Wednesday, December 7, 2011
REFLECTIONS ON THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
REFLECTIONS ON THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
MARWIL N. LLASOS, O.P.
Viva la Purisima Concepcion!!!
The Original Plan
From the very beginning, God’s plan for humanity was to be “holy and blameless in His sight” (Eph. 1:4).[1] In short, it is God’s plan for us to be “immaculate.” God created our first parents in the sate of pristine innocence and holiness. God made them according to His image and likeness (Gen. 1:26-27).
The Immaculate Conception
This image of God is chiefly in our soul, which is a spirit, because God is a Spirit (Jn. 4:24). God breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life (Gen. 2:7). This breath, I believe, is the Holy Spirit – the Breath of God (cf. Jn. 20:22). With the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we are filled with sanctifying grace which is God’s life in us. We are thus made to participate in the very life of God. We become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4).
The Original Sin
Man did not last in his intimate relationship with God. He took matters into his own hands, disobeyed his Creator, and fell from grace. The fall of man happened when he tried to be God after having been tempted by the Eivil One: “You shall be like God” (Gen. 3:5). Thus, man’s pristine innocence and holiness were lost and marred by sin in all its ugliness and hideousness. Man forfeited God’s life in him and passed on this sad condition to his children and their children, generation after generation: “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Ps. 51:5).
The Protoevangelium: The promise of a Redeemer
The First Good News
After the fall of Adam and Eve, there was at once a promise of salvation from God. In pronouncing the curse to the infernal serpent, God was actually announcing the first Good News – the Protoevangelium:
“I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel” (Gen. 3:15).[2]
In the promise of a Savior, a Woman is likewise mentioned. This Woman is none other than the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of the Savior Jesus Christ. In the Catholic Church, we see in Genesis 3:15 a joint Christological and Marian reference. If Jesus Christ is the “Seed of the Woman,” then the “Woman” is the Blessed Virgin Mary, His mother.[3] Jesus made clear reference to this by addressing His mother as “Woman” in Cana at the beginning of his public ministry (Jn. 2:5) and in Calvary at its end (Jn. 19:26-27). We see once again in Revelation 12 the epic saga of the Woman, her Seed (Child) and the infernal serpent (Dragon).
Defender of the Immaculate Conception: Blessed John Duns Scotus
The promise of Redemption entailed a New Adam and a New Eve – a Man and a Woman. Since the promised Woman (Mary) is at enmity with the serpent according to Genesis 3:15, she is never under the dominion of the serpent even for a single moment. That means that Mary never experienced alienation from God. This is so because she is “full of grace” (Lk. 1:28) – or sanctifying grace, the life of God in her soul. The Lord is always with her for she has found favor (charis, grace) with God (cf. Lk. 1:28, 30). Being full of grace, Mary never for an instance fell from grace, unlike Adam and Eve. Mary’s soul magnifies the Lord and her spirit rejoices in God her Savior (Lk. 1:46-47). God, wo was to be her Son, saved her by the grace of the Immaculate Conception singularly and freely bestowed on her. Potuit, decuit, ergo fecit![4]
Blessed Pope Pius IX
“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, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful” (Blessed Pope Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus).
Marwil N. Llasos, O.P. with Murillo's Immaculate Conception
[1] New International Version.
[2] Douay-Rheims Bible. The footnote in Genesis 3:15 of the Douay-Rheims Bible reads: “She shall crush … Ipsa, the woman; so divers of the fathers read this place, conformably to the Latin: others read it ipsum, viz., the seed. The sense is the same: for it is by her seed, Jesus Christ, that the woman crushes the serpent’s head.”
[3] Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is the fruit of Mary’s womb (Lk. 1:42).
[4] Blessed John Duns Scotus’ argument based on fittingness.
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