On December 8, 1854, the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary was declared a dogma, although the Holy Mother was acknowledged as the most holy of person on earth by the early Church.
Pope Pius IX stated with finality that the Blessed Mother was conceived free from original sin because she was destined to be Mother of God. Ineffabilis Deus, (Latin for “Ineffable God”), a dogma that binds all the faithful to believe this truth.
“He [God] attended her with such great love, more than all other creatures, that in her alone He took singular pleasure…. He wonderfully filled her, more than all angelic spirits and all the saints, with an abundance of all heavenly gifts taken from the treasury of the divinity, that she, always free from absolutely every stain of sin and completely beautiful and perfect, presented such a fullness of innocence and holiness that none greater under God can be thought of, and no one but God can comprehend it.”
Mary in the early Church
We fly to thy protection,
O Holy Mother of God.
Do not despise our petitions
In our necessities,
O Glorious and Blessed Virgin. Amen.
Sub Tuum Praesidium (Beneath thy Protection) is the oldest Christian hymn and prayer to the Blessed Mother, the Theotokos.
Written in Slavonic, in Egyptian papyrus, this was discovered in the third century. Devotees of Mary sing this hymn with Salve Regina in Roman, Eastern and Orthodox Church rituals until now.
The early fathers of the Church were devoted to Mary. She was venerated in a truly historical perspective—the holiest of all her role in salvation endeared her to Christians.
Cyril of Alexandria called her Mother of God, Saint Gregory of Nyssa acknowledged in her the “fullness of Godhead.” Saint Epiphanius wrote against the 80 heresies on Mary and called her Mother of the Living. Ambrose of Milan defended the doctrine of her perpetual virginity. Marian devotion was promoted through Ephraim and John Damascene of Syria.
During the third Ecumenical Council 431 at Ephesus, the council debated on the title that should be attributed to her. Is it Theotokos (God bearer, Mother of God) or Christotokos (Christ bearer, Mother of the Messiah)? After deliberations, the council affirmed Theotokos, “Jesus undivided divinity and humanity.”
Venerated through centuries
The Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was first formulated by Eadmer (1060-1126) of Canterbury, Benedictine monk, historian and theologian companion and biographer of Saint Anselm Archbishop of Canterbury (1033-1109), which was continued to be espoused by Anselm the younger, a nephew of the saint.
Eadmer, monk of Christ Church Canterbury, contended that if Saint John was sanctified from his birth, Mary, who enjoys supremacy over all creatures, should not be brought down to man’s level of original sin. If God preserved angels from sin, shouldn’t Mary, the Queen of all angels, be more entitled too?
Anthony of Padua (1195-1231) supported the Immaculate Conception in his Mariological Sermons and members of the Franciscan followed his passion even after his death.
During the Renaissance, Marian Art by Botticelli Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci, among other artists, decorated Italian, Dutch, German, French and Spanish churches.
Martin Luther, a German monk and theologian, protested against some beliefs and practices of the Catholic Church.
The protest started in Germany in 1517. Veneration of Mary was considered “competition to the divine role of Jesus.” Images of the Virgin Mary and saints were destroyed. Orthodox monks fled to the West with icons of Mary and Child when Constantinople fell in 1453. The Ottoman wars in Europe against Turkey was fought under the banner of Mary in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.
In 1567 Pope Pius V condemned the error of Michael Baius, a Belgian theologian who declared that Blessed Virgin was subject to original sin.
On December 6, 1708, Nobis Divinitus by Pope Clement XI decreed the feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8 and was declared a holiday of obligation.
On November 27, 1830, Catherine Laboure fell asleep while praying and asking Saint Vincent de Paul to intercede for her to see a vision of the Blessed Mother. She was awake by a little boy who told her to go to the chapel since someone wanted to see her.
An oval framed the Blessed Virgin with gold letters, “O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee,” was given to Catherine Laboure by the Blessed Mother. It was given by Mary herself to the Sisters of Charity Congregation on November 27, 1830. Mark Miravalle in Intro to Marian Theology wrote that Pope Pius IX was encouraged with the vision.
On May 13, 1846, the bishops of the United States entrusted the country to the Blessed Mother under the title of Immaculate Conception. The decree which was approved by Pope Pius IX on February 7, 1847, read: “With enthusiastic acclaim and with unanimous approval and consent, the Fathers [of the Baltimore Council] have chosen the Blessed Virgin Mary, conceived without sin, as the Patroness of the United States of America.”
All men have sinned
“Therefore, just as through one person sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came to all, in as much as all sinned” (Romans 5:12).
Since Jesus came to save the entire human race, Mary’s Immaculate Conception is inconsistent with the church teaching of Jesus as the Universal Redeemer, some early Fathers said.
They could not reconcile Immaculate Conception with “Universal Redemption through Christ.” Mary needed redemption from original sin as a child of Adam. Didn’t Saint Paul say: “All men have sinned in Adam”? (Romans 5:12).
The concept of Immaculate Conception was unacceptable to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, and even Saint Thomas Aquinas, who authored Summa Theologica. Stephen Beale, in How Dogma of Immaculate Conception Was Defined, wrote that Saint Bernard of Clairvaux believed that “Mary could have been sanctified soon after the moment of conception but not her conception.”
While Saint Aquinas affirms that the “Blessed Virgin was sanctified in the womb but the inclination to sin due to original sin was fettered in her person.”
John Duns Scotus (1266-1308), a Franciscan theologian from Oxford University, explained that the formula of the Scholastics is potuit, decuit, ergo fecit (Latin for “He could do it, it was fitting that He do it, therefore, He did it) solved the controversy.
This principle that “God could have made her free from original sin, was fitting for God to do so, therefore, God must have done so.”
Scotus cited the freedom of the divine will and the freedom of the human will within an order freely chosen by God (Encyclopedia.com on Theological Beliefs).
This Franciscan realist philosopher and theologian who pioneered the classical defense of Immaculate Conception died on November 8, 1308. He was beatified on March 20, 1993, by Pope John Paul II.
However, some philosopher theologians contend that this was a principle originally formulated by Saint Anselm, Bishop and Doctor of the church. He provided the “conceptual clarification” of the Immaculate Conception for Scotus, which the early Fathers could not explain “in full harmony with the need for universal redemption” (missionmagazine.com).
- Isaac Goff, in Mary in the Writings of the Saints, explained that Anselm provided very clear concepts of “human nature, original justice, original sin and the conferral and transmission of original justice and sin.”
Confirmation
On March 25, 1858, in Lourdes, France, the Blessed Mother assertion to Saint Bernadette Souibirous at Lourdes ratified the dogma. She said: “I am the Immaculate Conception.”
The Blessed Mothers is the dawn of a new creation, “For just as the morning star, together with the dawn precedes the rising sun, so Mary from the time of her Immaculate Conception preceded the coming of the Savior, the rising of the Sun of Justice in the history of human race” (Redemptoris Mater).
From an-eschatological viewpoint, Felipe Gomez, SJ, in Mary Virgin and Mother in Theology and Devotion, declared that the “Immaculate Conception is the inauguration of the new creation, the new heart, new heaven and new earth.”
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Damo-Santiago is a former regional director of the Department of Education National Capital Region. She is currently a faculty member of Mater Redemptoris Collegium in Calauan, Laguna, and of Mater Redemptoris College in San Jose City, Nueva Ecija.