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 preserved from any personal sin for the rest of her life.
God preserved the Virgin Mary from the stain of Original Sin when she was conceived through the natural conjugal act of her parents, St. Joachim and St. Anne. This is referred to as the Immaculate Conception.
The Immaculate Conception does not refer to when Jesus was conceived in the Blessed Mother’s womb by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Like all Marian doctrines, the Immaculate Conception is more about Jesus than Mary. Chosen to be the mother of Jesus long before her life began in her mother’s womb, Mary’s conception was a fitting preparation for her role in salvation.
In anticipation of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection which would come later, Mary was preserved from sin from the first instant of her life. She lived her entire life in union with God, unlike the rest of mankind who must be delivered from sin.
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 saint of the United States of America under the title of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception.
A Church teaching that is often misunderstood:
Confusion about the Immaculate Conception:
The sublime supernatural greatness was granted to Mary in order to Jesus Christ; it is in Him and through Him that God shared the fullness of holiness in her: Mary is Immaculate because she is the Mother of God and she became the Mother of God because she is Immaculate, Maximilian Kolbe states sculpturally. The Immaculate Conception of Mary manifests in a unique and sublime way the absolute centrality and universal salvific function of Jesus Christ. “From divine maternity flow all the graces granted to the most holy Virgin Mary and the first of them is the Immaculate Conception”. For this reason, Mary is not simply like Eve before sin, but she was enriched with an incomparable fullness of grace because she was the Mother of Christ, and the Immaculate Conception was the beginning of a prodigious, unstoppable expansion of her supernatural life.
Pope John Paul II, Homily, 8 December 1982
If you’re going to be the Mother of God, you need some help:
Mary was equipped for the task she was called for:
The most thoroughly redeemed creature in all of God’s world:
The LORD God then asked the woman: What is this you have done? The woman answered, “The snake tricked me, so I ate it.” Then the LORD God said to the snake: Because you have done this, cursed are you among all the animals, tame or wild; On your belly you shall crawl, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. 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: 13-15
A reboot of the first Eve:
The New Eve is not tainted by the stain of Original Sin:
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
The celebration of the Immaculate Conception fits the season of Advent:
We can find hope in the Immaculate Conception:
The Immaculate Conception is a dogma of the Catholic Church:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
Living as a beloved child of God:
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