My Soul Glorifies the Lord
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,
and my soul shall be joyful in my God:
for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation:
and with the robe of justice he hath covered me,
as a bridegroom decked with a crown,
and as a bride adorned with her jewels.
Isaiah 61, 10
And Mary said,
“My soul glorifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.
From henceforth all generations shall call me blessed;
for He who is mighty has done great things to me,
and holy is His name."
Luke 1:46-49
In Catholic theology, original sin is regarded as the general state
of sinfulness, that is the absence of sanctity and perfect charity into which
all human beings are born. We read in the Catechism of the Catholic Church that
original sin is the natural state of “deprivation of the original holiness and
justice” which we inherit as descendants of Adam and Eve. It is a sin that is
contracted by all human beings by natural propagation, not a sin committed by
them. Because original sin is a state or condition of our human nature and not
a sinful act on our part, it “does not take on the character of a personal
fault in any of Adam’s descendants” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 405).
However, we are all implicated in Adam’s sin and guilty by association, including Mary, by the fact that we are of the same human nature as our primordial Head of humanity. But because God did not hold Mary personally responsible for the sin of Adam and Eve, He could and did preserve Mary free from contracting the stain of original sin by a singular grace and privilege, in view of the foreseen merits of Christ, without negating His Divine justice in His Divine mercy. If God hadn’t intervened by His grace, Mary would have been conceived in the state of original sin, since she is a human creature and not a divine person like her Son is in his humanity acquired from her.
All Adam’s descendants are conceived and born in the state of
original sin (Ps 51:7). St. Paul tells us: “As sin came into the world through
one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men inasmuch as all
men sinned” (Rom 5:12). The apostle adds: “Then as one man’s trespass led to
condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal
and life for all men” (Rom 5:18). Physical death is a sign of spiritual death.
Though physical death remains a temporal penalty for our common sins against
God, Christ restored humanity to spiritual life with God through his passion
and death on the Cross. The second death – eternal damnation or separation from
God – is no longer an irrevocable prospect for all human beings.
At any rate, original sin is the state of being deprived of
supernatural grace. When Adam fell from the supernatural life with God, he fell
into a defective state. Having fallen from grace, the supernatural life was
something that he should have possessed as God destined him to. But since he
lost it, his lower natural condition is what we call the state of original sin:
the deprivation of the original sanctity and justice in which Adam was
originally created by God in His goodness. Since the Fall, all his biological
descendants are thus inclined, as natural members in the organic body of Adam,
to evil: concupiscence of the eyes, the concupiscence of the flesh, and the
pride of life. Not unlike their primordial father, human beings tend to want to
be like God, but apart from God, before God, and not in accordance with the
will of God. Human acts that originate from this attitude may constitute mortal
sins that deprive the soul of sanctity and justice before God through the fall
from grace.
Thus, original sin is called sin only in an analogical sense: it is a sin “contracted” and not “committed” – a state and not an act. Only one’s own personal sins carry with them the character of a personal fault and guilt. Mary’s soul, therefore, could proclaim the glory of the Lord, since she was liberated from man’s fallen state by a singular grace of God. Her human nature was unaffected by the ill moral effects of the sin we have all contracted upon our conception in the womb. Unlike the rest of us who have descended from Adam and Eve, Mary did not possess a wounded or tainted human nature that was inclined to evil. If she wanted to be like God, it was with God, as a daughter created in His image and likeness, ever mindful of His sovereignty over her, and in perfect keeping with His will.
In the redemption of mankind, God restored sanctifying or justifying grace to all humanity by Christ’s merits. Without this merciful act of God, man could never have retrieved that supernatural state above nature which is the end for which God destined him. The grace of redemption blots out the sin of Adam, although the moral and physical ill-effects of original sin remain after we are baptized. Dom Bruno Webb describes original sin as “some disease that has infected the original cell of the human body” which may “permeate every organ and cell of the body, as it grows forth from that [first] cell.” The original sin that we contract is like a “poison” that has “passed into every member of the human race.” The sin of Adam, therefore, is something that belongs to each member of humanity as such and is “our common heritage.”
Again, Mary was included as a fellow member of our race, but God
preserved her from contracting this disease and prevented the poison from
affecting her soul and body. He did this by the most perfect means of
redemption ever applied to any fallen child of Adam: The Immaculate Conception.
This singular privilege was granted to Mary by the foreseen merits of Christ
because of her election to the Divine Maternity (Isa 7:14; Lk 1:35, 43).
