Immaculate Conception

Today the Catholic Church celebrates the feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. Simply put, the Church teaches that at the point of her conception Mary was preserved from the stain of original sin, not by anything she did but by the merits of Jesus on the Cross. & while it doesn't directly say this in Scripture (just like the dogma of the Trinity) it is clearly implied & supported.

In Luke 1:28 the Archangel Gabriel says to Mary: "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women." The start of this line in Greek is "Χαίρε, Κεχαριτωμένη" (Chaire kecharitomene). According to what I have read kecharitomene can be literally translated as "you who have been graced". It sounds to me like Gabriel is talking about something that has already happened. The "Greek syntax indicates that the action of the verb has been fully completed in the past, with results continuing into the future." according to 1 explanation of the grammer that I have read.

Mary acknowledged this fact by what she said in what we call the Magnificat: "My soul doth magnify the Lord. And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid: for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. Because he that is mighty hath done great things to me: and holy is his name." Luke 1:46-49

Because of the fact that God is outside of time & all time is now to Him, I have no problem with the concept that a future event can have an effect on the past. In fact it strikes me as quite logical that God would chose to provide a purified vessel to carry His Son. & that Jesus would be sure that He had only the best for a mother. 1 of the names for Mary is Ark of the New Covenant. I won't go into the typology here, instead I will direct you to the writings of Scott Hahn & in particular his book Hail, Holy Queen for a deeper look at the whole Scriptural basis for this & other Catholic Marian doctrine.

I also find further support in Scripture of the fact that God can apply the fruits of Jesus' Death & Resurrection before they actually happenned in the human time line. Part of Christian doctrine is that before Jesus's death for sin the gates of Heaven were closed so that no human could enter in. Jews at the time of Jesus believed that people who were righteous were awaiting admission to Heaven in the portion of Sheol called the Bosom of Abraham. (Another part of Sheol was that place where the unrighteous were also awaiting judgment. Jesus used this as the local for his parable of Lazarus & the Rich Man in Luke 16:19-31.

So, before Jesus' Crucifixion, no righteous human was able to enter Heaven. Yet, in the Old Testament we read of 2 people who were taken to Heaven. In 2 Kings 2, we read of Elijah being taken up to Heaven (vs 11). The only logical explanation for this is that God applied the merits of Jesus' death in advance. Otherwise, how could Elijah have gone to Heaven?

The other person is Enoch. In Genesis 5:24 we read: "Enoch walked with God, then was no more, because God took him." While the wording doesn't specifically say he was taken to Heaven, what is says about Enoch is different from the other ancestors of Noah described here. For every other 1 it simply says"He died". But Hebrews 11 also talks about Enoch & there it is very clear: "It was because of his faith that Enoch was taken up and did not experience death: he was no more, because God took him." Hebrews 11:5 Again, since it is clearly taught in both Jewish & Christian Tradition that no 1 could enter Heaven before the coming of the Messiah, this had to be a pre-event applications of the merits of Jesus' death. (These 2 incidents also give plenty of Scriptural support for the doctrine of Mary's Assumption.)

So, today's feast clearly focuses on Jesus & what He did on the Cross. Without Jesus' death, Mary could never have been preserved from the stain of sin. Because of what Jesus did, she was. & while it wasn't officially defined until the day in 1854, this was believed by the Church from its early days. In fact when Blessed Pope Pius XI issued the constitution Ineffabilis Deus solomnly declaring this fact he used this quote from Pope Alexander VII to succinctly define the dogma: "Concerning the most Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, ancient indeed is that devotion of the faithful based on the belief that her soul, in the first instant of its creation and in the first instant of the soul's infusion into the body, was, by a special grace and privilege of God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, her Son and the Redeemer of the human race, preserved free from all stain of original sin." (The Catholic Encyclopedia article on the Immaculate Conception has much more on the Scriptural support for this doctrine/dogma, as well as more on what the Church Fathers from patristic times on has said about it.)

I conclude with the opening paragraphs of Ineffabilis Deus. I can think of no better summary of what this feast is all about & why we should celebrate it.

"God Ineffable -- whose ways are mercy and truth, whose will is omnipotence itself, and whose wisdom "reaches from end to end mightily, and orders all things sweetly" -- having foreseen from all eternity the lamentable wretchedness of the entire human race which would result from the sin of Adam, decreed, by a plan hidden from the centuries, to complete the first work of his goodness by a mystery yet more wondrously sublime through the Incarnation of the Word. This he decreed in order that man who, contrary to the plan of Divine Mercy had been led into sin by the cunning malice of Satan, should not perish; and in order that what had been lost in the first Adam would be gloriously restored in the Second Adam. From the very beginning, and before time began, the eternal Father chose and prepared for his only-begotten Son a Mother in whom the Son of God would become incarnate and from whom, in the blessed fullness of time, he would be born into this world. Above all creatures did God so loved her that truly in her was the Father well pleased with singular delight. Therefore, far above all the angels and all the saints so wondrously did God endow her with the abundance of all heavenly gifts poured from the treasury of his divinity that this mother, ever absolutely free of all stain of sin, all fair and perfect, would possess that fullness of holy innocence and sanctity than which, under God, one cannot even imagine anything greater, and which, outside of God, no mind can succeed in comprehending fully.

And indeed it was wholly fitting that so wonderful a mother should be ever resplendent with the glory of most sublime holiness and so completely free from all taint of original sin that she would triumph utterly over the ancient serpent. To her did the Father will to give his only-begotten Son -- the Son whom, equal to the Father and begotten by him, the Father loves from his heart -- and to give this Son in such a way that he would be the one and the same common Son of God the Father and of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was she whom the Son himself chose to make his Mother and it was from her that the Holy Spirit willed and brought it about that he should be conceived and born from whom he himself proceeds. "