What can be more beautiful than the flowers of the field? what more pure than the lilies of the valley? These are the sweet similes by which the Holy Ghost designates the Virgin, immaculate in her conception. He puts into her mouth these words: I am the flower of the fields, and the lily of the valleys. And adds: As the lily among thorns so is My Beloved among the daughters of Adam; to teach us that Mary is not only a beautiful flower in the midst of a garden filled with other flowers, but the one flower blooming in the devastated field of the world; she is not a lily raising itself among others of its kind, but a lily of admirable purity, opening its petals and giving forth its perfume in a valley trodden by many feet, and filled with sadness, whence it is called the valley of tears.
Thorns surround the beautiful lily: sicut lilium inter spinas, sic amica mea inter filias. As the lily among thorns so is Mary among the daughters of Adam. These thorns have choked and destroyed all other flowers, the innocence of all the daughters of Adam; they have only respected one lily, the innocence of the Immaculate Virgin, which in the midst of ruin and desolation raises itself, pure and beautiful as the flower of the field and the lily of the valleys: Ego flos campi et lilium convallium.
In treating this vast and noble subject of the Immaculate Conception, we shall endeavour in the first place to explain in what this most glorious privilege of the Virgin Mary consists. Then we shall give a short history of the belief of the Church. Afterwards we shall recall all the graces poured into the soul of Mary at the first moment of her conception. Lastly we shall speak of the homage and glory the Virgin has rendered to God in return for the graces she has received.
I.
It has pleased the Divine Wisdom to vary His gifts and to lead holy souls by different paths. Some, and these are the greater number, only enter heaven through repentance, after having expiated their sins in tears, following Holy Magdalen, who after her repentance was so faithful to Jesus her Saviour, St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles and the foundation of the Church, St. Augustine, illustrious among the Doctors. The holiness of repentance is precious in the sight of God, and it is this alone to which sinners can look. But to suppose holiness of this kind in the Virgin Mary would be impious.
Some saints have been attached to God from their earliest years and have never lost their innocence by grievous sin. Such are the Seraphic Teresa, St. Aloysius, and St. Stanislaus Kostka, who seem to us like angels in mortal bodies. Their rare holiness would appear tarnished by the side of the holiness of Mary.
We admire some illustrious souls that God has regarded with a particular love even before their birth, and has purified in their mothers’ womb. Such are Jeremias, whose sorrow was only equalled in intensity by his lamentations, St. John the Baptist, more than a prophet, and the greatest among the children of men, and in the opinion of some Doctors, the powerful St. Joseph, so dear to the hearts devoted to Jesus and Mary. Behold here a holiness so high, so sublime, that we can scarce conceive any more excellent.
But that of Mary is still more wonderful. To be sanctified in the womb is a grace of God, worthy of the dignity of His Prophet, worthy of His Precursor, worthy of His adopted Father, but not enough for His own Mother. When treating of the Mother of God do not seek for an example; for a holiness of which there are several examples, is not singular and unique. Now Mary is a Virgin unique and unlike any other, Virgo singularis. When considering her, speak not to me of human rules, says Bossuet, tell me of the rules of God.
Mary then is singular in her holiness in that she was holy not only at her death, not only during her whole life, not only before her birth, but at the very moment that her soul was united to her body, that is to say, there was never an instant in her existence when she was not holy and immaculate.
But it is fit to explain more fully the nature of this glorious privilege so misunderstood by many Christians. We shall establish the following propositions:
First Proposition: The Conception of Mary was not Divine.—The meaning of this proposition is that the Most Holy Virgin was not conceived like our Lord, but like all other men, in the ordinary way of nature. The Conception of Jesus Christ was Divine, the work of the Holy Ghost, without any participation of man. But it is quite certain that this privilege of a Divine Conception, accomplished by the Holy Ghost, without the participation of man, belongs exclusively to the Redeemer; and to attribute this privilege to Mary, under pretext of honouring her would be to fall into an error which the Church would not authorize.
We hold for certain then that Mary had a real father, as she had a true mother; and that St. Joachim was the father of the Blessed Virgin, not in the same way as St. Joseph was of Jesus, but really and naturally, because he had begotten her. We shall see a little later on that Mary had need to be redeemed by the Redeemer of the whole human race. Now this need of redemption in Mary, notwithstanding her exemption from original sin, comes from the fact that she was a descendant of Adam by the ordinary ways of nature.
Second Proposition: The Conception of Mary was miraculous.—Although the conception of Mary cannot be called divine, like that of Jesus her Son, yet it was assisted by a supernatural power which made it truly miraculous. Tradition reports that St. Anne was barren and advanced in years; her prayers and those of her holy spouse St. Joachim obtained the conception of Mary. That happy mother conceived notwithstanding her barrenness, notwithstanding her old age and that of her spouse; and after having brought forth the holiest among children, she again became sterile.
The conception of Mary by a barren mother is a prodigy, of which the Holy Scriptures afford us some other examples. But we repeat there is a great difference between the miraculous conception of Mary and the divine conception of Jesus, the unique privilege of the Son of God, as the Angel showed: The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
Another miraculous circumstance remarked by Suarez, following the Fathers, is that God revealed the conception of the Blessed Virgin to her happy parents. This is very probable: if it was accorded to the parents of Isaac and of St. John the Baptist it could not well be refused to the parents of the Mother of God.
Third Proposition: Mary had need of Redemption.—Redemption supposes a fall, at least in Adam; for to be redeemed one must be in a certain sense the slave of sin. Mary all free as she was from the stain of original sin, has been redeemed by Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the whole human race, Who died for all men, according to the doctrine so expressly laid down by St. Paul. Nothing authorizes an exception even for Mary. And that exception, if made, would not at all tend to increase the glory of Mary which cannot be lessened by being indebted for its greatest prerogatives to the merits of the Redeemer, whilst it would be injurious to that Redeemer, and derogatory to His dignity, by depriving Him of His noblest conquest. Therefore the Sovereign Pontiff has taken care to specify that the grace of the Immaculate Conception, like all the graces accorded to Mary and to all others, is the fruit of the merits of Jesus Christ the Saviour of the human race: Intuitu meritorum Christi Jesu Salvatoris generis humani.
To explain this need of redemption in Mary, Suarez simply and absolutely asserts that she had sinned in Adam. St. Paul, he says, teaches this of all men and assures them that they have need to be redeemed: That if one died for all, then all were dead. Now Jesus Christ died for Mary; therefore Mary was dead in Adam.
We must understand by this death in Adam, that Mary because of her conception was subject to original sin, and that she would have certainly contracted it, if a singular grace of the Redeemer had not prevented it, by removing this cruel consequence of the original stain. We shall see this better from the following proposition:
Fourth Proposition: The Redemption of Mary was not liberative, but preservative.—Redemption, by liberation, restores the ruins made by sin; it restores to man what sin had taken away, it causes him to pass from a state of sin to a state of grace. This is the redemption common to all men: it is not that of Mary. For Mary the first-born of redemption, as St. Bernard calls her, primogenita redemptionis; for Mary, that new world, that world of marvels, the redemption of reparation does not suffice: she must have a special redemption which regards herself alone. This is that redemption of exception which does not consist in raising a fallen nature, but hinders it from falling; which has not purified Mary from original sin, but preserved her from contracting it. Jesus owed to His Mother this special redemption; and see how Bossuet explains it in one of his magnificent sermons on the Conception of the Virgin: “She has this in common with all the faithful, that Jesus has given for her His Blood; but she has this in particular, that He first received it from her. She has this in common with us that that Blood fell upon her to sanctify her; but she has this in particular, that she herself is its source. So that we can say the conception of Mary is the first beginning of the Blood of Jesus. It is from it that grand river begins its course, that river of graces which flows in our veins through the Sacraments and which infuses the spirit of life into the whole body of the Church. And as the fountains, ever mindful of their sources, cast up their waters to the same height, as though seeking these sources in the air, so we may be assured the Blood of our Saviour will reascend in its power even to the conception of His Mother, to honour the place from whence it sprang.”
Seek no more then, Christians, seek no more for the name of Mary in the sentence of death which has been pronounced against all men. It is not there, it is blotted out. And how? By that Divine Blood, which having its source in her chaste womb, glories itself in employing for her all its power against that fatal law which slays us all in our very beginning.
