The Immaculate Conception
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.
Genesis 3, 15 (DRB)
The Protoevangelium
(First Gospel) in the Book of Genesis is the first Messianic prophecy recorded
in sacred Scripture, and it is pronounced by God Himself to the serpent in the
wake of the fall of Adam and Eve. The prophecy speaks of the Divine Messiah and includes the free Woman of Promise, whose fulfillment
is ultimately reached in the Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of our Divine Lord
and Saviour. Given Eve’s transgression and her moral involvement in the
fall of Adam (אָדָם “mankind”), God
declares to the serpent, in allusion to Mary, that He will put her (the woman)
in complete opposition and hostility with it. This enmity between Mary and
Satan shall be in the exact likeness as that of her Divine Son with the Devil’s
offspring: sinful and wicked humanity. The woman’s offspring shall not be a
descendant of Adam by the seed of man but rather by the woman's seed. He
shall be of divine origin, and his conception and birth will be supernatural,
but not to the preclusion of his full humanity.
Thus, we may believe in faith that this verse implies Mary’s total lack of affinity with Satan together with her Son and, thereby, her exemption from every stain of sin, both original and personal. There is no surer way to be in complete hostility with the Devil
or serpent than to be constantly in the state of God’s sanctifying grace. God
ordered Mary and Satan to be in a total state of “opposition” to each other so
that they should be “hostile” enemies with “hatred” for one another, which the
Hebrew word for enmity (ebah/אֵיבָה) denotes. This was because Mary was chosen to be the mother of the Divine
Messiah (Lk 1:31-33, 35).
It was all part of God’s plan for the Son of Man to be “made of a woman” (Gal 4:4), but not so
much as for becoming a man in the likeness of Adam. The serpent, which was
envious of Adam and Eve and all God’s creation, sought to destroy it. In its malevolence
and shrewdness (‘aruvum), the serpent targeted Adam to accomplish what it was
bent on destroying, for our primordial father was the head of the two covenants
God had established: the one between God and Adam and his female “helpmate” and
the marital one between Adam and the Woman. Adam was the human representative
of both covenants rooted in faith and trust. However, in its
craftiness, the serpent targeted Adam indirectly through his Helpmate. For its
plan to be successful, the serpent would need the Woman to cooperate with it.
And this it could manage to do by enticing and deceiving her with a lie.
As we know, the serpent
did succeed in gaining the woman’s trust by appearing to have her best interest
at heart, which allowed it to get the upper hand. The Woman rebelled against
God in her misplaced faith and, as a result, her friendship with God turned
into enmity. By helping to bring about the fall of Adam as the serpent’s
instrument to offer him the forbidden fruit, the Woman made herself out to be
an enemy of God. Thus, the Virgin Mary was chosen to be the Divine instrument
to help reconcile mankind to God. She needed to be in enmity with
the fallen angel by cooperating with the angel Gabriel in faith and with
complete trust in God so that her Offspring could undo the fall accomplished by
Adam.
Mary would have been a
friend of Satan if, at any moment in her life, she sinned against God and fell
from His grace like Eve, which would have rendered her unworthy to be the
mother of her divine Son, who was like us in all things but sin (Heb 4:15), with
whom she was intimately associated to undo the evil that the devil had worked
to the spiritual detriment of mankind. Eve was at enmity with God along with
Adam, for they both did what was hateful in God’s sight and pleasing to the
serpent by partaking of the forbidden fruit.
We have only to ask
ourselves why Jesus addressed his mother by calling her “Woman.”
The answer lies in the Book of Genesis. Originally, Adam had referred to his
wife as “woman” (Gen 2:23). It wasn’t until Eve had mortally sinned and fallen
from grace that she was named Eve, which means “mother of all the living” (Gen
3:13-20). In this context, we can see our Lord’s intention by calling his mother “Woman” at the beginning and end of his public
ministry (Jn 2:3-5; 19:26-27). The Evangelist understood that Jesus was paralleling his mother and Eve. He knew that Mary was much more than the
biological mother of Jesus; she was the woman of faith who God promised would
be intimately associated with him in his redemptive work, and by being so, she
would become the spiritual mother of all those who are alive in Christ and bear
witness to him while observing God’s commandments (Rev 12:17). And what God
willed with necessity was that she should be preserved free from the stain of
sin.
