Mary, "full of grace" through God, was redeemed from the first moment of her conception.
"The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and in virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin.
"The splendor of an entirely unique holiness" by which Mary is "enriched from the first instant of her conception" comes wholly from Christ: she is "redeemed, in a more excellent fashion, by reason of the merits of her Son."
What Does the Doctrine Mean?
The Immaculate Conception means that from the first moment of her existence, Mary's soul was preserved from the effects of the fall of Adam and Eve.
special gift was given to her on the basis of the merits of the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Since God exists beyond all time, and all times are present before Him, He can apply the graces of Christ's redemptive work to people living at any time in human history.
He poured out graces upon the patriarchs and prophets even before the coming of the Savior.
it implies redemption because Mary's fullness of grace is the fruit of the saving death of Christ. ... Mary has been redeemed like us, only in a more wonderful way, not by cure but by prevention. A doctor can save our life by curing sickness. But if He gives us a medicine that keeps us from getting sick, He saves us much better.
original sin we mean ... something negative, that is, the deprivation of that supernatural, unmerited grace which Adam and Eve had on their first formation — deprivation and the consequences of deprivation. Mary could not merit, any more than they, the restoration of that grace; but it was restored to her by God's free bounty, from the first moment of her existence, and thereby, in fact, she never came under the original curse, which consisted in the loss of it.
by the aid of the first grace, she might grow in grace, that, when the angel came and her Lord was at hand, she might be "full of grace
The Bible Says ...
"I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel."
"seed" of the woman who will crush the "serpent's" head (that is, the Devil's head) can only be Jesus Christ
the "woman" prophesied in this same passage must be the Mother of Jesus, the Blessed Virgin Mary (cf. Jn 2:4 and 19:26 where Jesus calls her "Woman")
Jesus and Mary are said to be in a state of "enmity" against the serpent, which in the Hebrew original means "complete and radical opposition" to him. It is for this reason that it is not likely that God would have permitted Mary to inherit the condition of "original sin" from Adam and Eve.
Luke 1:28, thewords of the angel Gabriel to Mary at the Annunciation, "Hail, full of grace."
"full of grace" is used as a name or title for Mary, and she is the only one addressed in this fashion in the entire Bible, so it must indicate something special or distinctive about her.
angel Gabriel went on to say in verse 30, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God." This implies that she had already been graced in some special way in the past.
("full of grace") that the angel used for Mary is neither in the present nor the future tense: it is a perfect passive participle. In other words, the angel speaks of a gift that Mary had already received, even before the angel came to her. In effect, the angel says to her: "Hail, you who have already been graced, in a completed way, in the past."
What could such a complete transformation by the grace of God consist of other than a plenitude of sanctifying grace, poured into Mary's heart from the Holy Spirit, right from the start of her personal existence? As the Catechism puts it (entry 492), she was "enriched from the first instant of her conception" with "the splendor of an entirely unique holiness."
The Ancient Fathers Agree
as Jesus is called by St. Paul the New Adam, the Head of redeemed humanity, so the Blessed Virgin Mary must be the New Eve. There was no disagreement among the Fathers on this point. As Eve, the Mother of all the living, had ushered in the age of sin by succumbing to the temptation of the fallen angel (the serpent), so Mary, the Mother of all the redeemed, reversed Eve's sin by her obedience to the angel Gabriel at the Annunciation, and thereby ushered in the dawn of our salvation.
Cardinal Newman once wrote:
Is it any violent inference that she, who was to cooperate in the redemption of the world, at least was not less endowed with power from on high than she who, given as helpmate to her husband, did in the event but
cooperate with him for its ruin?
The Doctrine Proclaims Divine Mercy
Prevenient grace is this completely free gift of God's Mercy. We see a faint reflection of it in a parent's love for a child. A child is loved by its parents not because the child has earned it, or even asked for it in any way. Rather, the parent's love comes right from the start, a completely free gift, just because the child is the parent's own child.
Immaculate Conception is really the supreme manifestation of God's prevenient, unmerited mercy.
As Pope John Paul II wrote in his encyclical Dives in Misericordia
The mystery of the Immaculate Conception … is the expression of the first act of the heavenly Father's mercy in Mary's regard — an act of absolute gratuity. This is why we can see in it the Father's mercy in its pure state. The first act is the Father's prevenient mercy for this very tiny child that is to be born.
her soul the very masterpiece of His Mercy
the whole world's salvation began with a foundational act of unmerited, unprompted, freely given Divine Mercy. That act of mercy was Mary's Immaculate Conception.
making her the gate of the dawn and the cause of our joy.
it was given to her not just for herself, but for the good of the whole world