To resume: Jesus Christ by dying on the Cross, has saved the whole human race; He has equally saved the Most Holy Virgin: these two points are certain. We may add a third, which is only probable; it is that Jesus Christ has equally saved the angels. This is the opinion of Suarez. According to that writer, the angels received grace during their trial, and the glory of heaven after it, through the foreseen merits of our Lord.
Although our Lord may be the Saviour of the angels, it would be incorrect to say He is their Redeemer, because they have never been subject to sin nor to the necessity of contracting sin. But the quality of Redeemer is perfectly suitable to our Lord in relation to His Mother; and it is thus that Mary has participated in the merits of her Divine Son, not in the way we have, nor yet like the angels, but in a manner applicable to herself alone.
The merits of Jesus Christ have not had for their effect her purification from sin, because she has never contracted its stain; and it is in this that her redemption differs from ours.
But these merits have had the effect of preserving her from the stain she would otherwise have contracted. And it is in this that she differs from the angels, who were never in need of being prevented by grace to escape original sin.
“It may well be that the torrent of original iniquity,” says St. Francis of Sales, “poured its impure waters over the conception of the Sacred Virgin as impetuously as over the conception of the other daughters of Adam: it could go no further, but like the Jordan in the time of Josue was stopped in its course. The river stayed in its course from respect for the ark of the covenant, and original sin draws back through respect for the true Tabernacle of the Eternal Covenant.”
II.
The dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary springs from Catholic tradition, as a flower from its stalk, as a river from its source.
This dogma has been revealed by God; otherwise it would not be a dogma—a truth of faith. It has been revealed implicitlyin other truths, and also explicitly, but in a manner not so apparent. According to Mgr. Malou, the revelation was implicit in the words of the Angel: Ave gratia plena; benedicta tu in mulieribus; while in the Books of Wisdom and the Psalms, it is found in a mystic sense. The Angelic Salutation, for example, cannot be fully understood except by seeing in it the perfect and unique holiness which includes the Immaculate Conception. Revelation is still more formal and explicit, in the words of Genesis: I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: She shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.
It is impossible to understand this text without admitting the Immaculate Conception. For it places before us two races who will be perpetually at war: on the one side the woman and her Son; on the other, the serpent and his following. Does not this mean that the woman, the head of the blessed race, will not belong to the race accursed?
If we inquire into the recognized opinion of the Church, that common belief which cannot be error, we shall see that the Immaculate Conception has ever been believed and professed in an implicit way, for example in the idea that Mary was perfectly holy, holy with a unique holiness, always holy, always the enemy of the devil and never his slave. We shall see also that whenever the attention of the Church has been drawn to the conception of Mary, it has pronounced without hesitation on her exemption from all stain.
It is enough then to convince us of this fact, to listen to the language of the Fathers, to look at the progress, every day more pronounced, of the cultus of the Immaculate Conception, to follow the disputes of the Schools, and especially to observe the conduct of the Holy See, the infallible interpreter of tradition.
I.—Listening to the words of the Fathers, we find a number of expressions equivalent to the term used to-day—the Immaculate Conception. They do not cease to represent Mary to us as an extraordinary creature, wonderful, unique, in whom everything is a marvel and a miracle; they affirm that she is unique; the image of her Divine Son, approaching God more nearly than any other creature, as she has received from Him more than all others together. They repeat under every form and in a thousand places, that beautiful and unanswerable argument which we have already pointed out: that of the perfect holiness, perpetual and unlimited, of the Blessed Virgin; calling her constantly holy, most holy, the holiest of creatures, immaculate, innocent, pure, without stain and without spot, holy above all the angels, &c.; that is to say, of an unlimited holiness, equal to everything that God can accomplish by grace in a creature, to everything that love can give by way of privilege. Now the consequence of this is easy to be deduced: it is impossible to deny to the Mother of God every possible and suitable grace without going contrary to the words and spirit of the Fathers.
In considering the words they use, we must remember that the original fault is expressly called by St. Paul and other sacred writers, a sin, a stain, an enmity with God, which makes us all by nature children of wrath; and then place by the side of that situation common to all men, such exclamations as those of St. Ephrem, in his prayer to the Mother of God: “… Tota pura, tota immaculata, tota integra, illibata, immaculata. St. Epiphanius says the same: Virgo incorrupta, Virgo per gratiam ab omni integra labe peccati.
Such is the language of all the ancient Doctors of the East and the West. In Origen Mary is called the Immaculate Mother never poisoned by the breath of the serpent. In a precious document, yet more ancient, a letter of the priests and deacons of Achaia upon the martyrdom of the Apostle St. Andrew, we find that that Apostle announced Jesus Christ to the proconsul Ægeus, and said among other things: As the first Adam was formed of earth as yet immaculate, so the second Adam, the Restorer of the earth, ought to be born of an Immaculate Virgin.
Faith in the Immaculate Conception is also explicitly professed, as occasion requires, by certain Doctors. Let us take for example St. Augustine. Not only does he regard as an injury to Jesus Christ the idea that there should be in Mary His Mother the stain of any sin, but when the original blemish is ascribed to her, he rejects and denies it, he who had so eagerly proved that original sin had infected all the descendants of Adam! Julian, disciple of Pelagius, argues against original sin, from the pious belief of the faithful in the Immaculate Conception: You uphold, he says, that all are born in sin; you thus deliver Mary over to the power of the devil. No, at once replies the Doctor of grace, we do not deliver Mary over to the power of the evil one; for if her nature subjected her to that sad condition, grace exempted her from it.
We see that the teaching of St. Augustine in the fifth century was the same as our own to-day after the definition of the dogma. We say with him: Mary, by reason of her nature was subject to original sin, but grace, more powerful than nature, preserved her from that universal stain.
II.—Another proof of the belief of the faithful, is the cultus rendered by them to the sinless conception of Mary: a cultus which the Church would neither have approved or tolerated, had it contained any error.
In the earliest Liturgies, bearing the names of St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil, St. Mark, and St. James, the Blessed Virgin is called: Sanctissima, impolluta, intemerata, immaculata, super omnes benedicta, semper beata, omnibus modis irreprehensa, honorabilior quam Cherubim et gloriosior quam Seraphim.
The feast of the Conception was celebrated in the seventh century, or perhaps earlier, in the Churches of the East. In the ninth century it was observed in the Church of Naples, in parts of Spain, and in some other dioceses. It was never forbidden by the Roman Church. The institution of this festival in England is attributed to St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, at the end of the eleventh century.
It had lasted at least five or six centuries in the East, and two or three in some parts of the West, when St. Bernard tried to suppress it. In his letter to the Canons of Lyons, he complains that the Church of Lyons had introduced the feast of the Conception without consulting the Holy See. We must even allow that he expressed himself in a manner little favourable to this great privilege of the Blessed Virgin whom he loved so much; but he takes care to end his letter by protesting that he submits to the authority of the Roman Church, and that he is ready if she demands it, to change his opinion.
St. Bernard failed in this attack and was immediately and solidly refuted—he whose voice had led Europe and urged it against Mahomedan Asia failed in an attack made on a few canons!…
III.—It was St. Bernard who opened the controversy, and began those long and sharp discussions between the Doctors of the Schools; his great authority misled some of the theologians of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and—a remarkable fact—some of those most devout to the Blessed Virgin. It pleased God to show by these examples that human wisdom is always limited, and that the privilege of infallibility promised to the Church, does not belong to any individual Doctor.
To speak truly, as long as the Church had not openly pronounced in its favour, the greatest minds might well hesitate. If on the one side they saw the common belief of the faithful and the eminent dignity of the Mother of God, on the other, besides the authority of St. Bernard—the chief of the opposers of the dogma, notwithstanding his tender love of Mary—they had also the universality of original sin so forcibly laid down in Holy Scripture.
Thus many hesitated, and some changed their opinions. St. Bonaventure was at first opposed to it without however condemning his opponents. Afterwards he came over to the more common opinion of the Church, and in 1263, being General of the Franciscan Order, and holding a Chapter at Pisa, he ordered that the feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary should be celebrated in all the houses of the Friars Minor.