It was Mary whom God
foretold would participate with her Son (the new Adam) in his work of undoing
the sin of Adam and Eve and reconciling the world to Him as his “helpmate” (Gen
2:18). Moreover, by calling his mother “Woman,” Jesus was affirming her being
in a perpetual state of sanctifying grace. Mary resembled Eve before she fell from grace when her husband still referred to her as “the woman.” Therefore, we have good reason to believe that our Lord was alluding to his mother’s Immaculate Conception and freedom from the stain of personal sins resulting from the pride of life and concupiscence of the eyes and flesh.
Sacred Scripture
confirms the ancient Catholic tradition of Mary being the spiritual mother of
all the living: the new Eve who never once fell from grace (Lk 1:28), God’s
re-creation of our universal biological mother. Both Eve and Mary were
daughters of a covenant with God. Eve was the daughter of the first covenant
between God and Adam: ‘The Lord commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of
the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil you shall not eat, for on the day you shall eat from it you will surely
die.” ‘(Gen 2:16-17). The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the
trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the
middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or
you will die’” (Gen 3:2-3).
Mary was a daughter of
the Sinai covenant between God and Israel: “Hear, O Israel, the statutes and
the ordinances which I am speaking today in your hearing, that you may learn
them and observe them carefully… I am the Lord your God who brought you out of
the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods
before me … For I, the Lord, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the
fathers on the children, and on the third and fourth generations of those who
hate me, but showing loving kindness to thousands to those who love me and keep
my commandments” (Deut 5:1-10). Both Eve and Mary were under a pledge of
obedience in their covenants with God since God had given each of them free
will to choose between life and death by either accepting or rejecting His will
for them.
Eve’s disobedience
ultimately resulted in the fall of “mankind” (Adam/אָדָם). Because of the fall,
all human beings are conceived and born deprived of the original justice and
sanctity that Adam forfeited for his descendants by his sin. ‘The man said,
“The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.”
Then the Lord God asked the woman, “What have you done?” And the
woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”'(Gen 3:12-13). On the other hand, Mary observed God’s will and brought forth the living Font of
all grace who would reconcile mankind to God. Mary said: “Behold, I am the
handmaid of the Lord. Be it done to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38).
Mary untied the tight knot of Eve’s grave transgression by her faith working through love.
Mary’s soul “magnified the Lord,” whereas Eve’s soul was affected by her vanity and curiosity, which rendered her vulnerable to the serpent’s deception and
temptation. She knew God had forbidden her and Adam to partake of the
forbidden fruit. Nonetheless, despite God's will for what was best for the couple, she decided to experience and judge what was good and evil for them. Adam and Eve raised their own will above God’s will by acting
upon the serpent’s devious suggestion, making themselves out to be like God but apart from God and before Him.
Fortunately, for both
her and all humanity, Mary chose “life and prosperity” rather than “death and
adversity” after hearing the words of the angel Gabriel. She heard and observed
the word of God as a faithful servant of Israel in the spirit because it was “very
near to her and in her heart.” In the spirit of Daughter Zion, Yahweh’s loving
and faithful spouse, our Blessed Lady humbly refused to bow down to an idol
that the ancient serpent may have presented to her in his jealous hostility
with the woman (cf. Deut 30:11-12). Thus, because of her fidelity to God and
desire to please Him in her covenant with Him, by her salutary consent to be
the mother of our Lord and Saviour, Mary helped destroy the ravages of sin that
the serpent had managed to work in the beginning. Because she welcomed the will
of God with outstretched arms in faith and love, our Redeemer chose to come
into the world (Rev. 3:20). Peter Chrysologus assures us that “without Mary,
neither death could be done away with, nor life restored” (Sermon 64).
