Immaculate Conception

Our God is a God of Providence. He provides for our needs and ensures that we have all the resources we need to be and to do what He asks of us. We are utterly surrounded by God's Love. Mary is addressed by the Angel as "highly favored," also translated "full of grace." She is told that she has "found favor with God." Literally, the angel says, "you have found grace in God's eyes." In other words, there is a special sparkle, a glint in God's eye for this highly favored daughter. We have come to understand one aspect of this fullness of favor as her unique privilege of being made in perfection from the first moment of her existence, being kept free from original sin.

In simple terms, the Church's Faith says that Mary was preserved as free from sin in view of the merits of her Son's Redemptive Act, for the sake of her ministry as the Mother of the Son of God. She notes in her Magnificat that the All-Powerful God "has looked upon her in her lowliness." God's purifying and redeeming look has a power beyond our understanding. In Mary's case, it gives her the gift of perfect human nature, so that she can freely cooperate with God's plan of Salvation, giving human nature to her Son Jesus.

This simple, wonderful "fact" of Mary's sinless human nature is a renewal, a "clean start" for the human race. Adam and Eve were created sinless. By their choice, they failed to pass on that state to us their children. God chose to renew humanity in Mary and her Son, the New Adam and the New Eve, cooperating with God's grace for all humanity.

The truth of the Immaculate Conception is a reminder that God can still reach our human nature even under the stain of sin. In Baptism, our original sin is washed away. Althoug we are not conceived without sin, we are born again of water and the Spirit and grace is given to us.