[stephenkhoo]

Scripture Reflections
Thursday, 8 December, 2011, Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception
AMAZING GRACE
SCRIPTURE READINGS: GEN 3:9-15.20; EPH 1:3-6.11-12; LK 1:26-38

One of the objections against the Immaculate Conception of Mary is that it is not possible. How could anyone be sinless at conception except the Lord? And of course, we have scriptural citations to prove that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary is apparently a big mistake of the Church. Or worse still, for the Church to declare it as a dogma in 1854, that is, a doctrine that must be believed with a divine and Catholic faith because it is revealed by God to the Church as contained in the Word of God.

How can this dogma be reconciled with the fact that all of us are sinners at birth? St John says, “To say that we have never sinned is to call God a liar and to show that his word is not in us.”(1 Jn 1;10). St Paul similarly declares that “sin entered the world through one man, and through sin death, and thus death has spread through the whole human race because everyone has sinned.” As such, to posit that Mary is sinless at conception would tantamount to saying that she does not need to be saved. But scripture makes it clear that no one can be saved except through Christ. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption through Jesus Christ.” (Rom 3:23-24)

If we have difficulty reconciling the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception with your faith, we are not alone. This theological conundrum was a difficult issue even for the Church theologians, who grappled with it for years. On one hand, the tradition of the Church since the 4th Century proclaims the holiness of Mary. Most of the Fathers of the Church, especially from the Eastern Church, upheld her freedom from sin, that she was free from any type of personal sin. Some Fathers of the Church like St. Ephraem, St. Ambrose and St Augustine went beyond to say that she was free from all stains of sin. The Church sang praises to her, calling her the New Ark, the Lily of the Valley, the New Eve. By the end of the 7th Century, this feast was already celebrated in the liturgy. Still, there were outstanding Catholic theologians who had great difficulty reconciling the sinlessness of Mary from the moment of her conception with that of her need for a redeemer. Some of the great theologians and Doctors who opposed it in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries included St Anselm and St Bernard. Supporting St Bernard’s position were Peter Lombard, Alexander of Hales, St Bonaventure, St Albert the great St Thomas Aquinas.

These great theologians relented only when John Duns Scotus answered their objections. He explained that Mary enjoyed total fullness of grace from the first instant of her conception, precisely because of her most perfect redemption by the most perfect Redeemer, which consisted of His preserving her from all sin. Mary too was redeemed by Christ who exists from all eternity as the Second Person of the Trinity and who granted her the grace of being freed from the contamination of sin at her conception. In other words, God applied to Mary, Christ’s saving grace before the birth of Christ. Thus, Mary was also saved by Christ, albeit by pre-emption. It must therefore be said, that our Lady was preserved from Original Sin by the merits of her Son, as much as we are released from sin by His merits on the cross. Therefore, we must say in no uncertain terms that Jesus is her redeemer as well as ours. In fact, more perfectly hers than ours, for she was shielded by Him from ever incurring evil whereas we are released by Him from the evil He has permitted us to incur. According to Scotus, we cannot call Christ the most perfect Redeemer nor Mary the most perfect of the redeemed unless we affirm her preservation from original sin. Our Lady’s preservation from original sin is the most perfect kind of redemption. Prevention better than cure!

But how is this possible? Christ who is God is eternal. Mary could be saved and preserved from sin by God before the salvific act of Christ in space and time. Isn’t this what the letter of St Paul to the Ephesians is saying? “Before the world was made, he chose us, chose us in Christ, to be holy and spotless, and to live through love in his presence, determining that we should become his adopted sons, through Jesus Christ for his own purposes, to make us praise the glory of his grace, his free gift to us in the Beloved.” Indeed, we have been chosen from eternity even before we enter into space and time to be holy and spotless in Christ. What God has done for Mary, He has also done for us. Of course for Mary, it occurred at her birth, but for us it is at our baptism. The grace of Christ is given to us through faith and baptism which brings about the forgiveness of sin. In the case of Mary, the grace was given to her in advance on account of Christ’s coming as our redeemer. This explains why the Church Fathers again and again, especially St Augustine, declared that Mary conceived Jesus in her heart before she conceived Jesus in her womb! In the gospel, we have the angel calling her full of grace. “Rejoice, so highly favoured! The Lord is with you.” She is proclaimed blessed by Elizabeth, by the followers of Jesus and by Christ Himself in the gospel. (cf Lk 1:42; 11:27). This blessed life is given only to those who live the beatitudes as taught by Jesus.

