mary as Bernard and Thomas Aquinas could not see theological justification for
this teaching. Two Franciscans, William of Ware and Blessed John Duns Scotus, helped
develop the theology. They point out that Mary’s Immaculate Conception enhances Jesus’
redemptive work. Other members of the human race are cleansed from original sin after
birth. In Mary, Jesus’ work was so powerful as to prevent original sin at the outset. The
origin of the feast can be traced to the 4th century, when theologians believed and
taught that the Blessed Virgin Mary had been kept free of all traces of sin by the
grace of God because she was to become the Mother of the Lord Jesus. This belief coexisted
with the perpetual virginity of Mary, her sinless state, and her Divine motherhood.
In the eighth century the feast came to the West and it became a feast of the Roman
Catholic Church. It is the only one of Mary's feasts that came to the Western Church
not by way of Rome, but instead spread from the Byzantine area to Naples, and then
to Normandy during their period of dominance over southern Italy. From there it spread
into England, France, Germany, and eventually Rome. Prior to Pope Pius IX's definition
of the Immaculate Conception as Church dogma in 1854, most missals referred to it
as the Feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Only after the eleventh
century that Mary is given the full title, the immaculate one. Pope Sixtus IV in
the fifteenth century while promoting the festival explicitly described it as the
feast of the Immaculate Conception in 1476, to be celebrated on the 8th of December.
Later the same title was endorsed by the Council of Trent. Centuries later, after
consulting all the Bishops of the world, Pope Pius IX pronounced and defined the dogma
the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In 1854, he made the infallible
statement in the Apostolic Constitution Ineffabilis Deus: "The most Blessed Virgin
Mary, in the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted
by almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the saviour of the human race,
was preserved free from all stain of original sin is a doctrine revealed by God and
therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful." In simple
terms, this dogma proclaims that: first and foremost the entire being of the Blessed
Virgin Mary, her physical and spiritual natures, were created by God Himself at her
conception; and, second, she who was to become the tabernacle of the incarnation,
was never subject to original sin, but was completely preserved from all the effects
of the sin of Adam. In other words, the whole being of the Blessed Virgin Mary was
created by God immaculate in nature. Mary was the only new and second Eve who was
created in an immaculate state which was equal to the state of holiness that the first
Eve enjoyed prior to her having disobeyed the Lord God in the Garden of Eden. The
Book of Genesis tells us that God created the first woman who was called Eve. She
enjoyed the divine blessing along with Adam which was a conditional gift from God.
This conditional gift of God is similar to someone indefinitely granting to them and
their posterity an opportunity to be with God totally. Adam and Eve disobeyed God
and lost the original state of holiness and justice that they enjoyed. Mary the Immaculate
person is now called upon to restore that grace to the humanity. The dogma was
defined in accordance with the conditions of papal infallibility, which would be defined
in 1870 by the First Vatican Council. The papal definition of the dogma declares with
absolute certainty and authority that Mary possessed sanctifying grace from the first
instant of her existence and was free from the lack of grace caused by the original
sin at the beginning of human history. Mary's salvation was won by her son Jesus Christ
through his passion, death, and resurrection and was not due to her own merits. For
the Roman Catholic Church the dogma of the Immaculate Conception gained additional
significance from the apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes in 1858. At Lourdes a 14-year-old
girl, Bernadette Soubirous, claimed a beautiful lady appeared to her. The lady said,
"I am the Immaculate Conception", and the faithful believe her to be the Blessed Virgin
Mary. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception holds that Mary is the one fully
human being preserved from original sin because she is the Mother of God. Grace intervened
at the very instant in which her life began, preventing sin from touching her in any
way, and so making her holy and immaculate from the moment of her conception. This
made her worthy, and suggests that she was divinely chosen, to be the Mother of God.
Christ preserved Mary from sin because she was his Mother. Mary, the one who is full
of grace and the one whom all generations will call blessed has been viewed as a unique
person since the earliest days of the Christian faith. This great gift to Mary, an
ordinary human being just like us, was fitting because she was destined to be Mother
of God. 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. The greatness of the special call to holiness by which
Mary is enriched from the first instant of her conception comes wholly from Christ:
she is redeemed, in a more exalted fashion, by reason of the merits of her Son. The
word Immaculate means without stain. One proof of this sinlessness of Mary is taken
from the greeting of the angel Gabriel to Mary, calling her, Hail, Mary, full of grace.
Because she was full of grace, Mary was most pleasing to God in all she was and did.
The feast tells us that the whole being of the Blessed Virgin Mary was created by
God immaculate in nature. Mary was the only new and second Eve who was created in
an immaculate state which was equal to the state of holiness that the first Eve enjoyed
prior to her having disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden. Today we are celebrating
that special privilege that Mary enjoyed. Two passages in Scripture point us to
this truth of Mary’s Immaculate Conception. The book of Genesis tells us that both
Adam and Eve lost the glory and beatific vision that they enjoyed in the Garden of
Eden by the trick of the evil one. They were created immaculate in their physical
and spiritual natures and together with their posterity would eternally enjoy the
beatific vision of God. Adam and Eve disobeyed God and through their disobedience,
sin entered into the world. There is total disharmony between God, man and nature.
