by Fr. Tommy Lane
We regard Our Lady as our spiritual mother, so it is with great joy that we celebrate the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady today. It was a unique and singular privilege given to Our Lady in advance through the merits of Jesus’ passion and death. Already from the first moment of her existence, she benefited in advance from the redemption Jesus would bring us all.
Some people make the error of thinking that if something is not explicit in Sacred Scripture it is not true or necessary to be believed, saying, for example, that the Immaculate Conception is not in Scripture so there is no Immaculate Conception. There are two errors in this way of thinking.
The first error is thinking that everything in our faith is in Sacred Scripture. It is not. God’s Word is passed down to us in two ways: in Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture. To put it simply, Sacred Scripture is part of God’s word put in writing. The Catechism tells us that Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture make up a single deposit of the word of God (Catechism §97). For the fullness of our faith we need Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture.
Secondly, it is erroneous to say there is no Immaculate Conception in Scripture because the Immaculate Conception is implicit in Scripture, in our Gospel today which I assume is why it was chosen as our Gospel today (Luke 1:26-38). The angel said to Mary, “Hail, full of grace!” (Luke 1:28) Sometimes this is translated as “Rejoice, highly favored one” but that is not really a good translation of the Greek in which Luke wrote his Gospel. The word Luke used to describe Mary as “full of grace” (κεχαριτωμένη kecharitōmenē, perfect passive particle) means Mary was full of grace not just at the moment the angel came to her but that she was made full of grace at one moment in the past and carries the consequences ever since. Of course we understand this as her Immaculate Conception; she was full of grace since the beginning of her life. Luke could have used a different word to show that Mary was full of grace only momentarily as when he described Stephen “full of grace” (πλήρης χάριτος plēres charitos) only for a moment in Acts 6:8 before he was stoned to death. But Luke insists that Mary was full of grace continuously from one moment in the past. So we get an indication of Mary’s Immaculate Conception in the account of the angel Gabriel’s visit to Mary in the Gospel today. We only see this in the original Greek of the New Testament, which is why, for these finer points, reading the original texts of Scripture is necessary. Our English translations are not inspired; only the original Greek New Testament and Hebrew and Aramaic Old Testament are inspired.
Also, at that time, after greeting someone “Hail,” you would give them their title, so “full of grace” is a title or name that the angel Gabriel gives to Mary. Names were very important in that part of the world because your name told something about who you were. So, “full of grace” describes Mary’s very being which she could only be if she were immaculately conceived.
In the Old Testament, no one could touch the ark of the covenant (Num 4:15; 2 Sam 6:7) because it was considered so holy. Those who carried it, even though they did not touch it, had to undergo self-purification before they could carry it (1 Chron 15:14). Sin could not come near the ark of the covenant. The ark of the covenant carried the ten commandments, the word of God, and Our Lady carried Jesus, the word of God, in her womb. That is why one of the titles we give Our lady is “Ark of the Covenant.” Twice, the New Testament describes Our Lady in such a way as to recall the ark of the covenant, and so suggesting Our Lady is the ark of the new covenant. When Our Lady visited her cousin Elizabeth, Luke describes her visit with language similar to King David bringing the ark of the covenant into Jerusalem for the first time. In the last book of the New Testament, Revelation/Apocalypse, John sees a vision of the ark of in heaven and then sees Our Lady in heaven and we could understand John saying that Our Lady is the ark of the new covenant. Sin could not come near the ark of the covenant in the Old Testament. As Our Lady is the ark of the new covenant, sin could not come near her. She had to be totally sinless to carry Jesus and that meant being totally sinless all her life from her conception. She had to be immaculately conceived in a singular grace from God to prepare her to be a worthy mother to carry Jesus. So the Immaculate Conception is implicit in Scripture.
Heaven itself confirmed Our Lady is the Immaculate Conception on a few occasions. The image and instructions for the miraculous medal were given by Our Lady in her apparitions to St. Catherine Labouré in rue du Bac in Paris. The medal’s original title is “The medal of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady” because the medal, as directed by Our Lady, contains in writing all around the front of the image the phrase, “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.” In Lourdes when our Lady appeared to St. Bernadette, four years after the Pope declared the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, she said, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” In the apparitions of Our Lady to the five children in Beauraing, Belgium, she said, “I am the Immaculate Virgin.”
We regard Our Lady as our spiritual mother, so it is with great joy that we celebrate her Immaculate Conception today. It was a unique and singular privilege given to Our Lady in advance through the merits of Jesus’ passion and death. Already from the first moment of her existence she benefited in advance from the redemption Jesus would bring us all. O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.
© Fr. Tommy Lane 2023
This homily was delivered in a parish in Ireland.
More Homilies for December 8: The Immaculate Conception of Our Lady
Our Lady Conceived without Sin 2020
Our Tainted Nature’s Solitary Boast 2016
God made a gathering of all graces called Mary
Immaculate Conception and the Icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help
Immaculate Conception of Our Lady and the Miraculous Medal
Immaculate Conception of Our Lady
Related Homilies: Homilies on the Gospel (Fourth Sunday of Advent Year B)
Four Marian Dogmas (end of pdf)
First reading Where are you?