“You shall be holy to me; for I the Lord am holy,
and have separated you from the people,
that you should be mine.”
Leviticus 20:26
Evidently, the nascent
Church perceived Mary as the exemplary personification of Daughter Zion. The
faithful saw the culmination of Israel’s steadfast love and trust in God
embodied in her person. St. Luke bears witness to this early Marian tradition in
our Blessed Lady’s Canticle of Praise (Lk.1:46-49; cf. Isa.61:10; Zech.9:9;
Zeph.3:14-15, 20; Ps.102:13; 126:1-3; 147:12-13). The connection between the
election of Israel and the election of Mary in God’s plan of redemption was
clear to them. As Israel was elected to be the people from whom the Messiah
would come, Mary was chosen to bring Him to birth as Saviour of the world. Israel and Mary had the divine privilege of bringing the Messiah into the
world. And because of their common vocations, both had to be specially prepared
by God.
If the people of Israel
were to receive God Incarnate in their midst as one of them, they would have to
be made exclusively worthy through a special holiness imparted by the Old
Covenant. Far more was expected from the Israelites than from the people of the
surrounding nations because of the holiness required of them in
anticipation of the Incarnation. If that were true of the people of Israel, it
would be even truer of Mary, whose maternal womb the holy Son of God became
incarnate. How would it be if she somehow received a means of singular holiness that would separate her from sinful humanity through a special grace through God’s intervention? Mary was the living personification of
faithful Daughter Zion and not just a metaphor: “clothed in the garments of
salvation” and “wrapped in a mantle of justice” (Isa 61:10).
You have seen what I have done to the Egyptians,
how I have carried you upon the wings of eagles,
and have taken you to myself.
Exodus 19, 4
As we have seen, the
Hebrew word for enmity (ebah/אֵיבָה) is derived from the verb ayab or אָיַב, which means “to be hostile to.” This prim root
assumes the form of the noun “enemy” ( אוֹיֵֽב ). In Exodus 15:6, we read: ‘Thy right hand,
O Lord, is magnified in strength: thy right hand, O Lord, hath slain the
enemy.’ This verse is part of the Song of Moses and the Hebrew people who
joyfully and gratefully praise God for having caused the Red Sea to swallow up
Pharaoh’s chariots of men in their pursuit of the Israelites after their
liberation from slavery and departure from Egypt. The fall of the Egyptian army
is celebrated in song, for it has resulted from Pharaoh’s obstinate pride and
arrogance in his opposition to God. In her Canticle of Praise, Mary proclaims:
“My spirit rejoices in God my savior; for he has looked with favor on the
lowliness (humility) of his handmaid” (Lk. 1:47-48). The lord raises the lowly
and casts down the mighty from their thrones (Lk 1:52; Ps 147:6).
The Annunciation
happened because of Mary’s humility and purity of heart. She was a friend of
God. Like Moses, who humbled himself before God to be His servant and instrument of salvation, our Blessed Lady joyfully and thankfully praises God for saving her from the clutches of the enemy, the serpent or
dragon, which is Pharaoh’s prototype. The angel Lucifer fell from
heaven because of his pride and arrogance (Isa 14:12-17). And because he
opposed God in his vanity and was cast out from heaven, he wished to rally
mankind against Him, whereby humanity, in its rebellion against God in league
with Satan, would fall, too, from His grace and end up under the Devil’s
dominion as his captives together with all the other fallen angels, enslaved to
sin and subject to death in its sinful condition.
Mary rejoices in God, her savior because He has mercifully redeemed her by a singular grace, having been chosen to be the mother of our Lord and humanity’s Saviour, who shall redeem mankind and deliver it from the clutches of the dragon and man’s enslavement to sin. (Rev 12:10). She knows that together with God, she has been chosen to
stand in opposition to Satan to help undo his works. By her act of faith and love, our Blessed Lady helps turn the Devil’s proud and arrogant
opposition to God into his humiliating defeat. Mary’s humble state is a means
by which God becomes incarnate and dashes Satan’s pride into pieces along with
his rule over humanity. In her humility, Mary opposes the Devil’s
pride in his opposition to God. She stands with God as His faithful helpmate in opposition to the inimical serpent.
