God’s Crowning Masterpiece: The Immaculate Conception

David Martin | The Daily Knight

A major difference between Catholics and non-Catholics is that the latter see the Virgin Mary as an ordinary women who gave birth to Christ, whereas Catholics through the centuries understood that Mary is God’s Crowning Masterpiece who from the beginning was set apart from the rest of humanity by a special decree befitting of her calling to be the Mother of God.

This truth was dogmatically defined on December 8, 1854. In his Apostolic Constitution, Ineffabilis Deus, Pope Pius IX defined the Dogma of the Virgin Mary’s Immaculate Conception.

"We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful."

On March 25^th, 1858, the Virgin Mary herself affirmed this truth in her sixteenth apparition to St. Bernardette at Lourdes, when she revealed herself thus:

“I am the Immaculate Conception”

That is to say, Mary not only was conceived outside the stained fallout of Eve but was conceived as the purest, the most enlightened, and the most endowed of all creatures. There is no saint or angel in Heaven that can be compared to her. For the saints in Heaven all had to battle with sin whereas the stigma of sin never once came near to Mary. She is truly “a vapour of the power of God, and a certain pure emanation of the glory of the almighty God: and therefore no defiled thing cometh into her.” (Wisdom 7: 25)

Because of her Immaculate Conception, Mary was completely free from the stain of original sin so that the results of original sin (temptation) never once had the least bearing on her soul. Every instance of her life was morally perfect. Mary was created perfect and born a saint and increased as the greatest of saints.

This could not be said of any other human that ever lived for although Mary was human, she was sublime. She was the Second Eve who reversed the sin of the first Eve, which is seen by the providential fact that Ave is Eva spelled backwards. Like Mary, Eve initially was endowed with the knowledge of the ages, but unlike Mary, Eve had a certain inclination to sin, which she succumbed to when she sinned against God (Genesis 3:6).

Whereas the Blessed Virgin had no sinful inclinations arising from her own humanity. She was completely oblivious to the temptations of the devil, which was the source of her power to crush the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15). Never once in her life did the least notion of pride, envy, ingratitude, unkindness, or earthly pleasure taint her soul. Unclean temptations were completely absent from her humanity.

This isn’t to say that Mary wasn’t subject to temptations to be alleviated from the discomfort extreme cold or heat, or from the horror of seeing her Son sacrificed on the Cross, but these temptations were not sinful but only human. This is what St. Paul meant when he said, “Let no temptation take hold on you, but such as is human.” (1 Cor. 10:13) To be overcome by cold or heat is not sinful but to surrender to the forbidden pleasure of sin most certainly is.

Sin Distorts the Image of God in Man

Temptations to sin against God are demonic by nature and not part of God’s design in creating man because God did not create man in the image of sin but created him in the image of God. Seen in that light, sin is actually foreign to our true human nature, but it is not foreign to our fallen nature that we inherited from original sin. For what we inherited from our first parents was spawned by the devil, not created by God, but God allowed us to be born in the shackles of original sin so that following baptism we might fight these temptations and make our way back to the Kingdom victorious for the Father.

Mary Did Not Need Redemption

Blessed Mary was not subject to this need to do penance for sin, the irony being that she did more penance than all the saints of history, but this penance was not for herself but for others. She is truly Co-Redemptrix! Because of her Immaculate Conception, Mary was blameless and stood not in need of redemption. For while the gift of her Immaculate Conception came about the through the anticipated merits of Christ this gift was not that of being delivered from the curse of sin that otherwise would have been hers but of simply being created Immaculate, i.e. different than other people. In that manner was Mary preserved. 1 

For she was foreknown in the mind of God before the creation of the world. St. Bernardine of Sienna says of her: “Thou wast preordained in the mind of God, before all creatures, that thou might beget God Himself as man.”

No Ordinary Woman

If Mary “was preordained in the mind of God, before all creatures,” she obviously wasn’t subject to the curse of the first of those creatures, i.e. Eve and Adam. Mary was no ordinary woman. The Church’s Ordinary Magisterium teaches that Mary is the Mediatrix of all Grace, for it is through her that God executes his every move. This too derives from her Immaculate Conception. Any grace that comes to mankind comes through her hands, as we see alluded to in the Bible.

“Now all good things came to me together with her, and innumerable riches through her hands. And I rejoiced in all these: for this Wisdom went before me, and I knew not that she was the mother of them all.” (Wisdom 7:11,12)

Given such an exalted role, it stands that Mary would have to be completely pure of imperfection, so pure, that the light of God is magnified through her! “She is the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God’s majesty, and the image of His goodness.” (Wisdom 7:26)

This echoes the famous Gospel verse, “My soul does magnify the Lord.” (Luke 1: 46) The soul of Our Lady is like a powerful magnifying glass through which the mysteries of God become clear and manifest to us. Through her intercession, the things of God become accessible to men.

Accordingly, the friendship of God is also gained through her intercession. By the hand of Our Lady God forms the saints and prophets and brings them to the sight of His glory. “She maketh the friends of God and prophets.” (Wisdom 7:27)

Mary’s oneness with God is unfathomable, but this too is part of her Immaculate Conception.  St. Louis de Montfort says it would be easier to separate light from the sun than to separate Mary from Christ, so true Christians who aspire to be united with Christ should know that they have a powerful advocate in Heaven who is always ready to procure that union for them.

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1. Mary did not need salvation from sin, no more than did Christ. When Mary in her Magnificat referred to God as “my Saviour” (Luke 1:47), she did not mean this in the sense of being saved from sin but in the sense that she couldn’t lift herself up by her own sandal straps to be taken up to Heaven. She needed God to assume her into Heaven and it was in this sense that she called God her “Saviour.”