Unlike Eve, Mary never fell from God’s grace and lost her original
innocence (Lk 1:28). Her soul glorified or magnified the Lord (Luke 1:46). This
means there wasn’t a trace of selfishness or inordinate self-love within her
which would have naturally led to a sinful act, this being what original sin
essentially is – the sin of the heart that precedes the commission of personal
sins. The effects of original sin (concupiscence of the eyes, concupiscence of
the flesh, and the pride of life) had no hold on our Blessed Lady since God had
preserved her from contracting all stains of sin. We read in the First Letter
of John that “fear has to do with punishment,” whereas “love drives out fear”
of God’s justice (1 Jn 4:18). At the Annunciation, the angel Gabriel told Mary
that she had no cause to be afraid, for she had found favor or grace with God
(Lk 1:30). Her love of God was impeccable, and so she had no cause to fear the
Divine justice. She was in fact clothed in righteousness and justice by the
infusion of sanctifying grace into her soul by the time the angel appeared to
her.
Mary had cause to rejoice in God her savior, not because she was a
sinner who had been saved, but because she had been redeemed in the most
perfect way – by being “clothed with the garments of salvation” and “wrapped in
a mantle of justice” upon her conception in the womb, in view of the foreseen
merits of Christ. As Israel was God’s restoration to grace after having been in
exile, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the culmination of Daughter Zion, was God’s
re-creation of humanity before the fall and enslavement to sin. By the efficacy
of His sanctifying or justifying grace, God made Mary perfect in love for Him
and her neighbor. If she ever had committed any personal sin and thereby
tarnished the sanctity of her soul at some point in her life before the
Annunciation, the angel Gabriel would not have appeared to her with the good
news he brought, because she would then have been unworthy to conceive and bear
God incarnate and be intimately associated with Him in His work of redemption.
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The New Adam desired a perfect helpmate in the New Eve. We read in
Genesis 2:18: “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable
for him.” Eve was formed out of Adam to start a human family or, in broader
terms, to build a community in love and harmony that reflects the love and
communion that exists in the Tri-personal God and has a share in that communion
of love within the Holy Trinity. But, as we know, Eve failed her husband by
enticing him to distance himself from God. To undo the disharmony that Eve
initiated after succumbing to the words of the serpent, God promised to create
a woman from whom her offspring would restore humanity to the life of grace
with God (Gen 3:15).
The woman’s offspring, therefore, would include all who have been
regenerated unto God by His grace as members of His Mystical Body, of which the
New Adam would be the head. The New Eve could be the mother of this re-created
family and restored community, but only if she hadn’t ever fallen from grace
together with her offspring and new Head of humanity (Lk 1:42). She had to be
in total enmity or complete opposition with the serpent which is the author of
sin and death (Gen 3:14). The Virgin Mary had to be the woman in her originally
innocent state to be Eve’s anti-type in the Divine order of humanity’s
re-creation and restoration to the life of grace with God.
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St. Paul tells us: “I see another law in my members fighting
against the law of my mind and captivating me in the law of sin that is in my
members” (Rom 7:23). What the apostle is describing are the moral ill-effects
of original sin. When God sanctified or justified Mary’s soul at the first
instant of her conception, it was because He had made Mary in such a remarkable
and mysterious way that there should be nothing wrong with her, no moral
defects of any sort. Now it was not that Mary should receive this singular
grace by any merit of her own, but rather that it was conferred on her because
of the love the Father has for the Son (Jn 15:20). God intervened in a hidden
way so that there exists no internal rebellion within Mary’s soul or war being
waged against her will by the members of her body. Her lower nature must not at
any time have revolted against her higher nature, viz., divine image or proper
deified self.
This dark reflection within man himself, of his primordial
rebellion against God, should not be allowed to diminish or obscure the light
of His glory that had permeated Mary’s soul. God exempted our Blessed Lady from
being subjected to the law of sin with the rest of humanity by ensuring that
there be supernatural harmony of her soul with Him. And by the plenitudes of
grace God bestowed on Mary, He helped kept her from ever forfeiting this
supernatural and spiritual harmony through any commission of sin, mortal or
venial (Eph 3:20; Jude 1:24-25). All the faculties of the soul that Mary
possessed weren’t weakened by any lack of harmony in her physiological human
nature.
Moreover, Mary’s intellect wasn’t subject to ignorance and error
either; her power of will never lost its perfection of command but was always
aligned with the Divine will; it was never infected with an inherent obstinacy
lurking in her soul that resisted what God desired of her in His goodness and
righteousness. Her senses were never abnormally drawn to material things which
could impede her intellect and will from attending to the things of God. No
dark thoughts or disordered passions disfigured Mary’s soul in the least. God
who is holy and perfect created her to be holy and thereby the perfect mother
of the Son. For Mary to be the worthiest mother of the Son, her love of the
Father, however finite, had to resemble the love the Son has had for the Father
as best it could with the help of divine grace.
