Immaculate Conception

In Mass for the Children this morning, on this, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Fr. Dave (with help from the children in the 4th grade class) gave a beautiful homily on Mary as a model for all Christians. The message? Let her "Yes" to God's calling be our own. Let her "Love" of Christ, our Lord, her Son and her Lord, be our own. Let her "Service" to God be our own, and let us follow her in "Glorifying" God.

In short, let us follow her example in: Willingness, Love, Service, and Glorifying God in all things.

I was raised Lutheran until 2007, when my family and I were received into full communion in the Catholic Church.  Martin Luther had a strong devotion to Mary, and he retained his belief in the Immaculate Conception.  Here are a few of his quotes:

"It is a sweet and pious belief that the infusion of Mary’s soul was effected without original sin; so that in the very infusion of her soul she was also purified from original sin and adorned with God’s gifts, receiving a pure soul infused by God; thus from the first moment she began to live she was free from all sin" (Sermon: "On the Day of the Conception of the Mother of God," 1527)."


"She is full of grace, proclaimed to be entirely without sin-something exceedingly great. For God’s grace fills her with everything good and makes her devoid of all evil. (Personal "Little" Prayer Book, 1522)."


"Mother Mary, like us, was born in sin of sinful parents, but the Holy Spirit covered her, sanctified and purified her so that this child was born of flesh and blood, but not with sinful flesh and blood. The Holy Spirit permitted the Virgin Mary to remain a true, natural human being of flesh and blood, just as we. However, he warded off sin from her flesh and blood so that she became the mother of a pure child, not poisoned by sin as we are. For in that moment when she conceived, she was a holy mother filled with the Holy Spirit and her fruit is a holy pure fruit, at once God and truly man, in one person."

Somewhat embarrassingly, the first time I came to understand that the Immaculate Conception was related to Mary's Conception, and not our Lord's, was in the middle of an RCIA class in 2007 (Fr. John explained that this was a common misconception - (no pun intended)). My first reaction to this? "Catholics believe what? Wait a minute, no human being is without sin but our Lord.".  I began to read more so I could try understand how Catholics understood this.  One of the more important books I read was Hail Holy Queen by Dr. Scott Hahn.  I realized:

• This belief in the Immaculate Conception of Mary had been a part of the historic Christian Tradition and celebrated from the earliest times.
• Mary, the Blessed Virgin, played a unique role in salvation history. No other human being was called by God to directly cooperate in His Incarnation. This is a belief most Christians share, as expressed in the Apostles and Nicene Creeds, and is of course told as the Annunciation story in Luke.
  
• If God chose Mary to cooperate in salvation history through the Incarnation (a unique gift indeed), why did my mind not want to allow me to believe that he also pre-granted her this gift of total sanctifying grace to protect her from all sin from the moment of her conception. God could have chosen to bring about the Incarnation between two humans (or from one not 'full of grace', or a million other ways for that matter), but He did not, he chose Mary, who said 'Yes'.
• It was thorough no merits of Mary's own that she was granted this gift. Neither was it through her own merits that she was chosen to cooperate in the Incarnation.
• The Angel Gabriel said to her, (and to us) that she was 'full of grace'. What does it mean to be 'full of grace'.  My understanding and experience is that we experience God's grace here on earth, but that it is only a partial grace, and a foretaste of the grace we will experience in heaven (when we are 'full of grace'). Not so with Mary, she was truly 'full of grace' when the Angel Gabriel proclaimed it, and according to the Catholic understanding, from the earliest Father's onward, she was 'full of grace' from the moment of her conception.

Through reading what the Church actually believes, I became very comfortable in believing, accepting, and embracing that Mary was indeed granted this special grace, and that this detracted not one bit from Christ, by whose merits it was granted. Of course this was formally recognized as something the Church had always held to be true by Pope Pius IX in 1854. In his words:


"We declare, pronounce and define that the doctrine which holds that the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the first instant of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace of the Omnipotent God, in virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of mankind, was preserved immaculate from all stain of original sin, has been revealed by God, and therefore should firmly and constantly be believed by all the faithful."
—Pope Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus, December 8, 1854



Immaculate Conception Links

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07674d.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/beliefs/immaculateconception.shtml
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/angelus/2003/documents/hf_jp-ii_ang_20031208_en.html
http://gsearch.vatican.va/search?q=immaculate+conception&x=0&y=0

Photos: The Immaculate Conception, Martino Altomonte, 1719, National Gallery of Slovenia, Ljubljana, http://www.wga.hu (1) /  Immaculate Conception, Francesco, Signorelli, 1523, http://www.wga.hu (2)