We celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary December 8, 9 months before celebrating her birth September 7. Her feast also takes place, appropriately, in the early weeks of Advent, as we prepare for the birth of her Son.
Pope Pius IX proclaimed the Immaculate Conception of Mary a dogma of faith in 1854. The feast became a solemn feast in the church calendar of the Roman Catholic Church 9 years later.
Did Christians before then reflect on and celebrate this mystery? Yes, they did. Mary was the mother of Jesus Christ, and from the beginning Christians asked who she was and what was her role in the mystery of Jesus.
Christians never thought of Mary as someone no different than anyone else.
She brought Jesus Christ into the world and with Joseph of Nazareth raised him as a child. She had an important part in his first miracle in Cana in Galilee. She witnessed his life and kept “all these things in her heart.” She stood by Jesus on his cross and saw him die. After his resurrection she joined his followers making him known to the world. She was “full of grace” and “blessed among women.”
The gospel writers depended on Mary’s words as they wrote of her Son. From earliest times, ordinary Christians honored her. Christians flocking to the Holy Land found her in the places where Jesus was born, where he taught and died and rose again. They took her as their guide, for she knew him best of all.
They prayed to her and asked for her intercession.
Before any doctrinal formula, then, Christians knew that Jesus “was born of the Virgin Mary.” She had a key place in their faith.
What was her role in God’s plan? The readings at Mass for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception tell us. The first reading for her feast from the Book of Genesis invites us to see her in the story of Adam and Eve. Just as her Son became the new Adam, Mary was the new Eve, “mother of all the living.” (Genesis 3: 5-6,20)
God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in heaven, choosing us in Him before the world was even created.” God blessed Mary with special blessings for her unique role in the mystery of our Redemption, the second reading for her feast says. (Ephesian 1:3-6, 11-12)
God created her as a “worthy dwelling for his Son” and “placed her above all others to be for your people an advocate of grace and a model of holiness.” (Preface for the Mass)
An angel presented her with that unique role. “ Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you.” “Be it done to me according to your word,” Mary answered. (Luke 1:26-38) She needed great faith, and God gave her great faith. She followed her Son sharing his Cross. She shared in the glory of his resurrection.
After consulting the faithful, Pope Pius IX solemnly proclaimed the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854: “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” (Ineffabilis Deus, 1854)
In the church’s Office of Readings for her feast St. Anselm, exploring Mary’s role as “mother of all the living”, speaks of her relationship to all creation:
Blessed Lady, sky and stars, earth and rivers, day and night – everything that is subject to the power or use of man – rejoice that through you they are in some sense restored to their lost beauty and are endowed with inexpressible new grace. All creatures were dead, as it were, useless for men or for the praise of God, who made them. The world, contrary to its true destiny, was corrupted and tainted by the acts of men who served idols. Now all creation has been restored to life and rejoices that it is controlled and given splendour by men who believe in God.
The universe rejoices with new and indefinable loveliness. Not only does it feel the unseen presence of God himself, its Creator, it sees him openly, working and making it holy. These great blessings spring from the blessed fruit of Mary’s womb.
Through the fullness of the grace that was given you, dead things rejoice in their freedom, and those in heaven are glad to be made new. Through the Son who was the glorious fruit of your virgin womb, just souls who died before his life-giving death rejoice as they are freed from captivity, and the angels are glad at the restoration of their shattered domain.
Lady, full and overflowing with grace, all creation receives new life from your abundance. Virgin, blessed above all creatures, through your blessing all creation is blessed, not only creation from its Creator, but the Creator himself has been blessed by creation.
To Mary God gave his only-begotten Son, whom he loved as himself. Through Mary God made himself a Son, not different but the same, by nature Son of God and Son of Mary. The whole universe was created by God, and God was born of Mary. God created all things, and Mary gave birth to God. The God who made all things gave himself form through Mary, and thus he made his own creation. He who could create all things from nothing would not remake his ruined creation without Mary.
God, then, is the Father of the created world and Mary the mother of the re-created world. God is the Father by whom all things were given life, and Mary the mother through whom all things were given new life. For God begot the Son, through whom all things were made, and Mary gave birth to him as the Saviour of the world. Without God’s Son, nothing could exist; without Mary’s Son, nothing could be redeemed.
Truly the Lord is with you, to whom the Lord granted that all nature should owe as much to you as to himself.
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