At the moment of her conception, Mary was given a unique gift of Sanctifying Grace which filled her entire being so that she was free of all stain of Original Sin and was preserved from any personal sin for the rest of her life.
Even though this purity at fertilization refers to Mary’s conception and not to Jesus’ conception, it is more about Him than her. The preventive grace she received was in anticipation of Jesus’ redemptive suffering which would come later.
Mary was chosen by God to be the mother of Jesus long before her life began in her mother’s womb where she was conceived through the natural conjugal act of her parents, St. Joachim and St. Anne.
Mary’s Immaculate Conception was officially and solemnly declared a dogma in 1854 but has been a common belief since the beginning of Christianity.
The Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary is celebrated on December 8 and is a Holy Day of Obligation for Catholics.
If the Immaculate Conception falls on a Sunday, it is moved to Monday and the obligation to attend Mass that day is removed.
Mary is the patron of the United States of America under the title of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception.
Greatness at the first instant of her existence:
If you’re going to be the Mother of God, you need some help:
And he came to her and said, “Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. “
Luke 1: 28-30
Mary was preserved from sin unlike us who are delivered from sin:
All of Mary’s goodness came from what God did in her life:
The “splendour of an entirely unique holiness” by which Mary is “enriched from the first instant of her conception” comes wholly from Christ: she is “redeemed, in a more exalted fashion, by reason of the merits of her Son”. The Father blessed Mary more than any other created person “in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” and chose her “in Christ before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless before him in love”.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 492
A reboot of the first Eve:
The New Eve is not tainted by the stain of Original Sin:
The celebration of the Immaculate Conception fits the season of Advent:
We can find hope in the Immaculate Conception:
This doctrine, unanimously received in the early Church, has been handed down clearly enough by the Fathers, who claimed for the Blessed Virgin such titles as Lily Among Thorns; Land Wholly Intact; Immaculate; Always Blessed; Free From All Contagion Of Sin; Unfading Tree; Fountain Ever Clear; The One And Only Daughter Not Of Death But Of Life; Offspring Not Of Wrath But Of Grace; Unimpaired And Ever Unimpaired; Holy And Stranger To All Stain Of Sin; More Comely Than Comeliness Itself; More Holy Than Sanctity; Alone Holy Who, Excepting God, Is Higher Than All; By Nature More Beautiful, More Graceful And More Holy Than The Cherubim And Seraphim Themselves And The Whole Host Of Angels. If these praises of the Blessed Virgin Mary be given the careful consideration they deserve, who will dare to doubt that she, who was purer than the angels and at all times pure, was at any moment, even for the briefest instant, not free from every stain of sin?
Pope Pius XII, Fulgens Corona, 8 September 1953
The Immaculate Conception is a dogma of the Catholic Church:
Confusion about the Immaculate Conception:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
Reminders and blessings of souvenirs:
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