The Immaculate Conception
Feast day – December 08
A feast called the
Conception of Mary arose in the Eastern Church in the seventh century. It came
to the West in the eighth century. In the eleventh century it received its
present name, the Immaculate Conception. In the eighteenth century it became a
feast of the universal Church. In 1854 Pius IX gave the infallible statement:
“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.” 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.
In Luke 1:28 the angel
Gabriel, speaking on God’s behalf, addresses Mary as “full of grace” (or
“highly favoured”). In that context this phrase means that Mary is receiving
all the special divine help necessary for the task ahead. However, the Church
grows in understanding with the help of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit led the
Church, especially non-theologians, to the insight that Mary had to be the most
perfect work of God next to the Incarnation. Or rather, Mary’s intimate
association with the Incarnation called for the special involvement of God in
Mary’s whole life. The logic of piety helped God’s people to believe that Mary
was full of grace and free of sin from the first moment of her existence.
Moreover, this great privilege of Mary is the highlight of all that God has
done in Jesus. Rightly understood, the incomparable holiness of Mary shows
forth the incomparable goodness of God.
“[Mary] gave to the world
the Life that renews all things, and she was enriched by God with gifts
appropriate to such a role. “It is no wonder, then, that the usage prevailed
among the holy Fathers whereby they called the mother of God entirely holy and
free from all stain of sin, fashioned by the Holy Spirit into a kind of new
substance and new creature. Adorned from the first instant of her conception
with the splendours of an entirely unique holiness, the Virgin of Nazareth is,
on God’s command, greeted by an angel messenger as ‘full of grace’ (cf. Luke
1:28). To the heavenly messenger she replies: ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord,
be it done to me according to thy word’ (Luke 1:38)” (Dogmatic
Constitution on the Church, 56).
Sources for this article were taken from: AmericanCatholic.org
Prayer
O
God, who by the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, didst prepare
a worthy dwelling place for thy Son, we beseech thee that, as by the foreseen
death of this, thy Son, thou didst preserve her from all stain, so too thou
wouldst permit us, purified through her intercession, to come unto thee.
Through the same Lord Jesus Christ, thy Son, who livest and reignest with thee
in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end.
Amen.
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