What Is the Immaculate Conception?

By Scott P. Richert

Question: What Is the Immaculate Conception?

Few doctrines of the Catholic Church are as misunderstood as the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Many people, including many Catholics, think that it refers to the conception of Christ through the action of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. That event, though, is celebrated at the feast of the Annunciation of the Lord (March 25, nine months before Christmas). What is the Immaculate Conception?

Answer:

The Immaculate Conception refers to the condition that the Blessed Virgin Mary was free from Original Sin from the very moment of her conception in the womb of her mother, Saint Anne. We celebrate the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary on September 8; nine months before is December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

Fr. John Hardon, S.J., in his Modern Catholic Dictionary, notes that "Neither the Greek nor Latin Fathers explicitly taught the Immaculate Conception, but they professed it implicitly." It would take many centuries, though, for the Catholic Church to recognize the Immaculate Conception as a doctrine, and many more before Pope Pius IX, on December 8, 1854, would declare it a dogma.

In the Apostolic Constitution Ineffabilis Deus, Pope Pius IX wrote that "We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful."

As Father Hardon further writes, the Blessed Virgin's "freedom from sin was an unmerited gift of God or special grace, and an exception to the law, or privilege, which no other created person has received."

Another misconception people have is that Mary's Immaculate Conception was necessary to ensure that Original Sin would not be passed on to Christ. This has never been a part of the teaching on the Immaculate Conception; rather, the Immaculate Conception represents Christ's saving grace operating in Mary in anticipation of His redemption of man and in God's foreknowledge of Mary's acceptance of His Will for her.

In other words, the Immaculate Conception was not a precondition for Christ's act of redemption but the result of it. It is the concrete expression of God's love for Mary, who gave herself fully, completely, and without hesitation to His service.

 

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FR. MERVYN'S PRAYER TO MARY

Prayer:

         O gracious Lady, beloved Mother of God and our loving Mother, from where shall we learn Faith if not from you, sweet Maiden who said “Yes” to God’s invitation to carry the Saviour in your virginal womb, and nurse him at your breast? You followed him with a mother’s concern right through his ministry, accompanied him on his cross-laden ascent to Calvary, and became the sorrowing woman on the hill. Through faith and steadfast loyalty you treasured the mysteries of Jesus in your heart, and have made them ours, so that whatever happened to you and Jesus must happen to us: a holy life and happy death in God and community in him forever. Amen.

 

{composed by me on 11^th. August 2012}

 

 

 

 

 

 

DID MARY DIE?

Question: Did the Virgin Mary Die Before Her Assumption?

The Assumption of Mary into Heaven at the end of her earthly life is not a complicated doctrine, but one question is a frequent source of debate: Did Mary die before she was assumed, body and soul, into Heaven?

Answer: From the earliest Christian traditions surrounding the Assumption, the answer to the question of whether the Blessed Virgin died like all men do has been "yes." The Feast of the Assumption was first celebrated in the sixth century in the Christian East, where it was known as the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos (the Mother of God). To this day, among Eastern Christians, both Catholic and Orthodox, the traditions surrounding the Dormition are based on a fourth-century document called "The Account of St. John the Theologian of the Falling Asleep of the Holy Mother of God." (Dormition means "the falling asleep.")

That document, written in the voice of Saint John the Evangelist (to whom Christ, on the Cross, had entrusted the care of His mother), recounts how the Archangel Gabriel came to Mary as she prayed at the Holy Sepulchre (the tomb in which Christ had been laid on Good Friday, and from which He rose on Easter Sunday). Gabriel told the Blessed Virgin that her earthly life had reached its end, and she decided to return to Bethlehem to meet her death.

All of the apostles, having been caught up in clouds by the Holy Spirit, were transported to Bethlehem to be with Mary in her final days. Together, they carried her bed (again, with the aid of the Holy Spirit) to her home in Jerusalem, where, on the following Sunday, Christ appeared to her and told her not to fear. While Peter sang a hymn,

The face of the mother of the Lord shone brighter than the light, and she rose up and blessed each of the apostles with her own hand, and all gave glory to God; and the Lord stretched forth His undefiled hands, and received her holy and blameless soul. . . . And Peter, and I John, and Paul, and Thomas, ran and wrapped up her precious feet for the consecration; and the twelve apostles put her precious and holy body upon a couch, and carried it.

The apostles took the couch bearing Mary's body to the Garden of Gethsemane, where they placed her body in a new tomb:

And, behold, a perfume of sweet savour came forth out of the holy sepulchre of our Lady the mother of God; and for three days the voices of invisible angels were heard glorifying Christ our God, who had been born of her. And when the third day was ended, the voices were no longer heard; and from that time forth all knew that her spotless and precious body had been transferred to paradise.