And was his illustrious friend St. Thomas Aquinas for or against the dogma? Some say he was in favour of it, others against it; others again say that at first he was against it, but afterwards in its favour. Volumes have been written on this subject, and have not absolutely settled the question. The Angelic Doctor seems to have hesitated like the Seraphic Doctor. Thus in his commentary on the Ave Maria, he appears against it; in his Commentary on the Book of the Sentences, he appears in its favour; in the Summa it seems impossible not to admit that he is against it.
The Dominicans have understood like ourselves, their brother St. Thomas; for it was to uphold the opinion of their great Doctor that they were opposed to the Immaculate Conception. The Franciscans, on the other hand, supported it, and one of them gained great glory in this noble tournament. We mean the Subtle Doctor, John Duns, better known as Duns Scotus, who died in 1308. The University of Paris, full of remembrances of Alexander of Hales, Albertus Magnus, and St. Thomas, had made a decree against this privilege of Mary; however they were divided, and being unable to come to any resolution, called on Duns Scotus to take his counsel. The Scot made himself the champion of the Privilege, and answered all difficulties: No, he always repeated, Mary could not contract original sin, as she could not contract actual sin; for if she had been stained with sin actual or original, there would have been a moment when the Mother of God would have been the enemy of God!… He so resolved two hundred arguments, with so much of memory and learning, that he went forth from the lists with the title of Victor. He determined the future teaching of the Faculty. It at once revoked the decree, passed some years before, and afterwards in 1346 it forbade its members to attack this doctrine of the Immaculate Conception; forty years later, in 1386, it made another decree forbidding the Doctorate to be conferred on those who would not engage by oath to uphold this pious belief; and lastly it made it of obligation to celebrate annually the feast of the Conception. Following Paris, the Universities of Cologne, Mayence, Valencia in Spain, and almost all the other Catholic Universities made the same decrees.
In the seventeenth century the doubt was scarcely permitted. Suarez sums up the controversy thus: The dispute is ended. The Immaculate Conception is not a dogma of faith, since it has not been expressly defined, but is as near being of faith as is possible for a doctrine not yet defined. It is a truth sufficiently clear for the Church to range among articles of faith when she judges fit. In 1625 the King of Spain having addressed to Urban VIII. a memorial praying for the definition, the Holy Office after three sittings, unanimously decided that the predecessors of His Holiness had so far advanced the matter that nothing remained but its definition.
The Holy See, having left to opinions the necessary and proper liberty, became with time more and more favourable to the definition. This prudent but firm conduct of the Roman Church is well expressed in the dogmatic Bull of Pius IX.
The Pontiff recalls how that his predecessors established the feast of the Conception in the Roman Church, that they raised it in importance and dignity by a proper Mass and Office, that they used all their power to augment and propagate the devotion thus instituted, either by granting indulgences, or by leaving even to states, provinces, and kingdoms, to choose as their Patroness the Mother of God under the title of her Immaculate Conception; or by approving sodalities, congregations, and religious societies, instituted in honour of the Immaculate Conception; or by praises given to the piety of those who erected hospitals, altars, or churches under this title, or who bound themselves by the sacred bond of an oath to defend strenuously this prerogative of the Mother of God.
He goes on to say that his predecessors never suffered this doctrine to be censured or blamed in any way, but prohibited the contrary opinion to be defended either in public or in private.
This prohibition was made particularly by Alexander VII. in the seventeenth century. At that time the Pontiff was able to speak of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception as a pious belief; a qualification which the Dominicans had forcibly denied at the Council of Trent. A pious belief, they said, is equivalent to a definition; for if our belief is not pious, it is impious. And in this reasoning they were not far wrong.
Finally, the Holy See officially and solemnly consulted for the last time the Universal Church. On February 2, 1849, from his exile at Gaeta, the Sovereign Pontiff addressed to all the Bishops an Encyclical, in which he declared that he was being asked on all sides for the dogmatic definition. He received the answers of five hundred and forty-three Cardinals, Archbishops, and Bishops. Of this number, four hundred and eighty-four attested their firm belief and that of their dioceses in the dogma, and earnestly entreated for its absolute definition. Ten asked for an indirect definition. Twenty-two expressed their doubts as to the seasonableness of the definition, or their fears of its results. Four did not speak of the definition. Eighteen pronounced positively against the seasonableness of the definition, and among these, six or seven against the definibility of the pious belief. But not a single Bishop, even among these last, affirmed that the belief did not exist in his diocese, or that it was not common. Sixteen stated that the belief was so deeply rooted that they would not dare, in ordaining prayers or consulting their flocks to let it be supposed that this privilege of the Virgin was at all doubtful; it would be an occasion of scandal.
We see this belief sufficiently manifested in the nineteenth century; we say manifested and not invented; because that which does not exist cannot manifest itself. The time of manifestation matters little, the Church being ever the same. And indeed in past ages such was always the opinion of the Church, such was the disposition of Providence, that the opponents of the Immaculate Conception were constantly beaten, and its defenders always victorious till they obtained the supreme victory in our own time and under our own eyes.
At the blessed conception of Mary a somewhat similar thing happened to that which took place in the beginning of the world, at the creation of man. The Three Divine Persons having created by a word both heaven and earth determined to create man, and took counsel together. Let Us make man to Our image and likeness.
Four thousand years later the Three Divine Persons again took counsel together: Let Us make woman, They said, the woman blessed among all women; and let Us make her to Our image and likeness. And so the Three Divine Persons use Their power to adorn the soul of Mary. They pour into that soul the treasures of beauty, of grace, of wisdom and of love which are due to that best beloved of spouses, that most honoured of Mothers, that most amiable of daughters. She is a temple, a tabernacle, a sanctuary, which God Himself has constructed and which He has carefully sanctified and beautified with His own hands. Sanctificavit tabernaculum Suum Altissimus.
An infusion of sanctifying grace in a measure worthy of the liberality of God, a present of all the virtues and of all the gifts of the Holy Ghost, an assurance of never falling into enmity with the Lord, by the privilege of impeccability, the extinction of that sting of concupiscence which burns in all the descendants of Adam, and the full use of reason: these are the privileges which Mary received in the first moment of her existence. We will speak of each one of these prerogatives, and learn the worth of the Immaculate Conception of the glorious Virgin.
I.—In the established order of God, every soul in which sin does not reign is adorned with sanctifying grace. Mary, being preserved from original sin has consequently received this grace, but in what quantity? in what measure?
I ask the Fathers of the Church, the organs of tradition, the oracles of theology; and they say: Why do you ask about the holiness of Mary in her conception? Do you not know that grace has exhausted all its power in Mary, and filled her with all its treasures? Did not God cause her to be born of a barren mother, to teach us that nature was incapable of producing such a masterpiece and that grace alone could do it? Could the Angel Gabriel, when he salutes her in the name of God, find a worthy title, except by addressing her as full of grace: Ave gratia plena? He does not pronounce her name: her name is full of grace; her nobility is grace; her riches are grace. Ave gratia plena.
We shall speak later on of the increase of sanctifying grace in Mary by the prodigious multiplication of her good works and merits. But what was the first degree of her holiness at the first moment of her conception? Theologians, following their chief, St. Thomas, tell us with one voice, that the grace given to Mary in her first sanctification surpassed the measure accorded to the highest of men or to the highest of the angels in their first sanctification. The reason is too evident to need explanation: one receives so much the more grace as one is more closely united to God, the Author of all grace and holiness: now never did man or angel have such close union with God as Mary at her conception, for she was at that first destined to the Divine Maternity. But this is too little. Theologians teach with Suarez that this measure of grace conferred on Mary in the moment of her conception surpassed the measure accorded to the greatest Saint or the highest of the Seraphim at the moment of the consummation of their merits, that is to say, when they were admitted to the possession of God; so that if Mary had been called to heaven an instant after her most happy conception she would have been Queen of Saints and Angels, and for the reason before given: a saint or an angel however near he may be to God even after a long life of virtues and merits can never be so near as the Virgin conceived in the friendship of God to become His Mother.
