“And the angel … said… : ‘Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women’.” (Luke 1:28)
1. Mary’s Immaculate Conception is an infallible doctrine of the Catholic Church promulgated by Pope Pius IX , ex cathedra (from the chair of St. Peter) on December 8, 1854. The Papal Bull reads:
“We declare, pronounce and define that the doctrine which asserts that the Blessed Virgin Mary, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God, and in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, was preserved free from every stain of original sin is a doctrine revealed by God and, for this reason, must be firmly and constantly believed by all the faithful.”
“With these words in 1854, Pope Pius IX in the Papal Bull Ineffabilis Deus, declared Mary’s Immaculate Conception to be dogma. Pius was simply affirming a long-held belief of many Christians East and West before him, that Mary was conceived free of the stain of original sin, on account of Christ’s work, in order to bear God-made-flesh.” (From Saint John Cantius Parish web-site)
2. The dogma is confirmed four years later (in 1858) by the Blessed Virgin Mary herself in the most famous of her apparitions at Lourdes. At Lourdes, when asked her name by St. Bernadette, Mary responded in an extraordinary fashion, saying, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” Since then, Lourdes has been the situs of countless miracles.
Martin Luther, (Sermon: “On the Day of the Conception of the Mother of God,” 1527).
4. Contrary to popular belief, the doctrine has strong scriptural support in that:
A. Gabriel announces that Mary is “full of grace” (Luke 1:28). If Mary is full of grace it follows that she is without sin (note how the angel does not call Mary by her name, but rather by a title, saying:“Hail, full of grace” – and the angel is God’s messenger). The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible defends the traditional translation, “Hail, full of grace,” as against some modern translations, stating: “[The Greek word used by Luke], kecharitomene, indicates that God has already graced Mary previous to this point, making her a vessel who ‘has been’ and ‘is now’ filled with divine life. Alternative translations like ‘favored one’… are possible but inadequate.”
B. Saint Luke (in his Gospel) and Saint John (in the Book of Revelation) identify Mary as the Ark of the New Covenant, thus comparing her to the all-holy Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament. See “Topical Essay: Mary Ark of the Covenant” in The Ignatius Catholic Bible Study or click the following on-line article from Catholic Answers: Mary, the Ark of the New Covenant | Catholic Answers
C. Mary’s Immaculate Conception is internally consistent with the doctrine of Original Sin (which flows from a number of Old and New Testament passages, especially at Romans 5:12-21). Since original sin is transmitted by physical generation, it follows logically that Jesus, who was born without sin, would have to be born from a spotless womb. Mary is that pure and spotless vessel: the woman who overflows with God’s grace; and
D. John the Baptist was sanctified in his mother’s womb. At Luke 1:15 it states that John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth. The passage, in context, reads as follows:
Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth. Many of the people of Israel will he bring back to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”(Luke 1:11-17)
The angel then identifies himself as Gabriel, the same angel of Mary’s annunciation a few lines later at Luke 1:26, who addresses Mary, not by a name, but by a title, “Hail, Full of grace.” The point is obvious (I think its obvious): if John was filled with the Holy Spirit from birth, what was done in God’s providence to prepare Mary to be the mother of God? Luke then, as you know, makes a direct comparison between Mary and the Ark of the Covenant, implying the incredible magnitude of her sanctity and holiness. All of this fits in very nicely with the Church’s proclamation of her Immaculate Conception.
Tom Mulcahy, M.A.
Image: The lead image, Madonna and Child 2, by Bartolomeo Montagna. According to Wikipedia, “This image (or other media file) is in the Public Domain [U.S.A.] because its copyright has expired. However – you may not use this image for commercial purposes and you may not alter the image or remove the WikiGallery watermark.”
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HAIL MARY!
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In a little more than twelve hours it will be sunset in the first time zone, beginning the final complete Liturgical Year before the Glorious Manifestation of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ upon the fulfillment of the 2,300th day of Daniel 8:14, Holy Family Sunday, December 30, 2018 A.D.
That Sunday is also a Sunday proper after the Nativity of Jesus Christ, and a Sunday proper before the Theophany of Jesus Christ.
Due to its historical placement, it is also called the First Sunday of the General Resurrection of the Dead.
But the Church will indeed celebrate yet two more occurrences of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception until then, forming a beautiful gate of purity to remind us of the stainless heavens and earth to come.
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Words do have mental equivalents that go beyond their raw definitions. The female vocative kecharitomene literally means “highly favoured or graced” and also implies “made acceptable” and “lovely”. So, now we must ask ourselves how it is that Mary is identified as being and having been made these ways. Scripture alone doesn’t explicitly provide the answer, so we must look to Tradition (the unwritten word of God) whose transmission and development is safeguarded by the Holy Spirit (Jn 16:12-13). ‘We see now through a glass in a dark manner; but then face to face’ (1 Cor 13:12). To answer the question how we must, in the first place, focus on who Mary’s son is and her place in the hypostatic order of His incarnation. Only then can we come ‘face to face’ with the divine truth in the sanctifying light of faith. Pope Pius lX simply applied the final stamp of approval and confirmed the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception which had already belonged in the sacred liturgy as a monument of sacred Tradition. Pope Sixtus lV formally established the Feast Day in 1476. His Bull forbade any further debate on the question among Catholic theologians. Anyway, with God there are no half-measures. Mary was preserved free from contracting the stain of original sin the first instant God created her soul upon conception (Gen 3:15). She was the mother of our Lord from that moment on. God didn’t choose her at some point in her life after she was born or at the time of her birth. The Catholic understanding of Luke 1:28 is the most reasonable one.
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