On the solemn feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary (December 8), the First Reading (Genesis 3:9-15, 20) and the Gospel Reading (Luke 1:26-38) allude to the reason why Mary is the Immaculate Conception. Key verses in these readings are:
I
will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers;
they will strike at your head, while you strike at their heel
(Genesis 3:15).
Hail,
favored one! The Lord is with you (Luke 1:28).
Do
not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will
conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be
great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him
the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob
forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end
(Luke 1:30-33).
The
Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow
you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God
(Luke 1:35).
Behold,
I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word
(Luke 1:38).
The First Reading (Genesis 3:9-15, 20) humbly
reminds how we the humans have gotten into generations of darkness in exile
upon the expulsion of Adam and Eve out of Eden (Genesis 3:24).
Adam blamed on Eve, and Eve blamed on Serpent the
Satan for the sin of tasting the forbidden fruit, known as Original Sin. Neither
Adam nor Eve took responsibility for their sinful action. And their sin’s
immediate consequence was shame to being naked. Therefore, they hid their
genitals with fig leaves and hid themselves from the sight of God. They put
themselves in darkness while still in Eden.
And God gave His verdicts Satan to the Serpent
(Genesis 3:14-15), to Eve (Genesis 3:16), and to Adam (Genesis 3:17-19) ,
before evicting them out of Eden (Genesis 3:24).
In sentencing Satan the Serpent, God said:
I
will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers;
they will strike at your head, while you strike at their heel
(Genesis 3:15).
By these words, God already foretold of destruction
of Satan and those who with him with the metaphor of his head stricken by Eve’s
offspring. And this is to be fulfilled upon Christ’s return (Revelation 20:10).
And these words of God allude to the unfolding spiritual war between humans
(Eve’s offspring) and Satan and his until the victory of Eve’s offspring.
However, her offspring alone cannot defeat Satan and his offspring, as well as,
his collaborators. Because Eve’s offspring, the humans, lost the original perfection
for inheriting a trace of Original Sin (i.e. Romans 5:12-21), they alone cannot
defeat Satan without God’s grace. So, how can the imperfect humans with a trace
of Original Sin can destroy Satan and those who are on his side?
The answer is that Christ (Messiah) needs to come to
us, offspring of Eve, as one of us. It means that Christ needs to incarnate in
the human flesh, so that he, too, has the physical being as a descendant of Eve
and her husband, Adam (i.e. Luke 3:28-38). But, how can Christ have his human
flesh without being blemished with a trace of Original Sin?
As long as he can incarnate with the unblemished
flesh, the incarnated Christ can save us as the ultimate Korban Pesach (Exodus 12:5), the Agnus Dei, qui tolis peccata mundi (John 1:29; cf. Revelation 7:14;
22:14). And for this, God needed one human being completely free from any trace
of Original Sin, being full of grace from the moment of conception. This way, Christ
can be incarnated to be with us (John 1, 14) and to defeat Satan and his
associates totally (Revelation 20:10) with us in completing the execution of God’s death sentence to Satan though the
incarnated Christ and those who with him also need to suffer (Genesis
3:15).
Bl. John Duns Scotus, a Franciscan theologian,
indicated that the human being without any trace of Original Sin in order for
Christ to incarnate without inheriting a trance of Original Sin is Mary, who is
full of grace, as proclaimed by Archangel Gabriel at Annunciation (Luke 1:28, 30). Being God’s favored one (Luke 1:28) means being
full of grace (gratia plena) means
being conceived without any trace of Original Sin. So, John Duns Scotus wrote as a part of his
commentary of Peter Lombard’s Libri
Quattuor Sententiarum:
Was
the Blessed Virgin conceived in sin? The answer is no, for as Augustine writes:
"When sin is treated, there can be no inclusion of Mary in the
discussion." And Anselm says: "It was fitting that the Virgin should
be resplendent with a purity greater than which none under God can be
conceived." Purity here is to be taken in the sense of pure innocence
under God, such as was in Christ.
….