The free Woman of
Promise becomes the Mother of the Son only because she refuses to do what is
hateful to God and pleasing to the serpent out of pride, unlike Eve, who
submitted to the will of God’s adversary and was cast out from paradise because
of that same pride which cast the Devil out from heaven. Eve made herself out
to be an enemy of God and His “adversary” by her rebellion in collaboration
with the serpent in his revolt (Ex 23:22; Isa 63:10). Mary made herself out to
be a friend of God and a disciple of the Son whom she would bear by faithfully
assenting to the divine knowledge that was made known to her through the
message of the angel (Jn 15:15).
Then the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a
child so that he
might devour her child as soon as it was born. And she gave birth to a male son, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. But her child was snatched
away and taken to God and to his throne; and the woman fled into the
wilderness,
where she has a place prepared by God so that there she can be nourished for
one
thousand two hundred sixty days…. But the woman was given the two wings of
the great eagle so that she could fly from the serpent into the wilderness to
her
place where she is nourished for a time and times, and half a time. The
dragon
cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, so that he might cause her
to
be carried away by the flood.
Revelation 12, 4-6, 14-15
There are four
prevailing themes about the wilderness in the Hebrew Old Testament. To
begin, the imagery of wilderness may signify a place where one encounters God very closely, notably when they are called for an important task during a crisis. Also, for the Jewish people who were delivered from slavery in
Egypt by God’s intervention, the wilderness was where they received the Torah
(the Divine instructions) so that they could be set apart from all the
surrounding nations to become God’s very own and be prepared as a holy nation in anticipation of the coming Messiah.
The Talmud says:
And the Lord spoke to Moses in the
wilderness of Sinai…
The azure sky encompasses the parched and barren land:
an untouched, silent vacuum devoid of mortal ploys.
No stamp of human grandeur
imprints the endless sand;
no thoroughfares are chiselled
through the undulating dunes.
Standing in the wilderness
we wait with open hearts:
we may yet tend the desert
and find our way to Eden.
(B’midbar 1:1)
The Talmud says further:
“One should be as open as a wilderness to receive the Torah” (Nedarim 55a).
Some Jewish commentators understand this statement to mean that God’s chosen
people have been called to open themselves to God’s moral demand of living an
entirely new way of life that differs from that of the pagans who do not know
God, regardless of how intimidating it might be to the Israelites. In
preparation for the coming Messiah, God established a covenant with His people
through Moses at Sinai so that they would be moral and godly people, unlike His
adversaries. For this purpose, God gave the Israelites the Torah or moral Law.
Only those who conducted their lives following the moral precepts of
the Divine law reached the promised land after their sojourn in the desert. The
unfaithful Jews who failed to “tend the desert” or persevere in faith in the
wake of many hardships and trials never found their “way to Eden.”
Moreover, the wilderness
can be described as a place untouched by human development and settlement. In
the form of imagery, it represents a moral haven. For the Israelites, the
wilderness contrasted with Egypt, which was polluted with the vain grandeur of
this world and the many false idols that alienated the Egyptian captors from
God and even corrupted many of Abraham’s descendants while living there. The
Exodus happened so that the Hebrew people would be free to worship the God of
their fathers as He desired that they righteously should in the land that He
had initially promised to Abraham (Gen 17:7). The wilderness was where God’s
emancipated people could be spiritually refined and come to know God, as to
walk in his ways without any worldly distractions that might hinder them. The
wilderness provided the straight path that would help them become a
holy nation set apart by God and consecrated to Him as worthy of begetting the
promised Messiah.