This is what David signified when he said: “Her foundations are in the holy mountains.” The perfection of holiness in others is the beginning of hers; from the point where others stop in the way of perfection, Mary sets out on a way almost without end. And the Prophet Isaias, regarding this august Figure six hundred years before she appeared, says: Behold a wonder that prepares itself, the Lord is already at work. It is a high mountain which shall be the house of God, it shall be raised above the loftiest summits, and the other mountains shall be at its feet, and all the nations shall flow unto it.
They do not fear to affirm with St. Alphonsus, Contenson, De Rhodes, Combalot, and other worthy authors, that the grace of Mary in the moment of her conception surpassed all that had ever been given or ever would be given to all men and angels together. For, they say, God at that instant loved Mary more than all the rest together; as a mark of that love He prepared for her a glory without parallel, He destined her to a dignity which left behind all other dignities put together.
They also call to mind the wonderful effects of the grace received by Mary in her conception: this grace spread itself in three ways: it spread itself over the soul of Mary and preserved it from original sin, it spread itself over her virginal body disposing it to engender the true flesh of the Word of God. Lastly it flowed upon men copiously enough to purify and sanctify all.
Collect and pile together in thought, the merits of all the angels, of all the saints, of all ages: the obedience of the patriarchs, the fidelity of the prophets, the untiring zeal of the holy apostles, the unconquerable fortitude of the martyrs, the persevering penitence of confessors, the sighs of the widows, the purity of the virgins, all the examples of virtue which have ever edified earth and rejoiced heaven. Conceive if you can the torrents of graces and blessings which these merits drew from God’s Heart: and even then you cannot understand the ocean of grace with which God overwhelmed the Immaculate Virgin in the moment of her conception.
Mary has received so much grace that she can lavish it on others without impoverishing herself; she has been made the channel through which all blessings flow: those heavenly streams which inundate earth flow from the ocean of Mary, but they can never exhaust it. Mary at this instant is purer before God, more pleasing in His sight, dearer to His Heart than all other creatures together. This is why God introduced her into the sanctuary of His gifts to load her with favours, and the love which He bears her is greater than His love for all other creatures.
II.—At the same moment that God created the soul of Mary to unite it to her body and infused into it sanctifying grace, He also endowed it with all the virtues in an heroic degree. This proposition is evident with regard to the virtues which theologians call infused of themselves, i.e., which are always found in a soul in a state of grace. It is less certain as regards the moral virtues—those infused by accident—and which do not necessarily follow habitual grace. However, it seems to us that we must admit with Suarez the infusion of these virtues into the Virgin Mary. For in the first place these virtues were given to Adam and Eve in their first sanctification: now how can we refuse to the Virgin an ornament of the soul granted to our first parents? Secondly, it is fit that Mary in this respect as in all others, should be perfectly similar to Jesus Christ. Lastly, we cannot allege any authority, any reason, any conjecture, be it ever so little plausible, which could deprive Mary of these virtues at the moment of her conception; whilst numerous and important writers affirm the pouring of these moral virtues, as well as all others into the soul of Mary.
According to the Fathers, Mary in her conception received all the virtues given to the saints of the Old Law: to the patriarchs, priests, judges, and kings, to whom God gave a portion of the spirit of Jesus Christ. In them He appeared under divers forms, of mercy, justice, piety, strength and light: in Mary all these outlines reunite themselves to form a complete image of Jesus Christ; so that the conception of the Virgin resuscitates and reproduces the births of the ancient types of our Saviour.
St. Thomas of Villanova speaking on this subject thus expresses himself: “Let us pass on to her grace, to her virtues. But what can we say except that God gave to Mary all that a creature can possibly receive? As at the creation of the world God reunited in man all the wonders of the universe, so at the regeneration of the world, He enclosed in Mary the perfection of all the saints and of the whole Church. All that is remarkable in any saint you will find in Mary: in her, the patience of Job, the meekness of Moses, the faith of Abraham, the chastity of Joseph, the humility of David, the wisdom of Solomon, the zeal of Elias; in her is the purity of virgins, the courage of martyrs, the piety of confessors, the knowledge of doctors, the contempt of hermits for the things of the world.”
With the virtues, Mary received without any doubt the most perfect gifts of the Holy Ghost. If these gifts always accompany sanctifying grace, with more reason would they fill the soul of the Virgin upon whom the Holy Ghost Himself came down to overshadow with the power of the Most High. Already was Mary the betrothed of the Holy Spirit, or more strictly of God the Father and of the Three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity, as we shall explain by-and-bye; and all these gifts of the Holy Ghost, which came from Him by appropriation and from the Three Divine Persons in reality, were due to her as a precious token of the love of the Three Adorable Persons.
Add that these gifts are necessary to every man to render him obedient to the movements and direction of the Spirit of God. Now who ever abandoned himself more completely to the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit or followed more faithfully His sweet inspirations than Mary? Thus St. Bernard and Suarez were right in saying that Mary is that house which the Divine Wisdom constructed for Himself and in which He has carved seven columns, that is to say, the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost which support as so many vast columns that admirable edifice of grace.
III.—One of the grandest privileges accorded to Mary is assuredly the grace of impeccability. Some ancient Fathers of the Church, notably St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil, appear to suppose that Mary has not escaped certain light faults of vanity and doubt. If such was their opinion it must be at once abandoned, as opposed to the Council of Trent and the doctrine explained in the Bull which defines the Immaculate Conception. The Virgin Mary during her whole life never sinned either mortally or venially. This is the teaching of the Church recorded in many Councils, and finally in the Council of Trent, according to which the Blessed Virgin by a special privilege avoided all sin, even venial.
St. Thomas proves this thesis, taking for the foundation of his argument the celebrated words of St. Augustine: When treating of sin I desire that for the honour of Jesus Christ no mention be made of Mary.
Yes, the honour of Jesus Christ claims for His Mother the privilege of impeccability; if Mary had been able to sin she would not have been worthily prepared and disposed for the Divine Maternity. For if it be true that the glory of the parents descends to their children, and that the children are ennobled by the nobility of their origin, according to the words of the Proverbs, the reciprocation is not less true, and the disgrace of the Mother would have been the disgrace of the Son.
Jesus contracted with Mary a union so close that the flesh of the one became the flesh of the other: but what connection could there have been between the flesh of Jesus and a sinful flesh? Qua conventio Christi ad Belial?
Lastly, the Son of God, the Eternal Wisdom was to descend upon Mary, and to dwell not only in her soul, but in her chaste womb. Now it is said of the Eternal Wisdom that He will not enter into a malicious soul, nor dwell in a body subject to sin: In malevolam animam non introibit Sapientia, nec habitabit in corpore subdito peccatis. This is why, concludes the Angelic Doctor, whose argument we have followed, we must say without hesitation that the Blessed Virgin has never committed actual sin either mortal or venial, that the words of the Canticles: Thou art all fair, O My love, and there is not a spot in thee, might be accomplished in her.
But some will urge against this favour of impeccability that Mary could not have recited the Lord’s Prayer, in which is said: Forgive us our trespasses. We answer that she could recite this prayer and make this petition for other Christians and for the whole Church, but for herself she had but to render thanks to the Lord for His favours and to beg a continuance of them.
Catholic Doctors, unanimous in acknowledging Mary impeccable, are less agreed as to the nature of that impeccability and the causes which produced it. Was it a physical and absolute impeccability removing from the Virgin the liberty to sin? Or was it a moral impeccability, depending upon a liberty that would never incline to evil, though it could do so?
Physical impeccability means that God had resolved to refuse to Mary the physical power to sin, or rather that He had given her a certain quality incompatible with sin.
Moral impeccability requires that Mary should have been forearmed with so many and such powerful helps, so fitting to the circumstances, that although she preserved the ability to sin it was quite certain she never would sin.
We accept with Suarez the moral impeccability as more conformed to the accustomed order of Divine Providence, and to that kind of respect which God has for the liberty of man. Three assertions will sufficiently explain this impeccability of Mary.
1º. She was confirmed in grace not only when she conceived the Son of God in her womb, as some say, but at the very moment of her own conception. It was due to the Mother of God to be exempt from all sin, even before her glorious Maternity. This impeccability of Mary came from the abundant and ever efficacious graces which she received, and from the particular protection God granted her to remove every occasion of falling: all this was accorded to Mary from her conception. It is then certain that she was as impeccable from the time of her own conception as after her conception of the Word.