For
a most perfect mediator exercises the most perfect mediation possible in regard
to some person for whom he mediates. Thus Christ exercised a most perfect act
of mediation in regard to some person for whom He was Mediator. In regard to no
person did He have a more exalted relationship than to Mary. Such, however,
would not have been true had He not preserved Her from original sin.
……..a
most perfect mediator merits the removal of all punishment from the one whom he
reconciles. Original sin, however, is a greater privation than the lack of the
vision of God. Hence, if Christ most perfectly reconciles us to God, He merited
that this most heavy of punishments be removed from some one person. This would
have been His Mother.
Further,
Christ is primarily our Redeemer and Reconciler from original sin rather than
actual sin, for the need of the Incarnation and suffering of Christ is commonly
ascribed to original sin. But He is also commonly assumed to be the perfect
Mediator of at least one person, namely, Mary, whom He preserved from actual
sin. Logically one should assume that He preserved Her from original sin as well.
Ordinatio
III, d.3, q.1
In 1854, Pope Pius IX established the official
doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary in his bull, Ineffabilis Deus:
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.
(paragraph 1-2)
Pope Pius IX indicates that God the Father has
chosen Mary to be the fitting mother for His only begotten Son to come to us as
the incarnated Christ in Jesus, born of her, as unblemished, ever since the
beginning of the ages (Ieffabilis Deus,
1). It means that God was already referring to Jesus and Mary in Genesis 3:15
in giving a death sentence to Satan for corrupting the humans through Adam and
Eve.
Mary was chosen by God to be God’s most favored one,
being full of grace, from the moment of her conception in the womb of her
mother, Anna. Thus, she is the
Immaculate Conception, as so defined in the official doctrine of the Roman Catholic
Church by Pope Pius IX in 1854. But, it was Mary herself, as Our Lady of
Lourdes, identified herself as the Immaculate Conception to St. Bernadette
Soubirous in 1858.
Though Mary had no idea that God had already chosen her to be the Immaculate Conception (full of grace, God’s chosen one), this truth was revealed to her by Gabriel to announce that she had conceived the Son of God in her womb, as described in the Gospel Reading (Luke 1:26-38).
To this annunciation, Mary was at first troubled
(Luke 1:29) and wondered how she could be pregnant while being virgin (Luke
1:34). So, Mary could have rejected God’s
call to serve Him as the Theotokos . Had
she refused to become pregnant with the Son of God, it would have wasted her
privilege to be the Immaculate Conception, being full of grace. And this could
have impeded the fulfillment of God’s protoevangelical promise that the incarnated
Christ will destroy Satan by striking his head, alluded in Genesis 3:15.
Fortunately, Mary accepted her call to serve as the Theotokos in her fiat (Luke 1:38). Therefore, God’s death sentence to Satan
(Genesis 3:15) can be executed and will complete at the eschaton (Revelation 20:10).
By then, we, too, shall overcome a stain of Original Sin, inherited from
Adam and Eve, by the blood of the incarnated Christ (Revelation 22:14),
becoming immaculate finally like Mary, to enter the Kingdom.
Because Mary has been totally free from any trance
of Original Sin, as chosen by God to be the Immaculate Conception, to serve as
the mother of the incarnated Christ, she did not go through Purgatory.
Therefore, when her life on earth completed, Mary was directly assumed into
heaven. We, on the other hand, need to be saved and redeemed by Christ and to
go through Purgatory to ensure of purity to enter the Kingdom, where Mary has
already been as the Kodeth Gebirah of
the Melech Mashiach – Holy Queen-Mother
of Messiah the King.
Because God had chosen Mary to be the Theotokos, by making her His most
favored one – full of grace – the Immaculate Conception (Luke 1:28), God’s
prophecy of the destruction of Satan through Eve’s offspring (the humans)
(Genesis 3:15) can be accomplished as envisioned in Revelation 20:10, for Mary’s
Immaculate Conception status has made it possible Christ’s incarnation in the
human flesh of Jesus, whose was born of her unblemished. Because Christ has been incarnated in the
human flesh of Jesus without any effect of Original Sin, we can be saved and
redeemed by him, being washed immaculately with his precious blood (i.e.