"The Falling Asleep of the Holy Mother of God" is the earliest extant written document describing the end of Mary's life, and as we can see, it clearly indicates that Mary died before her body was assumed into Heaven. The earliest Latin versions of the story of the Assumption, written a couple of centuries later, differ in certain details but agree that Mary died, and Christ received her soul; that the apostles entombed her body; and that Mary's body was taken up into Heaven from the tomb.

That none of these documents bear the weight of Scripture does not matter; what matters is that they tell us what Christians, in both the East and the West, believed had happened to Mary at the end of her life. Unlike the Prophet Elijah, who was caught up by a fiery chariot and taken up into Heaven while still alive, the Virgin Mary (according to these traditions) died naturally, and then her soul was reunited with her body at the Assumption. (Her body, all of the documents agree, remained incorrupt between her death and her Assumption.)

We can still see the influence of "The Falling Asleep of the Holy Mother of God" in Eastern iconography today. The icon on this page (click here to see a larger version of it) is found in Annunciation of the Mother of God Byzantine Catholic Church in Homer Glen, Illinois. In the foreground, Mary's lifeless body lies on the couch, as the Apostles prepare to move her body to the tomb. Behind the couch stands Christ, surrounded by angels and cherubim (signifying Heaven), holding in His hands the soul of His Blessed Mother (presented as a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, signifying Mary's birth into eternal life).

While Eastern Christians have kept this early tradition surrounding the Assumption alive, Western Christians have largely lost touch with them. Some, hearing the Assumption described by the Eastern term Dormition, incorrectly assume that the "falling asleep" means that Mary was assumed into Heaven before she could die. But Pope Pius XII, in Munificentissimus Deus, his November 1, 1950, declaration of the dogma of the Assumption of Mary, cites ancient liturgical texts from both East and West, as well as the writings of the Church Fathers, all indicating that the Blessed Virgin had died before her body was assumed into Heaven. Pius echoes this tradition in his own words:

This feast shows, not only that the dead body of the Blessed Virgin Mary remained incorrupt, but that she gained a triumph out of death, her heavenly glorification after the example of her only begotten Son, Jesus Christ . . .

Still, the dogma, as Pius XII defined it, leaves the question of whether the Virgin Mary died open. What Catholics must believe is

That the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.

"[H]aving completed the course of her earthly life" is ambiguous; it allows for the possibility that Mary may not have died before her Assumption. In other words, while tradition has always indicated that Mary did die, Catholics are not bound, at least by the definition of the dogma, to believe it.

Mary, Mother of Jesus

Mary, the no nonsense matter-of-fact maid of “no good” Nazareth, who became the Mother of the Saviour of the world.

 

 

LEARNING FROM MARY

Learning from Mary’s strength and patience

Jessica Gotwals, a junior nursing major from Telford, Pa.

SCRIPTURE: Luke 1:26-38 (NRSV)
Scroll down for complete Scripture.

DEVOTIONAL:
I can’t imagine what Mary would have felt when she received Gabriel’s message that she would be the mother of Jesus. Mary found herself in circumstances she could not explain. The social ramifications of her pregnancy were daunting, and she must have experienced moments of fear and uncertainty. Part of me likes to think that Mary didn’t accept Gabriel’s message as easily as Luke portrays — that she tried to rationalize with Gabriel, or was even angry with God.

What is so striking about Mary in this story is the way she responded to her situation. Mary chose to glorify God for the gift of a child. Mary is often depicted as being one-dimensional – she is quiet, meek, and acquiescent. However, I think she is a powerful character that warrants our attention; I prefer to think that Mary’s serene responses to Gabriel indicate deep strength rather than mere submission.

Mary is a powerful example of faith. Often, like Mary, we find ourselves in circumstances we did not choose. As Christians our powerful witness to the world lies in how we choose to react to situations. This posture of grace, perseverance and joy in the face of difficulty does not come easily — it comes from unwavering faith in God, and it must be practiced.

Mary is also an example of patience. Advent is a time of waiting as we anticipate the coming of Christ. Mary, perhaps more than anyone, knows what it means to wait, as she spent nine months anticipating the birth of Jesus. Like Mary, we wait for clarity in our difficult situations and anticipate the hope and joy that Jesus brings to our lives.

Peace to you as you wait.

 

POEM: INCARNATION

INCARNATION

Sun of Justice, descend into

the darkness of the

Virgin’s womb – symbol of the world’s unlit hunger for the Light.

Let the Spirit strike

sweet impulse, and chaste,

to fill with power

the chamber of the night;

and make the nuptials of the

Father

with the Maid of Nazareth

bear fruit,

whom all men call,

By the angel’s word:

“JESUS”.

                 Fr. Mervyn Carapiet