We quite agree with Suarez who, having examined the two opinions, that Mary was not confirmed in grace till the time of the Incarnation, and that she enjoyed this favour from the beginning of her existence, avows that it is difficult to see between them any true difference.
2º. This impeccability of Mary was not physical, but moral. For as we have said, a physical impeccability requires, that God should refuse the physical power necessary for a bad action, or else some quality, I know not what, incompatible with sin.
He has not refused the physical power, since Mary had all the physical powers, in her always controlled by reason and grace, which sinners unhappily employ to offend their Maker.
The pretended quality is inexplicable: it could be neither grace nor a habit of virtue, since grace and virtue are lost by sin; it was not the Intuitive Vision, which Mary did not enjoy upon earth, at least continually; it was not, in fine, the love of God rendered necessary in Mary, for if that love had been necessary she could not have merited by the noblest of the virtues—charity.
3º. We must say then that three things confirmed Mary in good and made all sin morally impossible to her. The first, apart from any action of Mary’s, was the watchful providence of God which removed the occasions. The second, residing in Mary but still coming from God, was the uninterrupted succession of efficacious graces, anticipating her will, and exciting her in an infallible manner, though always freely, to attach herself to good and virtue. The third, proper to Mary herself, was a continual contemplation of the Divine Attributes, a delightful repose in God sovereignly beloved; in consequence of this constant application to God, of this constant repose in Him she was as it were inebriated with the sweetness of love, and could not turn herself from perfect justice to embrace iniquity. Add to this the extinction of concupiscence, of which we will now speak.
IV.—We designate by the well understood name of concupiscence, that fatal propensity which theologians call the fomes peccati. It is that appetite of sense insomuch as it is inclined to the irrational pleasure of sense; that disposition to sin, that power which draws us to evil, by forestalling reason or opposing its empire; that sting of the flesh, that angel of Satan which buffeted the great Apostle, and from which, notwithstanding his thrice repeated prayer, he could not obtain deliverance. He complains that he did not the good which he would, but the evil which he would not he did: Quod nolo malum, hoc ago.
The Blessed Mary, a thousand times more favoured than St. Paul, obtained not deliverance from this sting of the flesh, but preservation from the slightest influence of it. So think all theologians, with St. Thomas and Suarez at their head; it would be very rash to hold and other opinion.
And was his illustrious friend St. Thomas Aquinas for or against the dogma? Some say he was in favour of it, others against it; others again say that at first he was against it, but afterwards in its favour. Volumes have been written on this subject, and have not absolutely settled the question. The Angelic Doctor seems to have hesitated like the Seraphic Doctor. Thus in his commentary on the Ave Maria, he appears against it; in his Commentary on the Book of the Sentences, he appears in its favour; in the Summa it seems impossible not to admit that he is against it.
The Dominicans have understood like ourselves, their brother St. Thomas; for it was to uphold the opinion of their great Doctor that they were opposed to the Immaculate Conception. The Franciscans, on the other hand, supported it, and one of them gained great glory in this noble tournament. We mean the Subtle Doctor, John Duns, better known as Duns Scotus, who died in 1308. The University of Paris, full of remembrances of Alexander of Hales, Albertus Magnus, and St. Thomas, had made a decree against this privilege of Mary; however they were divided, and being unable to come to any resolution, called on Duns Scotus to take his counsel. The Scot made himself the champion of the Privilege, and answered all difficulties: No, he always repeated, Mary could not contract original sin, as she could not contract actual sin; for if she had been stained with sin actual or original, there would have been a moment when the Mother of God would have been the enemy of God!… He so resolved two hundred arguments, with so much of memory and learning, that he went forth from the lists with the title of Victor. He determined the future teaching of the Faculty. It at once revoked the decree, passed some years before, and afterwards in 1346 it forbade its members to attack this doctrine of the Immaculate Conception; forty years later, in 1386, it made another decree forbidding the Doctorate to be conferred on those who would not engage by oath to uphold this pious belief; and lastly it made it of obligation to celebrate annually the feast of the Conception. Following Paris, the Universities of Cologne, Mayence, Valencia in Spain, and almost all the other Catholic Universities made the same decrees.
In the seventeenth century the doubt was scarcely permitted. Suarez sums up the controversy thus: The dispute is ended. The Immaculate Conception is not a dogma of faith, since it has not been expressly defined, but is as near being of faith as is possible for a doctrine not yet defined. It is a truth sufficiently clear for the Church to range among articles of faith when she judges fit. In 1625 the King of Spain having addressed to Urban VIII. a memorial praying for the definition, the Holy Office after three sittings, unanimously decided that the predecessors of His Holiness had so far advanced the matter that nothing remained but its definition.
The Holy See, having left to opinions the necessary and proper liberty, became with time more and more favourable to the definition. This prudent but firm conduct of the Roman Church is well expressed in the dogmatic Bull of Pius IX.
The Pontiff recalls how that his predecessors established the feast of the Conception in the Roman Church, that they raised it in importance and dignity by a proper Mass and Office, that they used all their power to augment and propagate the devotion thus instituted, either by granting indulgences, or by leaving even to states, provinces, and kingdoms, to choose as their Patroness the Mother of God under the title of her Immaculate Conception; or by approving sodalities, congregations, and religious societies, instituted in honour of the Immaculate Conception; or by praises given to the piety of those who erected hospitals, altars, or churches under this title, or who bound themselves by the sacred bond of an oath to defend strenuously this prerogative of the Mother of God.
He goes on to say that his predecessors never suffered this doctrine to be censured or blamed in any way, but prohibited the contrary opinion to be defended either in public or in private.
This prohibition was made particularly by Alexander VII. in the seventeenth century. At that time the Pontiff was able to speak of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception as a pious belief; a qualification which the Dominicans had forcibly denied at the Council of Trent. A pious belief, they said, is equivalent to a definition; for if our belief is not pious, it is impious. And in this reasoning they were not far wrong.
Finally, the Holy See officially and solemnly consulted for the last time the Universal Church. On February 2, 1849, from his exile at Gaeta, the Sovereign Pontiff addressed to all the Bishops an Encyclical, in which he declared that he was being asked on all sides for the dogmatic definition. He received the answers of five hundred and forty-three Cardinals, Archbishops, and Bishops. Of this number, four hundred and eighty-four attested their firm belief and that of their dioceses in the dogma, and earnestly entreated for its absolute definition. Ten asked for an indirect definition. Twenty-two expressed their doubts as to the seasonableness of the definition, or their fears of its results. Four did not speak of the definition. Eighteen pronounced positively against the seasonableness of the definition, and among these, six or seven against the definibility of the pious belief. But not a single Bishop, even among these last, affirmed that the belief did not exist in his diocese, or that it was not common. Sixteen stated that the belief was so deeply rooted that they would not dare, in ordaining prayers or consulting their flocks to let it be supposed that this privilege of the Virgin was at all doubtful; it would be an occasion of scandal.
We see this belief sufficiently manifested in the nineteenth century; we say manifested and not invented; because that which does not exist cannot manifest itself. The time of manifestation matters little, the Church being ever the same. And indeed in past ages such was always the opinion of the Church, such was the disposition of Providence, that the opponents of the Immaculate Conception were constantly beaten, and its defenders always victorious till they obtained the supreme victory in our own time and under our own eyes.
III.
At the blessed conception of Mary a somewhat similar thing happened to that which took place in the beginning of the world, at the creation of man. The Three Divine Persons having created by a word both heaven and earth determined to create man, and took counsel together. Let Us make man to Our image and likeness.
Four thousand years later the Three Divine Persons again took counsel together: Let Us make woman, They said, the woman blessed among all women; and let Us make her to Our image and likeness. And so the Three Divine Persons use Their power to adorn the soul of Mary. They pour into that soul the treasures of beauty, of grace, of wisdom and of love which are due to that best beloved of spouses, that most honoured of Mothers, that most amiable of daughters. She is a temple, a tabernacle, a sanctuary, which God Himself has constructed and which He has carefully sanctified and beautified with His own hands. Sanctificavit tabernaculum Suum Altissimus.
