If there is one Catholic doctrine that many people find difficult to understand, including some Catholics, it is our belief about the special place that the Blessed Virgin Mary has in the history of salvation.
Why do we hold Mary in such esteem? The first answer to that question would be that, because we love Jesus, it is natural that we would also love His mother. If I have a special love and friendship for someone, it would be natural that I would also love his or her mother. Can you imagine ever being friends with someone who did not also like your mother? Therefore, it is only right that we who seek to imitate Jesus in all things would also seek to imitate his special love and affection for His mother.
The most significant reason, however, that we love Mary is that she said “yes” to being the mother of our Savior. God chose her to be the mother of Jesus. He sent Gabriel to ask her consent and permission to allow His Son to be conceived within her. Without her “yes”, without her saying, “May it be done to me according to your word”, Jesus would not have come into this world. Therefore, she has an indispensable role in the story of our salvation.
We also believe that God chose Mary to be the mother of Jesus from the beginning of time. When she herself was conceived, our Heavenly Father prepared her for her special role by already freeing her from sin. That is the mystery we celebrate today, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. Sin has never touched the woman God chose from the beginning to be the mother of His Son. From the first moment of her life, she never offended God by her thoughts, words or deeds. Though we can assume that she was tempted at times as Jesus was, she never fell to the tricks of the devil. In all things she remained pure and immaculate.
Christians throughout the centuries have come to believe in the Immaculate Conception of Mary in part because of the angel’s words to her which we hear in today’s gospel. When Gabriel speaks to our Lady, he calls her “full of grace.” These words have been understood to mean that Mary was so full of grace, so full of the life of God, that there was no room for sin in her. Just as a glass that is full of water would have no room for any other liquid, so Mary was so full of God’s goodness, truth and love that there was no room for pride, greed, hate or any of the other vices that we so easily fall prey to.
Those who do not believe that Mary was preserved from sin from the moment of her conception say that it would mean that she did not need Jesus to die for her. If she never sinned then she would not need the blood of Christ poured out for us on the cross for her salvation. However, this is not the case.
This is the way early Christians first explained the mystery of how a sinless Virgin Mary would need Jesus to die on the cross for her. They gave the example of someone falling into a hole who could not get out. If I come along and see that person and help him to get out of the hole, then I have saved him. Now let us say that another person comes along and I stop him before he has a chance to fall in the hole. I have also saved that person but in a different way. The first person I saved by helping him out of the hole while the second person I saved by keeping him from falling in the hole in the first place.
The same is true with Mary. All of us who have sinned are saved by having our sins forgiven. Mary, on the other hand, is saved by being preserved from sinning in the first place. This beautiful grace that preserved her from sin is not something she earned or accomplished on her own, but a gift of God given to her for the special task of being the mother of Jesus.
We gather here today, therefore, to celebrate Mary, full of grace, preserved from sin from the moment of her conception. We celebrate also because of the promise given to us that we can also experience victory over sin in our own lives. While we cannot claim to have never sinned, we can, through God’s grace and Our Lady’s intercession, overcome temptation, break bad habits and grow in virtue. Though we cannot avoid falling into the hole of sin, God offers a hand to lead us out and keep us from falling back in. We hear that promise in today’s second reading, “....he chose us...before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him.”
Therefore, because Mary said “yes” to being the mother of Jesus, we have the forgiveness of sins. The same Holy Spirit who hovered over Mary to conceive Jesus in her womb lives in us, filling us with grace and strengthening us to avoid sin and choose good. That is why we gather to celebrate the Blessed Virgin Mary in her Immaculate Conception. In her and through her God has won the victory over sin. God wants to do great things in our lives as well. Therefore, we look to Mary to be our inspiration and to pray for us as we strive to live holy lives, to say “yes” to all the ways God calls us to serve Him and to look to heaven for the ultimate victory over death.
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