In the new Eve, the Virgin Mary, God planned to reclaim His Kingdom and save His people
from death and thus bring harmony. The Gospel of Luke gives us he greeting of the
Angel: full of grace which led theologians to asserting that Mary, not only at the
moment of Jesus' conception, but at every moment of her existence was totally free
from any kind of sin. From these words, the angel Gabriel was expressing that the
Blessed Virgin Mary enjoyed a unique state of grace that far surpassed the creation
of all men and the angels. Her soul, spirit and body were immaculate because of her
immaculate conception. The Immaculate Conception is often misunderstood as referring
not to Mary’s conception but to the virginal conception of Jesus. Though it is possible
to indicate important stages in the development of the doctrine, it is not easy to
grasp the internal dynamic of the progression from the New Testament, which is silent
about Mary’s conception, to the dogmatic definition. The early dogmas of Mary’s virginity
and divine motherhood were Christological that is to say that they made statements
about Mary in order to preserve truths about Christ. The modern dogmas of the Immaculate
Conception and Assumption more directly envisage Mary. At one level they can be seen
as privileges and gifts to Mary, to the woman who is Mother of Jesus who is God and
man. This doctrine teaches us about our end, about the triumphant grace of Christ
which overcomes sin leads to final glory. However, the most fundamental thing to
say about the Immaculate Conception is the assertion that Mary was redeemed: in this
world where sin reigns, she was conceived sinless, that is, she was redeemed by the
merits of her Son. Jesus died for all on Calvary. We must thus say that he earned
on the cross the grace of his Mother’s Immaculate Conception. Our Christian faith
tells us that salvation is a free gift of God. The infant is sanctified by baptism;
the adult accepts God’s gift of justifying grace through faith. When we say that Mary
was immaculately conceived we state that she was redeemed in the most perfect possible
way through the divine intervention. The gift of God is pure grace, the most perfect
example of “grace alone”. She did nothing to merit or to acquire this grace: it is
totally gratuitous. Later at the Annunciation she would respond in faith to God’s
gift. We can therefore see why this gift is so dear to Mary, why at Lourdes she gave
her name in the words: “I am the Immaculate Conception.” She rejoices that she was
never for an instant outside God’s love, that she was never tainted by sin. It is
as reflect on her love for God and on her awareness of how much he loved her that
we can have some fleeting insight into Mary’s joy at her Immaculate Conception. In
the Immaculate Conception we can see the redemption fully at work. The Immaculate
Conception allowed Mary’s yes at the Annunciation to be limitless, without any unconscious
restriction. In Mary the grace of redemption reaches its highest expression. What
the whole church will one day become is already fulfilled in Mary through her Immaculate
Conception and Assumption. These are the consoling mysteries since they are the real
pledge and guarantee that God’s grace is more powerful than our guilt. The Immaculate
Conception of the Blessed Virgin reveals that God loves humanity as such. It also
means that God surrounds this life of humanity with loving fidelity. Most Church
Fathers agreed that Mary was sinless at the time she gave birth to Christ. They disagreed
as to whether Mary was made sinless at conception, birth, or when she said "yes" to
God's call. Even some prominent medieval Western theologians like St. Bonaventure
and St. Thomas Aquinas did not accept Mary's Immaculate Conception, although did not
deny that she was sinless. When discussing the Immaculate Conception, an implicit
reference may be found in the angel’s greeting to Mary. The angel Gabriel said, "Hail,
full of grace, the Lord is with you". The phrase "full of grace" therefore expresses
a characteristic quality of Mary. Mary was indeed a highly favoured daughter of God.
Since this term is in the perfect tense, it indicates that Mary was graced in the
past but with continuing effects in the present. So, the grace Mary enjoyed was not
a result of the angel’s visit. In fact, Catholics hold, it extended over the whole
of her life, from conception onward. She was in a state of sanctifying grace from
the first moment of her existence and she remained faithful and immaculate to God
to the end of her earthly life. Through the Immaculate Conception of Mary who fully
cooperated with the Divine Plan of God, we are led to Jesus. The glorious Feast of
the Immaculate Conception is a reminder that the Blessed Virgin Mary is the new Eve,
our spiritual Mother, she who has become co-redeemer with Christ in our salvation
by allowing her womb to become the humble instrument and Sacred Temple of the Living
God. The problem with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is that it is not
taught in the Bible. Mary is described as a simple and ordinary human person whom
God chose to be the mother of the Lord Jesus Christ. Mary was undoubtedly a godly
woman. The Bible gives us no reason to believe that Mary was sinless. In fact, the
Bible gives us every reason to believe that Jesus Christ is the only Person who was
not “infected” by sin and never committed a sin. Jesus himself was miraculously protected
from sin by the Father while he was in Mary's womb. The feast of the Immaculate Conception
is a sign of the triumph of the Universal Church which is manifested in Mary. In her
the redemptive work of God is fulfilled. She becomes an example for us and she tells
us that what happened to her will happen to us too.