An infusion of sanctifying grace in a measure worthy of the liberality of God, a present of all the virtues and of all the gifts of the Holy Ghost, an assurance of never falling into enmity with the Lord, by the privilege of impeccability, the extinction of that sting of concupiscence which burns in all the descendants of Adam, and the full use of reason: these are the privileges which Mary received in the first moment of her existence. We will speak of each one of these prerogatives, and learn the worth of the Immaculate Conception of the glorious Virgin.
I.—In the established order of God, every soul in which sin does not reign is adorned with sanctifying grace. Mary, being preserved from original sin has consequently received this grace, but in what quantity? in what measure?
I ask the Fathers of the Church, the organs of tradition, the oracles of theology; and they say: Why do you ask about the holiness of Mary in her conception? Do you not know that grace has exhausted all its power in Mary, and filled her with all its treasures? Did not God cause her to be born of a barren mother, to teach us that nature was incapable of producing such a masterpiece and that grace alone could do it? Could the Angel Gabriel, when he salutes her in the name of God, find a worthy title, except by addressing her as full of grace: Ave gratia plena? He does not pronounce her name: her name is full of grace; her nobility is grace; her riches are grace. Ave gratia plena.
We shall speak later on of the increase of sanctifying grace in Mary by the prodigious multiplication of her good works and merits. But what was the first degree of her holiness at the first moment of her conception? Theologians, following their chief, St. Thomas, tell us with one voice, that the grace given to Mary in her first sanctification surpassed the measure accorded to the highest of men or to the highest of the angels in their first sanctification. The reason is too evident to need explanation: one receives so much the more grace as one is more closely united to God, the Author of all grace and holiness: now never did man or angel have such close union with God as Mary at her conception, for she was at that first destined to the Divine Maternity. But this is too little. Theologians teach with Suarez that this measure of grace conferred on Mary in the moment of her conception surpassed the measure accorded to the greatest Saint or the highest of the Seraphim at the moment of the consummation of their merits, that is to say, when they were admitted to the possession of God; so that if Mary had been called to heaven an instant after her most happy conception she would have been Queen of Saints and Angels, and for the reason before given: a saint or an angel however near he may be to God even after a long life of virtues and merits can never be so near as the Virgin conceived in the friendship of God to become His Mother.
This is what David signified when he said: “Her foundations are in the holy mountains.” The perfection of holiness in others is the beginning of hers; from the point where others stop in the way of perfection, Mary sets out on a way almost without end. And the Prophet Isaias, regarding this august Figure six hundred years before she appeared, says: Behold a wonder that prepares itself, the Lord is already at work. It is a high mountain which shall be the house of God, it shall be raised above the loftiest summits, and the other mountains shall be at its feet, and all the nations shall flow unto it.
They do not fear to affirm with St. Alphonsus, Contenson, De Rhodes, Combalot, and other worthy authors, that the grace of Mary in the moment of her conception surpassed all that had ever been given or ever would be given to all men and angels together. For, they say, God at that instant loved Mary more than all the rest together; as a mark of that love He prepared for her a glory without parallel, He destined her to a dignity which left behind all other dignities put together.
They also call to mind the wonderful effects of the grace received by Mary in her conception: this grace spread itself in three ways: it spread itself over the soul of Mary and preserved it from original sin, it spread itself over her virginal body disposing it to engender the true flesh of the Word of God. Lastly it flowed upon men copiously enough to purify and sanctify all.
Collect and pile together in thought, the merits of all the angels, of all the saints, of all ages: the obedience of the patriarchs, the fidelity of the prophets, the untiring zeal of the holy apostles, the unconquerable fortitude of the martyrs, the persevering penitence of confessors, the sighs of the widows, the purity of the virgins, all the examples of virtue which have ever edified earth and rejoiced heaven. Conceive if you can the torrents of graces and blessings which these merits drew from God’s Heart: and even then you cannot understand the ocean of grace with which God overwhelmed the Immaculate Virgin in the moment of her conception.
Mary has received so much grace that she can lavish it on others without impoverishing herself; she has been made the channel through which all blessings flow: those heavenly streams which inundate earth flow from the ocean of Mary, but they can never exhaust it. Mary at this instant is purer before God, more pleasing in His sight, dearer to His Heart than all other creatures together. This is why God introduced her into the sanctuary of His gifts to load her with favours, and the love which He bears her is greater than His love for all other creatures.
II.—At the same moment that God created the soul of Mary to unite it to her body and infused into it sanctifying grace, He also endowed it with all the virtues in an heroic degree. This proposition is evident with regard to the virtues which theologians call infused of themselves, i.e., which are always found in a soul in a state of grace. It is less certain as regards the moral virtues—those infused by accident—and which do not necessarily follow habitual grace. However, it seems to us that we must admit with Suarez the infusion of these virtues into the Virgin Mary. For in the first place these virtues were given to Adam and Eve in their first sanctification: now how can we refuse to the Virgin an ornament of the soul granted to our first parents? Secondly, it is fit that Mary in this respect as in all others, should be perfectly similar to Jesus Christ. Lastly, we cannot allege any authority, any reason, any conjecture, be it ever so little plausible, which could deprive Mary of these virtues at the moment of her conception; whilst numerous and important writers affirm the pouring of these moral virtues, as well as all others into the soul of Mary.
According to the Fathers, Mary in her conception received all the virtues given to the saints of the Old Law: to the patriarchs, priests, judges, and kings, to whom God gave a portion of the spirit of Jesus Christ. In them He appeared under divers forms, of mercy, justice, piety, strength and light: in Mary all these outlines reunite themselves to form a complete image of Jesus Christ; so that the conception of the Virgin resuscitates and reproduces the births of the ancient types of our Saviour.
St. Thomas of Villanova speaking on this subject thus expresses himself: “Let us pass on to her grace, to her virtues. But what can we say except that God gave to Mary all that a creature can possibly receive? As at the creation of the world God reunited in man all the wonders of the universe, so at the regeneration of the world, He enclosed in Mary the perfection of all the saints and of the whole Church. All that is remarkable in any saint you will find in Mary: in her, the patience of Job, the meekness of Moses, the faith of Abraham, the chastity of Joseph, the humility of David, the wisdom of Solomon, the zeal of Elias; in her is the purity of virgins, the courage of martyrs, the piety of confessors, the knowledge of doctors, the contempt of hermits for the things of the world.”
With the virtues, Mary received without any doubt the most perfect gifts of the Holy Ghost. If these gifts always accompany sanctifying grace, with more reason would they fill the soul of the Virgin upon whom the Holy Ghost Himself came down to overshadow with the power of the Most High. Already was Mary the betrothed of the Holy Spirit, or more strictly of God the Father and of the Three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity, as we shall explain by-and-bye; and all these gifts of the Holy Ghost, which came from Him by appropriation and from the Three Divine Persons in reality, were due to her as a precious token of the love of the Three Adorable Persons.
Add that these gifts are necessary to every man to render him obedient to the movements and direction of the Spirit of God. Now who ever abandoned himself more completely to the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit or followed more faithfully His sweet inspirations than Mary? Thus St. Bernard and Suarez were right in saying that Mary is that house which the Divine Wisdom constructed for Himself and in which He has carved seven columns, that is to say, the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost which support as so many vast columns that admirable edifice of grace.
III.—One of the grandest privileges accorded to Mary is assuredly the grace of impeccability. Some ancient Fathers of the Church, notably St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil, appear to suppose that Mary has not escaped certain light faults of vanity and doubt. If such was their opinion it must be at once abandoned, as opposed to the Council of Trent and the doctrine explained in the Bull which defines the Immaculate Conception. The Virgin Mary during her whole life never sinned either mortally or venially. This is the teaching of the Church recorded in many Councils, and finally in the Council of Trent, according to which the Blessed Virgin by a special privilege avoided all sin, even venial.
St. Thomas proves this thesis, taking for the foundation of his argument the celebrated words of St. Augustine: When treating of sin I desire that for the honour of Jesus Christ no mention be made of Mary.
Yes, the honour of Jesus Christ claims for His Mother the privilege of impeccability; if Mary had been able to sin she would not have been worthily prepared and disposed for the Divine Maternity. For if it be true that the glory of the parents descends to their children, and that the children are ennobled by the nobility of their origin, according to the words of the Proverbs, the reciprocation is not less true, and the disgrace of the Mother would have been the disgrace of the Son.
