Immaculate Conception

WE BELIEVE MARY WAS IMMACULATELY CONCEIVED (WITHOUT SIN)
The Catholic Church teaches that, in light of her extraordinary call to be the Mother of the Redeemer, God preserved Mary from the stain of original sin from the first instant of her conception in the womb of her mother. We call this the Immaculate Conception. As a consequence, Mary's will was perfectly aligned to the divine will; and she remained free of sin throughout her lifetime.

WHY DO WE BELIEVE MARY WAS IMMACULATELY CONCEIVED?
Mary is indispensable in fully knowing who Jesus is because God will it to be so. He chose not to send His Son to us from down out of the clouds, but from a human mother: "When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman" (Gal. 4:4). This verse points back to Genesis 3:15, the verse known as the Protoevangelium or First Gospel. Here, in the wake of Adam and Eve's sin, God declares to the serpent:

“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel."

With these words, God reveals His plan to save the human race. He will send a new man and a new woman into the world. In this case, however, the woman will necessarily come first, and the man (her see) will come forth from her flesh. It is a reversal of God's original creation, in which the woman was taken from the man's flesh (cf. Gen. 2:22). This new man and woman, moreover, will be shielded from corruption; for God will place "enmity" between them and the devil and the devil's seed, or between them and sin. It is a direct reversal of the Fall of Man, a meticulous undoing of Satan's knot.

Meditating on this passage, and building on Saint Paul's image of Christ as the New Adam (cf. 1 Cor. 15:21-22), the Church reveres Mary as the New Eve, the Woman who would bear the Redeemer and cooperate with Him in the overthrow of the enemy. As Eve was visited by a fallen angel, who deceived her, Mary was visited by a fallen angel, who deceived her, Mary was visited by the Archangel Gabriel, who revealed the gospel to her. Eve believed Satan’s lies, and through her disobedience sin and death came to the human race. Mary believed the truth of Gabriel’s message, and through her obedience the hope of salvation and eternal life came to the human race through the birth of Her Son. Just as the virgin Eve’s infidelity brought about our fall from grace, so the Virgin Mary’s faithfulness brought about our restoration.

Mary epitomizes to the highest degree the truth that God wills for His children to work with Him as “fellow workers” (1 Cor. 3:9). In assenting to bear His Son, she became the only person to directly participate with Christ in the Redemption. In order for a mere human being to cooperate with Him so intimately, God had to bestow special graces upon her. This is the “enmity” which He promised to place between the Woman and the devil. Catholicism calls this the Immaculate Conception, which contrary to a popular misunderstanding refers not to the conception of Jesus, but to the conception of Mary. This doctrine, raised to the level of a dogma by the Church, proclaims God’s preservation of Mary from the stain of original sin from the first instant of her existence. Reflecting upon her pristine state, Catholicism applies to her the words of Scripture, “My dove, my perfect one, … flawless to her that bore her” (Song 6:9).

It would be incorrect to say, however, that Mary had to be sinless in order for Jesus to be. This belief comes from the false notion, prevailing from Augustine’s time into the Middle Ages, that original sin is passed on through concupiscence in intercourse. Influential though it was, it was only a theory and not a doctrine. It was corrected by Blessed John Duns Scotus in the fourteenth century, who argued that original sin results not from intercourse, but from the privation of divine grace at conception; and that God willed not to withhold His grace from Mary. Because Jesus is sinless according to His divine nature, moreover, He did not need to be made sinless. In His case, the enmity between He and the devil is inherent to who He is; whereas that condition needed to be granted to Mary by divine favor.

Mary’s unique sanctity is implied in the Archangel’s greeting to her, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!” (Luke 1:28). “Hail” is generally reserved for addressing people of nobility (cf. Acts 23:26; Jas. 1:1, et al.). That Gabriel greets Mary in this manner ought to give us an indication of her status. It seems clear he is not addressing an ordinary girl, but a queen. This is in keeping with the royal overtones of his message: that Her Child will receive “the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:32-33).

Moreover, the Greek kecharitomene, traditionally rendered “full of grace,” is employed by the Angel as a proper name for Mary. It is a perfect passive participle of the verb charitoo, “to grace.” The perfect tense indicates a present state of grace resulting from an action completed in the past. It denotes, that is, a perpetual, permanent, or full state of grace. This is reinforced by the second part of the Angel’s salutation, “The Lord is with you!”, which is not a wish (“May the Lord be with you!”), but a statement of fact confirming Mary’s sanctification took place prior to the visit and is ongoing. ...

Mary, like all of us, had to be saved. As a matter of fact, she confirms her reliance on “God my Savior” in the Gospels (Luke 1:47). The Church teaches that she was preserved from sin “in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, her Son and the Redeemer of the human race” (Pope Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus). The merits of the Atonement were applied to her ahead of time—in anticipation of Her Son’s death. (It was the same for John the Baptist, cf. Luke 1:15, 41.) God saved the bulk of the human race by raising it up after it had fallen; He saved Mary by preventing her from falling in the first place. The extraordinary way in which she was saved, therefore, makes her more indebted to God than those of us sanctified through Baptism.

Read more about the Immaculate Conception in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.