Mary’s Immaculate Conception and preservation from sin is a unique gift that the Lord, in his sovereignty, is free to give as he pleases. It is also, as I now saw, a sign pointing to the magnitude of Christ’s power to save us all completely from sin. But still, there’s a temptation here to say, “Why her and not me? How come I have to struggle with the effects of original sin and she didn’t?” I don’t have an answer to that, any more than I have an answer to the question, “Why were Abraham or Moses or David chosen for their call and gifts and not me?” All I know is that, biblically speaking, the chosen are always chosen for the sake of the unchosen. Thus, Abraham is chosen so that all the unchosen nations of the earth will bless themselves through him. Likewise, Moses and Israel are chosen so that they may be a priestly people for all the unchosen nations of the world. And David is chosen so that the Son of David may lead all the unchosen nations to the kingdom of God.
It’s the same with Mary. The complete and perfect salvation God displays in her—a salvation that’s entirely preventive and not curative—is not a sign of our exclusion. It is the sign that Jesus’ awesome power to save is just as available to us who have been permitted, in the mysterious Providence of God, to struggle with the mystery of original sin. Because Mary is the icon of the Church and highest of God’s creatures (yet not herself divine), she could, in her very person, give the lie to the philosophies of pride and their promise of liberation through rebellion by showing that:
• The human person is in the image of God.
• The human person comes from God and is made for union with God.
• The depth of Christ’s power to save from sin is most fully displayed in Mary, so we may know he holds that same power to save us, no matter how grave our sin.
• The human person is the product of fathomless divine love.
• Sin, though real, is neither the foundational nor the final truth about man. Jesus Christ is.
• The human person is defined by love, not enmity.
• The human person is called to love God and neighbor.
• The human person is a reflection of the reason, order, and love of God himself.
• The human person finds his life in losing it and receiving the love of God.
• The human person only becomes more human through love, mercy, and humility.
• The human person grows in love by caring for the “least of these” since they are precious to Christ, who humbled himself to be born in a stable.
• The human person should seek self-donating love here on earth and a reward in heaven, because this life is not all there is.
• It is humble for us to think of ourselves as “made in God’s image” because that is what we are. Humility recognizes our need of grace.
• Since God is the Lord of nature, we are merely stewards of creation. We find ourselves not by worshipping nature or ourselves but by worshipping God, who made and redeemed us through Jesus Christ.
In sum, as nineteenth-century man was busily laying the intellectual foundations of the culture of death, the Holy Spirit moved the Church to hold up Mary as the icon of how profoundly Christ could save us. As the one who is uniquely full of grace, she bore unique testimony to Christ’s saving grace. As the woman who surrounds the man, she again acted as a hedge around the truth of Christ’s saving power. And as the model disciple, she showed us how profoundly Christ’s saving power can cleanse us of our sin and showed forth the true dignity of our origins in God, not in chaos. For as she is, so can the grace of Christ make us, bearing witness to the truth of St. Irenaeus’ saying, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.”
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If people read the Bible carefully Abraham, Moses, David, and Mary all had problems in their lives. Mary is called Our Lady of Sorrows.
Mark, something I think you’ve mentioned before that ties into all this is that God set up his rules from the beginning, and he is reluctant to break them, especially if a problem can be solved or a prayer answered by more mundane means. That is why miracles occur so rarely. So it would seem that Mary was a singular sign that salvation is possible, but that the normative way to seek it is through Christ’s death and resurrection.
There’s one more point that needs to be made, which is that Mary’s role was to be the new Ark of the Covenant. God chose this grace for her so that she would be a perfect temple from the beginning. This was prophesied in 1 Chronicles 17 when God told David,
“‘I tell you that the Lord will build a house for you. When you die, and you join your ancestors, then I will let your own son be the new king. The new king will be one of your sons, and I will make his kingdom strong.”
So part of the answer to “Why not us too?” is that we are not the Ark of the Covenant.
The reason for Mary to be immaculate was because she was the sole being that clothed Jesus Divine being with her blood & flesh and she could not have had her body stain by sin and she had to be a holy vessel.
“...the chosen are always chosen for the sake of the unchosen.” Thank you. That answered so many of the doubts I have been struggling with.
Mary by God’s will was born sinless, and remained so.We are all capable of living a sinless life but chose not to.
God can see all time at once. We see causation as only going forward in time, with past and present affecting the future. But some philosophers of science speculate about the possibility of retrocausality, whereby the present and future affects the past. Some physicists have also proposed theories involving particles traveling backwards in time. I would propose that the Immaculate Conception is an instance of retrocausality. The redemptive action of Jesus in his death and resurrection affected Mary in a unique way because of her unique physical and spiritual relationship she had with him as his mother. The line of causation goes from the Passion back to Mary’s conception, although to us it looks like Mary just all of a sudden appears without original sin. Nobody else can enjoy the same outcome because no one else had the unique relationship she had with her Son.
I think this theory finds support first of all in the fact that we already know that there was retrocausality as to the redemptive effect of the Passion for all people who died prior to the Passion. Sacrificing bulls and goats never actually had redemptive value: it was only a symbol of what was to come.
Secondly, the theory matches up with the definition of the dogma by Pius IX: “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.” Notice that Mary was immaculately conceived “by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ”. It was the merits of Christ that brought her the special grace and privilege, but those merits were in the future when she was conceived.
Of course, there is no magisterial authority whatsoever for my theory. But I think it explains it. If it does it for you, then great. If not, never mind.
Forgive me if you have already answered this question, but, was Mary also preserved from any actual sins by a special charism of grace, or was it instead by her ordinary co-operation with grace throughout her life that she never subsequently sinned? I ask because when you think about the benefit of being preserved from original sin, it brings to mind that we would be in Adam’s position again. And he didn’t fare so well the first time…
So if Mary was conceived without original sin she would still have to struggle against temptation all her life in order to not sin, just like our Lord did, except that in her case, it would be actually possible to sin, unless she were preserved by a special grace from being able to sin.
If she were not so preserved, she would be even more heroic, to my mind. If she were so preserved, that would be fine too though, as it would make me think about those few passages about her in Scripture in a different light.
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