Christ Our Savior by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O. P., Chapter XL: COMPENDIUM OF MARIOLOGY, THIRD AND FOURTH ARTICLES

Third Article: The Blessed Virgin Mary Was Preserved From All Actual Sin, Even Venial Sin

The Council of Trent declares the belief of tradition in the following words: "If anyone shall say that a man once justified... is able, during his whole life, to avoid all sins, even those that are venial, except by a special privilege from God, as the Church holds concerning the Blessed Virgin, let him be anathema."[2483]

St. Hippolytus, St. Irenaeus, St. Justin, Tertullian, and St. Ambrose are quoted as witnesses of tradition, who place opposition between Eve and Mary, and St. Augustine says: "About the holy Virgin Mary, on account of the Lord's honor, concerning sins, I will that no questions at all be raised."[2484]

St. Thomas gives the theological proof in the following words: "God so prepares and endows those whom He chooses for some particular office, that they are rendered capable of fulfilling it, for St. Paul says: "Who hath made us fit ministers of the New Testament."[2485] But she would not have been worthy to be the Mother of God if she had ever sinned.... So that what is written is fulfilled: "Thou are all fair, O my love, and there is not a spot in thee. ' "[2486]

Mary was not only sinless but incapable of sinning, yet not absolutely so and in her own right as Christ was, but in virtue of the confirmation of grace that was granted her from the beginning and because of the special assistance of divine providence. This special assistance was the effect of the Blessed Virgin Mary's predestination, and under this particular help she retained her complete freedom in the performance of good, without deviating from the right path. This is a participation in the immortality and impeccability of God's supreme liberty.

It is the common teaching of theologians that the Blessed Virgin was also preserved from every imperfection, either directly or indirectly willed, which means that she was never less prompt in following the inspirations of grace given by way of counsel, and her acts of charity did not vary in intensity.

Fourth Article: The Beginning Of Perfection In The Blessed Virgin's Fullness Of Grace

Pius IX says: "The ineffable God... from the beginning and from all eternity chose and ordained for His only-begotten Son a mother from whom His Son took flesh, so as to be born in the blessed fullness of time, and pursued her with such great love above all creatures so as to find the greatest of delight in her. Wherefore, far excelling all the angelic spirits and the saints, He so enriched her with an abundance of all heavenly charismata drawn from the treasury of His divine nature, that always absolutely free from all stain of sin, and all beautiful and perfect as she is, He might present in her a fullness of innocence and sanctity, greater than which, after God, cannot at all be known and, after God, no one can be thought to attain."[2487]

St. Thomas manifests the fitness of this privilege by this principle: "In every genus the nearer a thing is to the principle, the greater the part it has in the effect of that principle.... But Christ is the principle of grace, authoritatively as to His Godhead, instrumentally as to His humanity. But the Blessed Virgin Mary was nearest to Christ in His humanity, because He received His human nature from her. Therefore it was due to her to receive a greater fullness of grace than others."[2488]

If this incipient fullness of grace in the Blessed Virgin is compared with the final grace of men and angels before their entrance into heaven, theologians commonly teach that this beginning of fullness already surpassed the final grace of any man or angel whatever. This is today considered certain and is expressed by Pius IX.[2489]

The reason is that grace is the effect of God's active love, which makes us pleasing in His eyes, as His adopted sons. But the Blessed Virgin from the first moment of her conception, destined to be the Mother of God, was loved by Him more than any saint or angel whatever. Therefore the Blessed Virgin received greater grace than any of them. Moreover, this incipient fullness of grace was already a worthy reparation, although remote, for divine motherhood, which transcends the order of grace inasmuch as terminatively it belongs to the hypostatic order.

In fact, the majority of theologians now teach as most probable, if not certain, that this incipient fullness of grace in the Blessed Virgin already transcended the final grace of all the saints and angels taken together.
Pius IX evidently favors this view, for he says: "God pursued her with such great love above all creatures, so as to find the greatest delight in her. Wherefore, far above all the angelic spirits and the saints, He so enriched her with grace..., and this fullness of grace is, after God, the greatest conceivable."[2490]

But these expressions denote not only every one of the saints and angels, but all of them taken together. In fact, a little farther on in this papal bull, the Blessed Virgin is said to be "above all the choirs of angels,"[2491] that is, all the angels taken together.

This assertion is conceded by all concerning Mary as she is in heaven, but the degree of glory in heaven corresponds to the degree of merit at the moment of death, and this in the Blessed Virgin was in proportion to her dignity as Mother of God, for which the incipient fullness of grace already disposed her.

The theological proof of the aforesaid teaching, which is more generally accepted, is this. A person that is loved more by God than all creatures taken together, received greater grace. But God from all eternity loved Mary more than all creatures taken together, because He loved her as His future mother. Therefore He enriched her with a greater fullness of grace. And He considered her as His future mother from the first moment of her conception, in fact from all eternity, when He predestined her to divine motherhood.
Moreover, if this incipient fullness of grace surpasses the final grace of the highest saint or the highest angel, for this reason it surpasses the grace of all the saints taken together, for grace does not belong to the quantitative order, but to the qualitative order.

Thus the intelligence of an archangel surpasses the intelligence of all angels inferior to him. The intellectual vigor of St. Thomas exceeds that of all his commentators taken together. Likewise the power of the king not only surpasses the power of his prime minister, but of all his ministers taken together.

Hence the Blessed Virgin even in this life, without the cooperation of the saints and angels, could obtain more by her prayers and merits than all the saints and angels taken together could obtain without her.

The consequences of this beginning in the fullness of grace are that all the infused virtues, and the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, which are connected with charity, were from the beginning in Mary in a proportionate degree.

Moreover, many theologians think that the Blessed Virgin more probably received, through infused knowledge, the use of reason and of free will from the first moment of her conception, for the purpose of offering herself to God and for the purpose that this beginning in the fullness of the graces of the virtues and gifts might produce fruit in her. It is also probable that she was not afterward deprived of this use of free will, because thus she would have become less perfect through no fault of her own.[2492]