Indeed, in sacred
Scripture, the wilderness is portrayed as the site of the dispensation of
divine grace where God disciplines, purifies, and transforms His chosen people
by imparting singular holiness to them through His covenant. It was at the
outset of the Israelites’ forty-year sojourn in the desert that God assured
Moses: “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest” (Ex 33:14). On
this occasion, God didn’t simply offer his chosen people guidance but promised
to guide them to the promised land Himself. The wilderness was where the
Israelites had to learn to place their undivided trust in Divine providence.
Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden for failing to trust God and
placing all their hope in Him. The Jews who lost their trust in God and their
trial of faith never made it to the promised land.
Here it was where God
came down from His heavenly domain to dwell among His people and instruct them
in His ways by physically manifesting His presence through the Ark of the
Covenant, which also served as a channel of His grace (Ex 25:8, 22; Josh 3:5-17;
6:2-5). Outside of Egypt, the Israelites could encounter a personal God who
related to them in a loving and caring way and who sought nothing other than
their true happiness, albeit the physical hardships they had to endure to prove
themselves worthy of being in His favor. ‘The Lord would speak to Moses face to
face, as one speaks to a friend’ (Ex 33:11). Through Moses, God would speak to
all His people by His theophanies.
Finally, many passages in the Old Testament present the wilderness as an aspect of the goodness of God’s creation, which inspires awe because of its sublimity. For instance, the prophet Isaiah creates an allegory pertaining to the Hebrew nation's spiritual condition. The language in the text expresses a moral and spiritual desolation in the life of the Jews. Such was the condition of the Judeans before God allowed the Babylonians to destroy Jerusalem and take His chosen people into captivity and exile because of their apostasy and idolatry.
Still, the prophet
anticipates the time that will come when the moral and spiritual wasteland the
Jews had created for themselves will be restored to its former beauty, which God
intended, like “the glory of Lebanon” with its plush cedar trees and fertile
land. The “glory of God” shall be manifested in the rejuvenation of His chosen
people by His grace, which restores them to a new life in the spirit (cf. Ezek
36:26-27). A “crocus” (rose) shall beautifully blossom out of what was a
desolate wasteland now that God’s judgment against His people is past and the
nation redeemed itself of its sins through its suffering and subsequent change
of heart through discipline (cf. Ezek 20:36-38).
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The majesty of Zion that
once was will be restored now that God’s chosen people have left that pathless
desert of alienation from God and spiritual desolation which they had stumbled
upon through their infidelity. The excellency of Carmel and the fertility of
Sharon will now be restored by God’s grace and renewed blessings in the
wasteland that Zion created for herself to her own spiritual ruin. By God’s
merciful grace of forgiveness and salvation, His people will now set themselves
on the right path in a land fertile with reinvigorated piety in the knowledge
of God and His covenant with them (Isa 35:1-4).
We can imagine the
normal characteristics of a desert: a solitary and dry place (ציה or tsı̂yâh), without
springs and streams of water which doesn’t produce any verdure and cannot
sustain life. But only in this desolate state can it blossom into new life
by being restored to its original plush condition as God’s re-creation by His regenerating
grace. Analogically, the spiritual plight of the ancient Hebrews points to
mankind’s need for baptism and reconciliation with God through
sanctification or justification.
Hence, when God
fashioned Mary’s soul and sanctified it at the first instant of her conception
in the haven of her mother’s womb, He put her in enmity with the serpent. All
it had wrought at the world's creation did not affect Mary. God preserved
her from being subjected to the spiritual desolation of humanity because of
original sin. Mary was God’s re-creation of mankind before the fall. She was
untouched by the spiritual ruin Adam had brought upon himself and all his
descendants by nature. The majesty of Eve that once was had been restored in
Mary. Our Blessed Lady did not embark upon a pathless desert of alienation
from God when she was born. She did not enter this world as a “wandering
daughter”. Her soul was fertile and plush in its sanctified state as she
blossomed like a rose by the power of God’s grace, which restored her to the
original state of justice and holiness that Adam had forfeited for all his
offspring because of his idolatry and infidelity to God.
