Despite the hatred of Mary by Protestants and
Freemasons, the Holy Mother the Church aptly teaches that Mary, the Mother of
Jesus, the Mother of God was conceived Immaculate in Her mother’s womb to
prepare her for the task ahead that of becoming the Mother of the Second Person
of the Most Holy Trinity!
Here Immaculate
conception means that Mary was preserved from any stain of sin by God. When the
Angel Gabriel visited Mary to tell her about God’s intensions to make her the
Mother of the Savior, the angel greeted Mary as “Hail Full of Grace” (Luke 1:
28). Here “full of Grace” means that all of Mary is FILLED with God’s grace,
admitting NO stains of Sin at ALL! Also, through the inspiration of God,
Elizabeth repeated the same thing in Luke 1: 42.
To obscure these
meanings from the scriptures, haters of Mary, in particular the Protestants,
mangled the scriptures to mean another thing and many things just to make sure the
Immaculate Conception is not known. This is why there is no Protestant Bible
that has Luke 1: 28 as “Hail, full of Grace”. They all have different
salutations just to contradict the Catholic Church, the owner of the Bible!
They are of course
supported by the false religion of Novus Ordo who calls the Protestants, “Separated
Brethren” as if there is a spiritual relationship between Catholics and
Protestants.
The Dogma of the
Immaculate Conception was defined by Pope Pius IX on December 8th
1584 when he wrote:
“ We declare, announce
and define that the doctrine which states that the Blessed Virgin Mary was
preserved, in the instant of Her conception, by a singular grace and privilege
of God Omnipotent and because of the merit of Jesus Christ the Savior of the
human race, free from all stain of original sin is revealed by God and must
therefore be believed firmly and with constancy by all the faithful” (Pope Pius
IX, Ineffabilis Deus 1584, Denzinger
1641)
When a doctrine is
defined, it does not mean that this pope, or any other pope, have crafted the
doctrine or pulled it out from a hat! No! A doctrinal definition only states
officially a part of the already revealed dogma. An official definition is
needed to both state it clearly and to demand assent to it as part of the
deposit of faith.
The logic of a dogmatic
definition lies in the entire deposit of faith taken together. To better
understand this Divine dogma, we need to look critically at both the scriptures
and Tradition.
By Tradition here is
meant the entire corpus of the deposit of faith both written and unwritten. The
“Bible worshiping” Protestants do not have this part of the Christian faith.
This is why they are not Christians because they are not connected to the
apostolic Tradition. When they read 2 Thes 2: 15, they interpret another thing.
Ofcourse the Novus Ordo religion think it does not matter that the Protestants’
faith begins and ends in the bible! This false religion thinks them Christian!
But they are NOT. If they were, they too will bear testimony to the Immaculate
Conception of Mary.
According to
Tradition, original sin from which Mary
is exempt was never defined by the Church. But the Church taught us what it is
by showing its effects on the soul. Original sin leads to Divine hatred or
malediction, a stain on the soul, a state of non-justice or spiritual death,
servitude under the empire of Satan, subjugation to the law of the
concupiscence (the flesh), subjection to suffering and to bodily death in so
far as they are the penalty to the common sin, original sin.
These effects of
original sin was given to us from Adam meaning that he lost sanctifying grace
which, when lost, one cannot see God.
This means that Mary
was indeed conceived without original sin ever touching her! What a great
privilege. She was conceived in a state of holiness as against malediction. She
was withdrawn from the slavery to the Devil thereby fulfilling God promise in
Genesis 3:15. In Genesis 3:15, God told the serpent that He will put enemity
between him and the Woman, between her seed and “your seed”.
Here we see that God
has predestined that Mary will be contra-Satan, that is being born without
original sin. Also, Mary’s seed, Jesus Christ is also the quintessential
contra-Satan who is Divine and without sin.
We too are freed from
original sin when we become “born again”,(a concept mangled by the Devil and
fed to protestants who accepts the Devil’s false interpretation) that is when we are baptized, washed with the
waters of baptism. We are free from the original sin. But the effects of it
remain making us capable of committing actual sins!
We are then placed in a
state where the door is opened to heaven, but to enter, we must still ward off
actual sins and needed another remedy-The sacrament of Penance.
Mary did not have
original sin, as She was preserved from it by God and so the effects of
original sin is not found in her and so She was not predisposed towards committing
any actual sins! Oh Glorious Mother!
The
Immaculate Conception revealed in the Bible and Tradition
Reading the bible with
the Church, we see that Immaculate Conception was indeed revealed, at least
implicitly in the scriptures. As we have stated, Genesis 3:15 is the most
direct reference to the person of Mary, who is to be that woman, who will
counter Satan and be free from the trappings of sin in order to bear Christ
with the most pure body.