Revelation 7:14; 22:14).
Therefore, we enjoy salvific and redemptive
blessings for being with Christ, as reflected in the Second Reading (Ephesians
1:3-6, 11-12).
The First Reading (Genesis 3:9-15, 20) also marks
the beginning of our exile, out time in darkness upon losing Eden. However,
God, who evicted our ancestor couple, Adam and Eve, has not abandoned us in the
darkness of the exile, as He did not let the Israelites perish in the
Babylonian exile but redeemed them back to Jerusalem, empowering and enabling
them to rebuild the destroyed and desecrated holy city and its Temple.
God, who is love (1 John 4:8, 16), never stopped
loving us (i.e. Psalm 136:1-26), though we have been evicted from Eden, where
He was with us. So, God made sure those who were righteous in His eyes were
saved, as in the case with Noah and his companions (Genesis 6:5-9:17). He also
delivered His people out of the 430-year-long slavery with Passover (Exodus
12:1-15:21). And loving God heard cries of the Israelites in the Babylonian
captivity (Psalm 137:1-9) and redeemed them out of Babylon, brought them back
to Jerusalem, and enabled them to rebuild Jerusalem and its Temple (2 Chronicle
36:22-23; cf. Jeremiah 25:11-14; 29:1-23; Ezra 1:1-8:36; Ezekiel 39:21-48:35;
Nehemiah 2:1-13:22; cf. Isaiah 40:1-66:24).
However, during the post-exilic years, the Israelites perpetually failed to
keep their covenants with God in spite of God had warned against their corruptions
through these prophets: Obadiah, Haggai, Zechariah, Joel, and Malachi, from 520
to 431 BC. Then, the Israelites had gone through really dark years without any
prophets until John the Baptist, who began publicly announcing the imminent
coming of Christ (Messiah), calling to prepare the way of Christ as the voice
crying out in the wilderness (Isaiah 40:3) (e.g. Matthew 3:1-17). By that time,
God the Father had already fulfilled His promise (e.g. Isaiah 7:14; Micah
5:1-4a) to send His only begotten Son to us out of His love (i.e. John 3:16) by
incarnating the Word-God in order him to dwell among us (John 1:1, 14), impregnating
Mary the Blessed Virgin through the Holy Spirit (Mathew 1:18; Luke 1:35). Of
course, God the Father has sent His only begotten Son to us as the son of Mary
to redeem us from this exile ever since the expulsion from Eden. But, where
Christ redeems us to is not the lost Eden but to the Kingdom of God with New
Jerusalem (Revelation 21:1-22:5).
Ever since the eviction from Eden due to Original Sin and having inherited a trace of it – until the incarnated Christ came to us to dwell among us (John 1:1, 14), sent by God the Father out of his love (i.e. John 3:16), we had been in the darkness in the exile. Without Mary being the Immaculate Conception, therefore, being the Theotokos, and accepting her role as the mother of Jesus, who is the incarnated Christ, we would have been still in the darkness of the exile.
Because Christ has been incarnated through the Immaculate Conception, being his
mother, and he has been glorified through his death, resurrection, and ascension,
we have been enlightened by the Word, nourished by his body and blood, and empowered
and further enlightened by the Holy Spirit, though we are Eve’s offspring. As a
matter of fact, since the incarnated Christ made his mother also our mother
(i.e. John 19:27), we are indeed Mary’s offspring to keep fighting with Christ
our commander-in-chief, against Satan and his offspring toward the complete
fulfillment of God’s prophecy against Satan (Genesis 3:15; Revelation 20:10). And then, we shall be eternal joy with our
King and Queen, totally saved and redeemed in the Kingdom, our New Jerusalem.
Thus, our exile since the expulsion of Eden will end in New Jerusalem. Without the
Immaculate Conception (i.e. Luke 1:28) and Mary’s fiat (Luke 1:38), this might
not have been possible.
Ave
Maria, gratia plena!
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