The Immaculate Conception of Mary December 8, 2023
Fr. Alexander Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
Seeing how we celebrate the Immaculate Conception of Mary, some Christians accuse us of over-emphasizing her. Yes, there are people who get carried away and distort Marian devotion, but the Catholic Church’s teaching that Mary was immaculately conceived – conceived without Original Sin – is solid and dependable.
Critics say the Immaculate Conception isn’t in the bible. But it is. The angel calls her “full of grace,” which comes from a unique Greek word. We lose something in translation: this is not the same thing as being “filled” with grace when we’re baptized. No, it means she has always been full of grace, meaning there was never any sin preventing that grace. Hence, we say she was Immaculately Conceived.
There’s also the fact that Christians have believed in Mary’s Immaculate Conception from the very beginning. St. John the Apostle, who took care of Mary after Jesus’ Ascension, had a disciple named Polycarp. Polycarp in turn had a disciple named Irenaeus. St. Irenaeus, the spiritual grandson of John the Apostle, writes that Mary was like Eve – who in the beginning was created without sin – except that where Eve disobeyed God and sinned, Mary obeyed and remained sinless.
Over time, our idea of the Immaculate Conception got clearer and the Church added a feast day to celebrate it. That continued for almost 1000 years until Blessed Pope Pius IX officially declared it a doctrine in 1854. This is how most doctrines work: the initial idea is there like a seed and, over time, it grows and flowers as our understanding improves. Eventually, a big controversy breaks out, arguments on every side are heard, and then the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, makes a definitive judgment on whether or not Catholics are required to believe it. So, we are required to believe in the Immaculate Conception of Mary.
Still, there was a time when it was open for discussion and some of the people arguing against this belief were brilliant and holy people. One of their best arguments was that human beings can only be freed from sin through Jesus Christ. So, they ask this question: “How can Mary be conceived without sin before Jesus redeemed us?” A great question and the answer to it is the point I want you to focus on.
God is all-powerful and he exists outside of time. He sees and knows all things and times at the same time. That’s part of the reason we say things like: “Jesus on the cross saw you” even though you and I only existed 2000 years after the crucifixion. God can and sometimes does do things “out of order,” but only from our perspective because we are in time, but he is above it. He redeemed you from sin before you sinned… even before you were born.
God saw and knew of Jesus’ redeeming crucifixion from the very beginning. In Mary’s case, he applied that redemption to her and prevent her from ever having Original Sin so that she could be a more fitting instrument of Jesus being born. This did not take away Mary’s freedom. Even born without Original Sin, she could have sinned – Adam & Eve were also born without sin and they messed that up – but Mary chose not to sin. She kept the innocence that God miraculously gave her. She used her freedom to say yes to God. And then, by saying yes to God, she got to cooperate in his plan to protect her from sin.
It kinda sounds like clever wordplay and magical thinking until you realize that God does this sort of thing with all of us. Mary was the only one to be conceived without Original Sin, but all of us receive gifts from God out of order. We are created without earning it and God knows even before he creates us how our lives will affect his plan. We are offered redemption without earning it and God knows before we say yes how we will serve him. By participating in the sacraments, by uniting ourselves to Jesus on the cross, we mystically cooperate in God’s plan to save us and others. In a very real sense, our baptism, communion, confessions, prayers, and penances spiritually contribute to the gift of forgiveness that we have already received. All of it is actually by God’s gift, but part of that gift is our ability to participate in it.
Now, Mary received that in a unique and preeminent way as the Mother of God, but it was still God’s gift that made any of it happen. Mary is the exemplar, the perfect model of what is true for all of humanity: that we are undeservedly redeemed from sin and even more undeservedly given the gift of cooperating in our own redemption all because God, who is beyond the limits of time, has loved us from all eternity.
So, look to Mary to see the most radical and glorious example of God’s love-beyond-the-limits-of-time. Rejoice in the gift of salvation you did not earn, but now get to cooperate with. Learn from her that, although you are a child of Eve who lost the gift of eternal life, you can yet become the child of Mary who, by God’s gift, won it back. All you have to do now is say yes to what God has already done for Mary, for you, and for us all.