September 9, 2010 – Catechism 490-495

First, there are many different translations of the Bible. Luke 1:28 is translated as the angel greeting Mary as favored one, highly favored, full of grace. The greeting is interpreted by Catholics as pointing to Mary being without original sin. Gen. 3:15 points to a time when a woman would have enmity between her and Satan.  This an extreme hostility, I have also heard it defined as a complete separation.  We as Catholics believe that woman described is Mary.  It would seem logical that if God were going to bring Jesus into the world, the womb that would hold Jesus would be in a woman that was not under the stain of original sin.  I hear the argument that Mary's sinless nature is not in the Bible.  Besides this greeting, I don't really know of any other verses that elude to it.  But, we believe Jesus was sinless.  How many verses say that directly.  I can only find 2.   Hebrews 4:15 and in 1 Peter 2:22.  You would think Jesus being sinless would be in there more often.  But what does it mean if it wasn't mentioned.  Mary isn't mentioned in any of the letters.  Does that mean the Apostles ignored her.  That the early Church didn't honor her.  (I know I am not even a year into this Bible study, but when it is done, I want to do something similar with the early Church Fathers.)  That just isn't so. 

Ephraim the Syrian

"You alone and your Mother are more beautiful than any others, for there is no blemish in you nor any stains upon your Mother. Who of my children can compare in beauty to these?" (Nisibene Hymns 27:8 [A.D. 361]). 

Ambrose of Milan

"Come, then, and search out your sheep, not through your servants or hired men, but do it yourself. Lift me up bodily and in the flesh, which is fallen in Adam. Lift me up not from Sarah but from Mary, a virgin not only undefiled, but a virgin whom grace had made inviolate, free of every stain of sin" (Commentary on Psalm 118:22–30 [A.D. 387]).

The dogma itself was not issued until 1854, but dogmas do not change what the Church teaches.  The Catholic Church does not invent teachings.  The Catholic Church only proclaims what the Holy Spirit inspires it to proclaim.  The Sinlessness of Mary is something that was accepted and believed by the Earliest Christians and only expressed in dogmatic form when necessary to express what the Catholic Church has always held to end confusion.

And Mary was saved from Original Sin by Christ.  I hear it said that why does Mary say that the Lord is her savior if she was without sin and why did they offer sacrifice in the temple after Jesus was born if she was without blemish.  The answer to the first is best described with the image of walking down a street that has a puddle of mud in the middle of it.  If you fall into the hole, someone can pick you out of it and wipe you clean.  That is one way to be made clean.  There is also the way of stopping the person from falling into the mud hole before they get dirty.  This is how Mary was saved.  And Jesus mercy and grace that was earned at the cross is not only for those that come after.  With that He opened the gates to Heaven for those that had come before and were waiting for that moment.  There is no reason to limit God’s mercy and say that this mercy could not have been given to Mary at her conception. 

As for Mary offering sacrifice if she didn’t need it, Jesus was baptized in the Jordan.  Do you really think He needed that.  It was to be an example of following the laws set out by God.     

I don’t express the theology behind this very well and I am not the most elegant writer.  The above I wrote as I was just going through the paragraphs.  This is my summary.  The argument that Mary sinlessness is not in the Bible is, I feel, a weak argument.  The word Trinity is not in the Bible.  There is no mention of a Rapture.  And other items are not specifically in the Bible, but our interpretations from reading the Bible.  But people Believe them. 

Besides the fact that it makes logical and reasonable sense for God to want the woman that carries Jesus to be made sinless, why do people doubt God’s power.  People believe she became pregnant even though she was a Virgin, they believe Jesus brought Lazarus from the dead.  But they say it is beyond God’s power to create a woman without sin from her conception.  I think that is putting limits on a God that the Bible tells us all things are possible through.  Let the discussions begin.