If we preach that Mary
as a human being has the stain of sin like everybody else, then it means that
Christ’s human body which he took from Virgin Mary is tainted by sin! Such a
thing is NOT possible. This is why God preserved Mary from the beginning of her
existence.
But some enemies of
Mary will object to this and interpret another thing concerning this verse just
to counter Mary and Her Son’s Church.
In Gen 3:15, the
pronoun used was translated as “She”, as in, “She will crush thy head”. But in
the Hebrew bible, it was related as “he” as in “He will crush thy head”.
Enemies of Mary immediately say that “He”, here means that the passage has
nothing to do with Mary!!
But no! The Church
Fathers, another entity missing in Protestant reading of the Bible, are
unanimous in suggesting that the pronoun “he” appearing in the Hebrew indeed
stands for “posterity or seed Mary. This means all things coming from Mary. The
Bible called “Septuagint” also related the passage as “he”! The bible called the
“Vulgate”, the first Latin bible, used the word “ipsa”, which means “she”
meaning that the prophesy referred to the woman herself, Mary!
But there is no
essential conflict between the two passages or pronouns since the woman is to
be associated with the victory of Him who will be the great representative of
Her prosperity in their fight against Satan throughout the ages!
Despite this passage,
some enemies of Mary will still say that this passage is not enough to prove
the Immaculate Conception from the scriptures! But these people are
contradicted by the Fathers!
The Church Fathers are
those who were with the apostles and wrote down what the apostles did and
taught. Their copious writings are with us today and they offer us insights on
how the apostles treated various parts of revelation and the existing
scriptures. It is from these writings that the Church looks at when
interpreting what a passage means authentically! The Church does not look at
one Church Father and say “yes that is what this or that means”. No, She looks
at these writings in general and then, guided by the Holy Ghost, determine what
a passage means, aptly within the Apostolic Traditions!
It is unanimous
teaching of the fathers that Gen 3:15 at least alluded to Immaculate Conception.
They compared Eve with Mary. Since sin entered the world through Eve, sin is
defeated through the ‘woman”, Mary. So, Gen 3:15 was called proto evangelium, the first sketch of
the Messiah’s coming and His victory over evil.
It is traditional among
the Fathers to see 3:15 as referring to the Immaculate Conception of Mary. St.
Ephrem who died in the year 373 wrote about it. Sts. John Chrysostom and
Theodore, St. Sophronius, St. Andrew of Crete,
St. John Damascene, St. Justine, St. Ireneus and Tertullian etc. These are some of the Fathers who,
learning from the Apostles affirmed that in contrasting Eve with Mary with a
hind sight to Gen 3:15, shows that Mary is the Immaculate Conception since She
is the woman who is against Satan totally. To be totally against Satan is to be
free from all types of sin!
So the Fathers counters
those who suggest that Gen 3:15 is NOT about Mary!
The Protestants
following Luther’s false teachings have no need to look at the fathers! They
simply read the bible and present individual interpretations, while claiming
the Holy Spirit has revealed it. This is why we have thousands of sects today,
all with one bible, presenting conflicting interpretations of the bible! This
ofcourse contradicts 2 Peter 1:20.
So, understood in the
light of the fathers, the words of the angel, “hail full of grace”, that is “hail
thou art fully pleasing to God and loved by Him” are not limited temporally in
their application in such a way as to exclude even the initial period of Mary’s
life. On the contrary, the Blessed Virgin Mary would not have got fullness of
grace had Her soul been in an instant in a state of original sin! But God
protected Her from the beginning.
St. John Damascene put
it aptly when he said that Mary is the holy daughter of Joachim and Anne ‘who
has escaped the burning darts of the evil one”.
It has to be noted that
Pope Pius IX who promulgated this dogma did not invent it. He merely followed
an existing tradition but simple demanded that ALL Christians profess it as an
article of faith.
The feast of Immaculate
Conception has always been celebrated from the beginning of the Church since
clearly, the apostles taught it to their followers. This is why we read about
its celebration in the 6th and 7th century Greek Churches
with prayers that predates that century. The Lateran Council holding in the
year 645 took it for granted that Mary is Immaculate Conception. This was known
by everyone at that time.
In later ages, Pope Sixtus
spoke of the Immaculate Conception of Mary in 1476. The glorious Council of
Trent declared that when speaking of original sin which afflicts all humans, it
does not intend to include Mary.
So we see first of all
that this dogma was already known and celebrated and that both the scripture
and Tradition speaks of it at least implicitly.
Today, at the height of
the apostasy sitting in Rome occupying Catholic buildings worldwide, Catholics
must understand this dogma and continue to proclaim it and ignore the
Modernists, Protestants and Masons who seek to upturn the truth of the Church.
May the Month of August,
another Month of Mary be fruitful to us. Amen
Given by Malachy Mary
Igwilo on the feast of the finding of St. Stephen’s body, 3rd August
2016.
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