Thus, Catholics affirm Mary was subject to inheriting the stain of
original sin and in need of being redeemed like everyone else (Rom 5:18). Yet,
by the grace of God, the Immaculate Conception is the most perfect and complete
form of redemption by the foreseen merits of Christ. God intervened with His
grace and fashioned her so that she wouldn’t be inclined to sin by nature. Mary
was saved by being kept from falling into the mud, so to speak, while we are
saved by being pulled out from it. Mary’s redemption was preservative, while
ours is curative – now that we have contracted the disease started by one free
errant cell in the whole organism of humanity in the beginning.
In Romans 5:19, Paul writes: “Many (polloi) were made
sinners. He isn’t contradicting himself by not using the word “all” (pantes),
since what he means to say here as in verse 18 is that all people are subject
to original sin, but not everyone rejects God. He certainly doesn’t mean to say
in the distributive sense that everyone who has ever lived has sinned without
exception, since infants and mentally disabled people cannot sin, at least not
subjectively or with moral responsibility. The act of sin requires full
knowledge and full consent on the part of the subject. But given the right
circumstances, they might sin, since they fall short of God’s glory by their
very lower nature as collectively part of humanity. Infants and young children
below the age of moral reason do in fact suffer and die, though they have never
committed any personal sins in their short lives because all human beings are
guilty of Adam’s sin by association.
In this sense, then, Mary was included in God’s plan of redemption,
but her redemption was the most perfect form that could ever be and a singular
privilege granted only to the Mother of God by no natural merit of hers – by
the mercy of God without the negation of His justice; since original sin isn’t
a personal sin, but a collective sin or guilt by association with our natural
primordial head in the figure of Adam. We are conceived and born with a lower
nature deprived of the divine life of grace, albeit having been created in the
divine image, which we haven’t lost by the sin of Adam. But we must supersede
our wounded and defective natural state and willingly be transformed through
the power of divine grace, and rise to the divine life, which God in His
goodness originally intended we should possess.
When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
we were like those who dreamed.
Our mouths were filled with laughter,
our tongues with songs of joy.
Then it was said among the nations,
“The Lord has done great things for them.”
The Lord has done great things for us,
and we are filled with joy.
Psalm 126, 1-6
In a mysterious way, known only to God Himself, Mary was preserved
free from being subjected to this law of sin by the grace of God. The sight of the
forbidden fruit never enticed our most Blessed Lady at any moment in her life
as it had Eve (Gen 3:6). She received such an abundance of efficacious grace
that she always felt persuaded to want to say “Yes” to God amid all worldly
allurements. Mary was at enmity with the world as much as she was with the
Tempter (Gen 3:15; Jas 4:4; Jn 15:19). Far from being an unfaithful bride, Mary
never proved herself to be an adulteress in her marriage covenant with God (Jer
2:2). Her soul magnified the Lord. Mary
was free to choose between a life with God and death, and she never felt
compelled to say No to Him (Deut 30:19). She is Daughter Zion par excellence –
re-created and restored to God’s grace before even being subjected to the
slavery of sin by birth, not unlike Moses who was born free of slavery in Egypt
so that he could liberate God’s people from captivity.
The benign influence of the many graces our Blessed Lady received
was overpoweringly persuasive. Mary was endowed with a fullness of grace that
no other human being has ever been so that she would never want to disobey God.
This was fitting because of whose mother she was predestined to be. And since
God knew that Mary would consent to be the mother of the Son and never choose
to sin, by the efficacy of His actual grace, when He fashioned her soul, He
sanctified it upon her conception. The original holiness and justice that Adam
and Eve had forfeited for both themselves and all their descendants were
re-created in Mary by this singular Divine favor. The Lord had “done great
things to her” by restoring in her the spiritual fortunes Adam had forfeited
for all his offspring as the fountainhead of humanity (Lk 1:49).
The Blessed Virgin Mary, our Daughter Zion in the flesh, was
created “clothed with the sun” of justice and “with the moon (Heb. yareah)
under her feet” (Revelation 12:1). The light of God’s glory shone forth from
her soul in full radiance without ever having paled in the least. Her enmity
with the serpent or dragon was in the same likeness as her Son’s (Genesis
3:15). The Lord had done “great things” for His blessed daughter Mary and
divine mother elect, for holy is His name. Indeed, we are glad.
How long wilt thou be dissolute in deliciousness, O wandering
daughter?
for the Lord hath created a new thing upon the earth:
A WOMAN SHALL COMPASS A MAN.
Jeremiah 31, 22
In the primary context of Jeremiah’s prophecy, we find Israel
having unfaithfully turned this way and that from God in her marriage covenant
with Him by worshiping the false idols of the surrounding pagan nations. The
prophet foretells of the time when God shall put His spirit in His virgin bride
so that she will be most eager to renounce her false idols and return to Him.
