I. On the Immaculate Conception
(1) May 3
Mary is the "Virgo Purissima," the Most Pure
Virgin
{8} BY the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin is
meant the great revealed truth that she was conceived in the womb of her
mother, St. Anne, without original sin.
Since the fall of Adam all mankind, his descendants, are
conceived and born in sin. "Behold," says the inspired writer in the
Psalm Miserere—"Behold, I was conceived in iniquity, and in sin did my mother
conceive me". That sin which belongs to every one of us, and is ours from
the first moment of our existence, is the sin of unbelief and disobedience, by
which Adam lost Paradise. We, as the children of Adam, are heirs to the
consequences of his sin, and have forfeited in him that spiritual robe of grace
and holiness which he had given him by his Creator at the time that he was
made. In this state of forfeiture {9} and disinheritance we are all of us
conceived and born; and the ordinary way by which we are taken out of it is the
Sacrament of Baptism.
But Mary never was in this state; she was by the eternal
decree of God exempted from it. From eternity, God, the Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost, decreed to create the race of man, and, foreseeing the fall of Adam,
decreed to redeem the whole race by the Son's taking flesh and suffering on the
Cross. In that same incomprehensible, eternal instant, in which the Son of God
was born of the Father, was also the decree passed of man's redemption through
Him. He who was born from Eternity was born by an eternal decree to save us in
Time, and to redeem the whole race; and Mary's redemption was determined in
that special manner which we call the Immaculate Conception. It was decreed,
not that she should be cleansed from sin, but that she should, from the first
moment of her being, be preserved from sin; so that the Evil One never had any
part in her. Therefore she was a child of Adam and Eve as if they had never
fallen; she did not share with them their sin; she inherited the gifts and
graces (and more than those) which Adam and Eve possessed in Paradise. This is
her prerogative, and the foundation of all those salutary truths which are
revealed to us concerning her. Let us say then with all holy souls, Virgin most
pure, conceived without original sin, Mary, pray for us.