God set Mary apart from
all the descendants of Adam and Eve who would be born in exile and slavery to
sin, as to be holy and consecrated to Him in preparation for the Divine
Maternity, just as He had freed the Israelites from slavery and separated them
from the surrounding pagan nations to be His very own people, holy and
consecrated to Him, from whom would come the Divine Messiah. “Thus, shalt thou
say to the house of Jacob and tell the children of Israel; Ye have seen what I
did unto the Egyptians, and how I bear you on eagles’ wings, and brought you
unto myself” (Ex 19:3-4). God bore Mary on the wings of His grace when He kept
her from being taken captive with the rest of humanity and morally subjected to
having to dwell enslaved in the dominion of God’s ancient adversary. God looked
with favor on the lowliness of His handmaid when he removed her from the rest
of sinful humanity by bearing her away on His wings of grace to be His very own
virgin bride and the mother of the Son- “clothed in the robes of salvation” and
“wrapped in a mantle of justice” (Isa 61: 10). The floodwater could not reach
and engulf our Blessed Lady Zion as it had sinful humanity at the time of Noah
(Gen 6:17-18) and Pharaoh’s army of chariots.
A great sign was seen in heaven:
a woman clothed with the sun,
and the moon under her feet,
and on her head a crown of twelve stars.
Revelation 12, 1
In the spirit of the
faithful remnant of the Israelites or Daughter Zion, Mary received the Divine
commands and kept them in the depths of her heart and soul. She personified the
renewal of Israel after having been liberated from bondage and exile by being
spared enslavement to sin and the prospect of mortal corruption that plagues
fallen humanity. There was no place for the vain idols of this world in her
soul. How she conducted herself throughout her entire life was impeccable by
the plenitudes of grace God bestowed on her. Mary observed the word of God and
kept it (Lk 11:28). Not once did she profane God’s holy name by thought, word,
or deed. Our Blessed Lady embodied in her person the ideal standard of a
redeemed and resurrected people of God but singularly and most perfectly.
When God sanctified
Mary’s soul and preserved her free from the stain of original sin and all its
ill moral effects, He intended, by His almighty power, to keep her from ever
stumbling and falling from His grace (Jude 1:24). God clothed His handmaid in the
radiance of the light of His justice. She was enrobed with the sun of His
justice. What paled in comparison within the soul of humanity lay under her
feet like a waning moon. Our Blessed Lady had crushed the head of the serpent.
The Blessed Virgin Mary blossomed like a crocus among thorns and thistles in
the desolate wasteland of fallen humanity.
God “tilled the land
that was desolate” and had it “become like the garden of Eden” by restoring what Adam and Eve had reduced to a wasteland in Mary. God replanted in her what
was uprooted from humanity by their transgression (Cf. B’midbar 1:1; Nedarim,
55a). God put His spirit within our Blessed Lady and a heart of flesh that
would never turn to stone. And by the efficacious influence of His grace, God
caused Mary, without violating her free will, to observe all His commandments
and to walk in His statutes free from all abomination that infests sinful
humanity (Ezek 36: 16:37). Mary was indeed the creation of God’s sublime
handiwork, His greatest masterpiece of grace in all creation, who in awe all
generations shall pronounce blessed. The Lord had done “great things” to her,
for holy is His name (Lk 1:48-49).
And I passed by thee, and saw thee: and behold thy time was the
time of lovers: and I spread my garment
over thee and covered thy ignominy. And
I swore to thee, and I entered into a covenant with thee, saith the
Lord God:
and thou becamest mine. And I washed thee with water, and cleansed away thy
blood from
thee: and I anointed thee with oil. And I clothed thee with
embroidery, and shod thee with violet-colored
shoes: and I girded thee about
with fine linen, and clothed thee with fine garments.
Ezekiel 16, 8-10
Early Sacred Tradition
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that just as death comes to us through a woman,
life is born to us through a woman.”
Augustine, Christian Combat 22.24
(A.D. 396)
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