Jesus contracted with Mary a union so close that the flesh of the one became the flesh of the other: but what connection could there have been between the flesh of Jesus and a sinful flesh? Qua conventio Christi ad Belial?
Lastly, the Son of God, the Eternal Wisdom was to descend upon Mary, and to dwell not only in her soul, but in her chaste womb. Now it is said of the Eternal Wisdom that He will not enter into a malicious soul, nor dwell in a body subject to sin: In malevolam animam non introibit Sapientia, nec habitabit in corpore subdito peccatis. This is why, concludes the Angelic Doctor, whose argument we have followed, we must say without hesitation that the Blessed Virgin has never committed actual sin either mortal or venial, that the words of the Canticles: Thou art all fair, O My love, and there is not a spot in thee, might be accomplished in her.
But some will urge against this favour of impeccability that Mary could not have recited the Lord’s Prayer, in which is said: Forgive us our trespasses. We answer that she could recite this prayer and make this petition for other Christians and for the whole Church, but for herself she had but to render thanks to the Lord for His favours and to beg a continuance of them.
Catholic Doctors, unanimous in acknowledging Mary impeccable, are less agreed as to the nature of that impeccability and the causes which produced it. Was it a physical and absolute impeccability removing from the Virgin the liberty to sin? Or was it a moral impeccability, depending upon a liberty that would never incline to evil, though it could do so?
Physical impeccability means that God had resolved to refuse to Mary the physical power to sin, or rather that He had given her a certain quality incompatible with sin.
Moral impeccability requires that Mary should have been forearmed with so many and such powerful helps, so fitting to the circumstances, that although she preserved the ability to sin it was quite certain she never would sin.
We accept with Suarez the moral impeccability as more conformed to the accustomed order of Divine Providence, and to that kind of respect which God has for the liberty of man. Three assertions will sufficiently explain this impeccability of Mary.
1º. She was confirmed in grace not only when she conceived the Son of God in her womb, as some say, but at the very moment of her own conception. It was due to the Mother of God to be exempt from all sin, even before her glorious Maternity. This impeccability of Mary came from the abundant and ever efficacious graces which she received, and from the particular protection God granted her to remove every occasion of falling: all this was accorded to Mary from her conception. It is then certain that she was as impeccable from the time of her own conception as after her conception of the Word.
We quite agree with Suarez who, having examined the two opinions, that Mary was not confirmed in grace till the time of the Incarnation, and that she enjoyed this favour from the beginning of her existence, avows that it is difficult to see between them any true difference.
2º. This impeccability of Mary was not physical, but moral. For as we have said, a physical impeccability requires, that God should refuse the physical power necessary for a bad action, or else some quality, I know not what, incompatible with sin.
He has not refused the physical power, since Mary had all the physical powers, in her always controlled by reason and grace, which sinners unhappily employ to offend their Maker.
The pretended quality is inexplicable: it could be neither grace nor a habit of virtue, since grace and virtue are lost by sin; it was not the Intuitive Vision, which Mary did not enjoy upon earth, at least continually; it was not, in fine, the love of God rendered necessary in Mary, for if that love had been necessary she could not have merited by the noblest of the virtues—charity.
3º. We must say then that three things confirmed Mary in good and made all sin morally impossible to her. The first, apart from any action of Mary’s, was the watchful providence of God which removed the occasions. The second, residing in Mary but still coming from God, was the uninterrupted succession of efficacious graces, anticipating her will, and exciting her in an infallible manner, though always freely, to attach herself to good and virtue. The third, proper to Mary herself, was a continual contemplation of the Divine Attributes, a delightful repose in God sovereignly beloved; in consequence of this constant application to God, of this constant repose in Him she was as it were inebriated with the sweetness of love, and could not turn herself from perfect justice to embrace iniquity. Add to this the extinction of concupiscence, of which we will now speak.
IV.—We designate by the well understood name of concupiscence, that fatal propensity which theologians call the fomes peccati. It is that appetite of sense insomuch as it is inclined to the irrational pleasure of sense; that disposition to sin, that power which draws us to evil, by forestalling reason or opposing its empire; that sting of the flesh, that angel of Satan which buffeted the great Apostle, and from which, notwithstanding his thrice repeated prayer, he could not obtain deliverance. He complains that he did not the good which he would, but the evil which he would not he did: Quod nolo malum, hoc ago.
The Blessed Mary, a thousand times more favoured than St. Paul, obtained not deliverance from this sting of the flesh, but preservation from the slightest influence of it. So think all theologians, with St. Thomas and Suarez at their head; it would be very rash to hold and other opinion.
The Fathers of the Church have always taught that the Most Holy and Immaculate Virgin never experienced any revolt of the flesh, or any disordered motion. In Mary, says St. John Damascene, you will find nothing base, nothing disordered, nor affection which can be called earthly. This Virgin, again says Richard of St. Victor, is a land perfectly holy and tranquil, from the confines of which God has taken care to remove all wars and tempests.
Reason itself tells us this. The disorders of concupiscence are not compatible with that inviolable Purity, the most perfect one can imagine after that of God. And then, as Suarez observes, the stream of concupiscence has its origin in original sin; it carries with it shame, and if it be not sin it has a great likeness to it: for these motions are in themselves bad and culpable, and are only excused by ignorance and the inability to avoid them. How can one imagine them in the purest of creatures, the Immaculate Virgin, whose presence suffices to suppress in others those shameful revolts, and to extinguish in them the fire of evil?
V.—In considering the marvels worked in Mary in the moment of her blessed conception, we ask ourselves: Had she knowledge of the favours she received? To the wonders we have considered, must we add another, the use of reason in that little child when her body was first formed in the womb, and her soul created out of nothing by the power of God? We do not doubt it.
1°. At the same moment that she was conceived and sanctified, Mary had the use of reason. This is the common opinion of authors; and they recall what happened when the Holy Virgin went to visit her cousin St. Elizabeth. St. John Baptist, the Precursor, shut up in his mother’s womb leaped at the voice of the Mother of Jesus; he was cleansed from original sin, enlightened with a heavenly light, and received permanently, according to the general opinion, the use of reason, of which he availed himself at the age of five years to withdraw to the desert. Now this grace accorded to the Precursor in his first sanctification could not have been refused to the Mother of God.
St. Bernardine of Siena insists upon this comparison, and cries out: “If we must believe such things of St. John the Baptist, what shall we believe of Mary?” He maintains that Mary was never submitted to that inaction of the reason and intelligence, in which we sleep in the wombs of our mothers; that Mary can apply to herself the words of the Canticles, Ego dormio et cor meum vigilat: I sleep and my heart watcheth; and that hence she was raised to a sublime degree of contemplation, such as no saint could ever attain to.
2°. The understanding of Mary at this time was principally exercised on God and on Christ. We surmise this from the above-cited example of St. John the Baptist; for it was Christ Whom he knew in the womb of his Mother. It was the only knowledge which had any relation to grace, the only light necessary for the time. We shall speak elsewhere of the mysteries then revealed to Mary.
3°. This use of reason was not transient but lasting and perpetual in the Blessed Virgin. We are opposed here to Cajetan, who only allows to Christ the perpetual use of reason from the time of conception; and to D’Argentan who also thinks that Mary had the use of reason at the first moment of her existence, and from time to time afterwards, but not continuously; to anticipate the objection which was certain to be made that this privilege was granted to St. John, he contends that the Precursor had the use of reason for a few hours only.
We maintain with Suarez, St. Bernardine of Siena, De Rhodes, and most other writers, that Mary was not less privileged than the angels and our first parents: now the angels and our first parents never ceased to enjoy the use of reason and the knowledge of God, and were never in a state of infancy. How could the Son of God have willed that His Mother should not continue to know and love Him? How could He interrupt the worship, the homage, the honour He received from her?