But one might object, why is Mary so privileged? Precisely, the sinlessness of Mary is a gift from the Lord. So, too, our redemption is a gift from God. We also do not deserve to be redeemed. It is pure grace alone. Grace means gift. A gift is a gift and it is not reducible. When we try to explain a gift, it is no longer a gift. If I were to give a pure gift to someone, and then asked why, and I answer because ….; then it would no longer be a gift since we give with conditions and with reasons. Only a gratuitous gift is truly a gift because one does not deserve it nor earn it. So, in the case of Mary, God chose to give her that gift before the coming of Christ to earth. For us, He chose to give us that gift of salvation at Christ’s coming. This is all part of the plan of God, as St Paul says. “And it is in him that we were claimed as God’s own, chosen from the beginning, under the predetermined plan of the one who guides all things as he decides by his own will; chosen to be, for his greater glory, the people who put their hopes in Christ before he came.”

So if we are envious of this privilege given to Mary, then we, too, deserve the same reprimand from Jesus. The master told the labourers who came first, “Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?” (Mt 20:13-15) For this reason, the dogmatic formula was framed in this manner; “the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instant of her Conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin.” So there is no threat to the unique redemptive work of Christ. There are two ways of redemption. God could allow one to be born in sin and purify the soul by subsequent application of the merits of Christ; or He could by anticipation of the merits of Christ. Baptism breaks hold of original sin no less than did Mary’s Immaculate Conception. Yet, among us who are baptized, who would deny the need for a savior?

What is important for us in this celebration of the Immaculate Conception of Mary is that this dogma teaches us that no one is saved apart from Christ and that salvation is a pure gift from God. This is true for all those who came before Christ and those that come after Christ. Mary therefore belonged to the sinful human race and in need of redemption. But God chose to preserve her from sin, which is purely God’s gift to her on account of the fact that she was to be the Mother of Christ. If she did not incur original sin, it was not due to her action but Christ’s. This privilege does not make her a goddess but she belongs to the side of a redeemed and sanctified humanity. Christ alone is the Redeemer of all. Mary’s redemption was unique. Christ did not take away Mary’s sins, for she had none. Rather by His redemptive mercy, He kept her from incurring sin. This requires that she be given the fullness of grace, conceived without original sin and be guarded by His grace against falling into sin.

For ourselves, instead of doubting Mary’s sinlessness, we should rejoice with her that God has blessed her with so great a gift. Mary’s gift is also ours. She received this gift not for herself but in order that she be fit to be the mother of the Saviour. We could not imagine Jesus, the Son of God, being conceived by one under the bondage of Satan even for a short while. That was why Elizabeth reacted joyfully to God’s choice of Mary to be the “Mother of my Lord.” (Lk 1:43) Even John the Baptist leapt in her womb. In itself too, divine motherhood is grace. Indeed, we must realize this, that from beginning to end, redemption is grace. Whether it is for Mary or for us, it is pure grace. We cannot do anything to deserve redemption. St Paul reiterates this when he wrote, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”(Eph 2:8-10) That is why, with the psalmist we must sing praises to God in honour of Mary, for it is God who has so wonderfully shown His marvelous love and divine plan to us. “Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous deeds. Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done wondrous deeds; His right hand has won victory for him, his holy arm.”

But it might seem so impossible! Of course, as the Angel said, “Know this too: your kinswoman Elizabeth has, in her old age, herself conceived a son, and she whom people called barren is now in her sixth month, for nothing is impossible to God.” Amazing grace means that God can work the impossible. Faith tells us that all things are possible with God. If the Immaculate Conception sounds like a fairy tale, then what about the Incarnation, the resurrection of Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost? And by extension, the sacraments, especially the real presence of the Lord in the Eucharist is equally impossible. “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.” (Mk 10:27).

In the final analysis, it is not enough to have the privilege of being saved by Christ, whether at conception or at birth or at baptism. It is more important to allow the grace of God to work in us. We must not hinder His grace from being operative in our lives. This is the real difference between Mary and us. In the gospel, she responded by declaring, “I am the handmaid of the Lord, let what you have said be done to me.” Instead of squabbling over Mary’s Immaculate Conception and allowing apologetics to get in our way, it is more important to ask whether we live a sinless life in total obedience to God, like Mary after being saved and graced by Christ. This feast should remind us to be grateful to His grace and this gratitude must be seen in a life of total dedication to the work of God by faithfully living out our vocation in the divine plan of God as Mary did.

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