Daughter Zion, who metaphorically represents God’s faithful and chaste bride,
will press around her husband, and woo Him to restore the Israelites in His
favor. She will be prompted by God’s spirit to contrive a way to get back into
good graces with Him as His faithful spouse and, so, be delivered from
captivity.
In this prophecy’s secondary fulfillment, the unfaithful daughter
represents in her wandering the dissolute Eve who has wandered in her
unfaithfulness to God by turning this way and that ever since the Fall. It was
Eve who idolized the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden and chose to replace
God with it, whom she should have loved more. Ever since then, she has been in
exile.
In classical Judaic theology, the woman of promise in Genesis 3:15
represents faithful Daughter Zion by whom righteous offspring shall be
begotten, beginning with Abel and including the Messiah, the culmination of all
the righteous. It is the Hebrew people who are removed from their original
paganism or fallen state to be God’s chosen ones as His own faithful and chaste
spouse and a holy nation; consecrated to God and sanctified by Him through the
establishment of His covenant with them, so that from God’s chosen people the
Messiah should come into the world in a becoming way, and through him all
nations be blessed. Faithful Daughter Zion culminates in the Blessed Virgin
Mary who gives birth to the Messiah because of her perfect fidelity to God. She
woos Him to become incarnate by the beauty of her faith and purity of love
despite the heartless indifference of sinful pagan humanity.
Jeremiah’s prophecy reaches its fulfillment in the Blessed Virgin
Mary. Eve is re-created in her as the woman she was before the Fall. Mary is
the spiritual “mother of all the living” and faithful Daughter Zion who is a
mother to all God’s righteous children (Ps 87:5). God looks with favor on the
lowliness of His handmaid by removing her from her lowly origin and separating
her from the rest of sinful humanity to be His own faithful and chaste spouse
and the mother of the Divine Messiah. God has put His Spirit in her so that the
woman shall press all around Him and eagerly use all her faculties to remain in
good relations with Him as His spotless bride and the mother of His
Only-Begotten Son.
In Mary, the New Eve, the woman is no longer dissolute and enslaved
by the allurements of this world. The fortunes of the fallen children of
Daughter Zion are restored in the faithful virgin spouse of the Holy Spirit who
has been delivered from subjection to the slavery of sin by God’s grace and
remains in good relations with Him by hearing the word of God and keeping it in
her Immaculate Heart. The Lord’s handmaid shall never be an adulteress in her
marriage covenant with God, for her soul proclaims His glory, which the rest of
humanity without distinction needs because of the many personal sins that arise
from a selfish heart of stone (Rom 3:23).
God put His Spirit in the Blessed Virgin Mary and gave her a heart
of flesh so that there should be no place for any idols in her soul. God
preserves her from being born in exile when He sanctifies her soul at the first
instant of her conception. And by God’s efficacious grace, our Blessed Lady
never ever falls into exile or alienation from God like a “wandering daughter”
straying from the right path that leads to life everlasting. And so, God shines
forth out of Zion. She gives birth to a Son who is to be called Emmanuel: God
with us (Isa 7:14). A woman has compassed a man who is God in the flesh (Jn
1:14). The Blessed Virgin Mary is the great sign foretold by the prophets and
envisioned by John the Evangelist: A woman clothed with the sun and with the
moon under her feet (Rev 12:1).
“The Holy Virgin is herself both an
honourable temple of God and a shrine made pure, and a
golden altar of whole
burnt offerings. By reason of her surpassing purity she is the Divine incense
of oblation (προθέσεως), and oil of the holy grace, and a
precious vase bearing in itself the true
nard; yea and the priestly diadem
revealing the good pleasure of God, whom she alone
approacheth holy in body and
soul. She is the door which looks eastward, and by the comings in
and goings
forth the whole earth is illuminated. The fertile olive from which the Holy
Spirit took
the fleshly slip (or twig) of the Lord, and saved the suffering
race of men. She is the boast of
virgins, and the joy of mothers; the
declaration of archangels, even as it was spoken: “Be thou glad
and rejoice,
the Lord with thee”; and again, “from thee”; in order that He may make new once
more
the dead through sin. ”
St. Gregory Thaumaturgus
On the Holy Mother of God
(A.D. 270)
My dove, my undefiled is but one;
she is the only one of her mother,
she is the choice one of her that bore her.
The daughters saw her, and blessed her;
yes, the queens and the concubines,
and they praised her.
Song of Solomon 6, 9
“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.”
Pope Pius lX,
(Apostolic Constitution)
Ineffabilis Deus
8 December 1854
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Salve Regina!