Let no one say that this privilege of Mary encroaches somewhat on the dignity of Christ. From the time of His Incarnation, Christ had the free and perfect use of reason in the clear vision of God, with the faculty to use as He pleased all the knowledge and all the light with which His Holy Soul was filled. The prerogative His Mother enjoyed was and should be less perfect: she had not the intuitive vision which was incompatible with her state; the lights which were communicated to her were less strong than those of our Saviour, narrower and confined to the mysteries which it was fit she should know at that time; lastly there is an essential difference which is enough to preserve the dignity of Jesus Christ, and this is that what He had was by right and by His nature, whilst Mary had it by grace and held it from Him.
How are so many marvels accomplished in Mary? She tells us Herself in saying: Fecit mihi magna qui potens est: He that is mighty hath done great things to me. God has worked these wonders because He is all powerful. He has called up that power which by a word created the world; which commanded the darkness and the darkness brought forth light; which launched into nothing the creating fiat and nothingness answered by producing being. He has spoken and all is done, He has commanded and all is created, He has called yet more upon His love. Thou art all fair, He says to the Immaculate Virgin, and My eyes do not see in thee any spot: Tota pulchra es. And as though enamoured of this masterpiece of His hands: Thou hast wounded My Heart, My sister, My spouse, thou hast wounded My Heart; Vulnerasti cor meum, soror Mea sponsa.
IV.
Having established already that Mary at the very instant of the creation of her soul and its union with the body received from God the full use of her reason, we draw therefrom this consequence, that the grace of God found in her from that time an entire and perfect correspondence. Through the understanding which she enjoyed Mary could co-operate in her first sanctification and render to God the homages so agreeable to Him. By this means she increased the accidental glory of God throughout the universe.
I.—There is a sanctification proper to infants and one proper to adults. Infants are purely passive when regenerated by Baptism, and have no active part in their justification because they are incapable of any free and reasonable act. Adult persons are never justified without an act of their free will.
Mary although a little infant could exercise her free will and perform human acts; she was therefore justified not like infants, but in the same way as adults, by her own disposition.
For in the first place it is not probable that the knowledge which she had of God would remain inactive or barren. She was bound by the first act of her free will to turn towards God and love Him above everything; it was for this purpose that knowledge was given to her.
Secondly, it is more perfect according to the teaching of St. Thomas, to be justified by a personal disposition; and what can be more reasonable than to attribute to Mary, the most perfect mode of justification? The more so as in infants the absence of free co-operation arises from their incapacity; in every capable person, the Divine love desires a free act: sanctification is a kind of spiritual marriage for which there must be the consent of both parties.
Thirdly, for similar reasons the angels and Adam were sanctified through their own dispositions. We think the same of St. John the Baptist; the motive of joy which made him leap in his mother’s womb is considered as a sign of his love.
And once more we repeat that Mary deserves that we should acknowledge in her the same privileges as were granted to the angels, to the Precursor, and to our first parents.
This doctrine confirms what we have already stated in the first chapter, that Mary by the dispositions which she brought to her first sanctification merited certain things de condigno and certain other things de congruo. She merited de condignonot grace but glory. She did not merit grace, because she received it at the same time for the purpose of meriting; and the beginning of merit does not come under merit. She merited heavenly glory, because it was not fit that she should receive it till later. This merit of glory by justification freely accepted and consented to applies also to the angels, to Adam and St. John the Baptist.
Mary merited de congruo the first sanctifying grace and all the privileges which can come from merit: the extinction of the fires of concupiscence, confirmation in grace, exemption from original sin, and even the Divine Maternity.
II.—Mary from the time of her conception increased the accidental glory of God by the homage she rendered Him and caused to be rendered to Him by the whole of creation.
Who shall tell of the virtues, the transports, the fervour and the love of that amiable Virgin appearing for the first time in the world, and flying towards her Creator? As the ocean receives into itself all the rivers without breaking its bounds, so Mary, who was to become great enough to receive into herself an infinite God, first receives all graces and all virtues. We can, with M. Olier, deduce this consequence that that blessed soul, elevated and expanded by the Holy Spirit, “exercised in her conception, not only acts of love in all possible fervour and perfection; but by the power of the Divine Spirit in herself, all imaginable acts of the virtues at the same time, and to their utmost extent. She was an epitome of the whole interior of Jesus Christ, which began to work in her as soon as it was communicated.”
Since the sin of Adam all men deserve the wrath of God, and even children at their birth are not pure in His sight. With what complaisance and love then must He have beheld the most pure conception of the Virgin Mary! with what pleasure did He receive her adorations and homage! In her He already saw the whole Church: Jesus Christ of Whom she was to be Mother: all Christians who would be her children.
God showed her to the admiring angels in heaven; they prostrated themselves before that august Creature, their Queen, and acknowledged that that Woman was more than an angel, and that by her, human nature, fallen so low, should mount above all the heavenly choirs. They descended around that holy Ark, and came to learn of her, how to love their God.
Seeing in that soul which God was about to create, a love more ardent than that of the burning Seraphim, understanding that she would render more honour to God than their three hierarchies and nine choirs together, they felt an unspeakable joy at their Lord being so perfectly served and honoured, and as we ourselves, when our devotion seems lukewarm and our love imperfect, offer to God the love of souls more holy and more fervent, so they taking Mary for their organ and interpreter offered to the Creator her most perfect acts.
As much as the Immaculate Virgin rejoiced heaven by her conception, so much did she terrify hell. Giving more glory to God than all the heavenly court, she also threw more fear into hell than all the angels when they chased the devils out of heaven and cast them into the abyss. She is terrible as an army set in array, more terrible than all the army of heaven.
Already is hell in confusion, already Satan howls with dread. He feels that this is that woman who is to crush his head, he strives to consolidate his shaken empire; he attacks with fury the Virgin conceived, and in her the fruit which is to come out of her. St. John in the Apocalypse shows us the dragon, trying to swallow up the woman and the child. But your rage is powerless, O enemy of God and man! gather together your tortuous coils, dart out your murderous tongue, expel your subtle poison: it will never reach that Virginal foot which tramples in triumph on your broken head.
But what were the feelings of earth in the happy event of the Immaculate Conception? It was for earth to leap with joy and hope. She gave to hell a Mistress, to heaven a Queen, to God a Mother; and obtained for herself a powerful advocate, an assured resource.
Ton Dieu n’est plus irrité,
Réjouis-toi, Sion, et sors de la poussière;
Quitte les vêtements de ta captivité,
Et reprends ta splendeur première.
It is very true that men did not know of this conception at the time it was accomplished; but the Church in her offices says that this conception without sin, announced joy to the whole world, Gaudium annuntiavit universo mundo.
The benefit was given, the subject of joy existed, and when one day this marvellous event should become known, it would produce an outward and sensible rejoicing. Happy age which has been made glad above all other ages, and which has hailed in the Immaculate Conception, become at length an article of faith, the first dawn of the world’s salvation!
There was a time of sad remembrance when France no longer marched at the head of nations. Vanquished and humiliated, she had ceased to belong to herself and had become an English province. But at length God taking pity on her, raised up the virgin of Domremy. Mysterious voices spoke to her and said: Go, quit thy flock and render to the first nation of the world her rank and glory. And the virgin went forth leaving her crook and putting on the sword.
We see a French warrior wounded in the fight with the stranger, a prisoner in the English galleys. He groans and is sad less for himself than for his country; when one day he learns that the French flag has raised itself, that the enemy has fled, that a virgin of his country has scattered with a glance the English legions, pursued them, chased them, in triumph everywhere, and remains herself without a wound. Ah! it seems to me that the happy news heals the wounds of the French knight and fills his heart with joy.
And if they say to him: That virgin is thy sister; her victory is thy victory; she has received no wound, and she will cure thine, she remains free and she will break thy chains; oh, who could paint the rapture of the prisoner?
That virgin,—who does not know her? it is Mary Immaculate. She is secure from the wounds of sin that her maternal hand may cure our wounds; in the midst of that universal slavery under which hell holds in bondage the posterity of Adam, she dwells free, that she may break our chains, and deliver us from the servitude of the devil, to render us the liberty of the children of God.
Hail O our Liberatress, hail O Virgin Immaculate! hail abyss of grace, abyss of sanctity, abyss of purity, abyss of love, abyss of blessings! From the moment when thou wert conceived, sin was destroyed, Satan conquered, Adam restored, the star of hope shone upon the world anew!
