Part I
The Assumption of Our Lady
It is generally agreed that the dogma of the Assumption has less foundation in Scripture than the Immaculate Conception (but see Rev 12:1-2). Despite that, in the first sixteen centuries of Christianity, theologians were more unanimous in accepting the Assumption than the Immaculate Conception.
This is an example of how the Catholic deposit of faith depends both on Scripture and Tradition A public revelation of the Assumption must have been made to at least one of the Apostles, because such revelation ended with the death of the last Apostle, and this article of faith was thus conserved and handed on by the Church.
When Pope Pius IX defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854, many people began to petition the Apostolic See for the definition of the Assumption also. Between 1849 and 1940 more than 2,500 such petitions were received from bishops and superiors of religious orders. On May 1st, 1946, Pope Pius XII sent an Encyclical Letter (“Deiparae Virginis“) to every bishop in the world asking them about the devotion of their faithful regarding the Assumption. Nearly twelve hundred bishops answered that the dogma could safely be defined, and only sixteen questioned the advisability of the proclamation at that time.
In his letter, Pius XII had asked for a prompt response from the bishops, but he had also entreated “an abundance of divine favours and the favourable assistance of the heavenly Virgin”. Amazingly, that assistance came eleven months later in the form of a private revelation to a most unlikely character in Rome. On April 12, 1947, Bruno Cornacchiola, an avowed anti-Catholic and wife-beater who planned to kill the pope, had a vision of Our Lady at Tre Fontane outside Rome, the same spot where St Paul had been martyred.
During the apparition, Our Lady revealed to Bruno that she had been assumed into heaven. Bruno later recounted this in a private audience to Pius XII. Consider then the timeline: In May 1946, the pope writes to the bishops of the world regarding the Assumption and entreats Our Lady for divine favours to assist with the decision on this dogma. Less than eleven months later, Our Lady appears to a man who was vehemently opposed to all Marian devotion and tells him that she was assumed into heaven!
Pope Pius XII formally defined the Assumption as a dogma of the Catholic faith on November 1, 1950. The constitution cited testimonies from the Fathers, with theological reflection on many biblical passages which indicate that Mary was assumed into heaven. Exactly seventy years later, on November 1st, 2020, Cardinal Piacenza offered Mass at the Tre Fontane shrine in Rome. In his homily, he noted the link between the Marian dogma and the shrine, which he said: “Pius XII knew very well.”
Just as the visions at Lourdes confirmed the definition of the Immaculate Conception, so too Pius XII had private visions which he took as verification of the dogma of the Assumption. In handwritten notes, the pope testified that he saw the so-called “Dance of the Sun” of Fatima on four occasions (October 30, 31, November 1, 8, 1950), in the Vatican gardens.
The Sacred Heart Devotion
As Fr Michael Gaitley makes abundantly clear in his wonderful series Divine Mercy: The Second Greatest Story Ever Told, the devotion to the Sacred Heart is part of God’s providential plan to correct a wayward direction taken by many theologians and faithful from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries onwards. Followers of the Jansenist school portrayed God as an exacting judge who demanded strict penances and sacrifices in exchange for the pardoning of our sins. This negative image of God, and the defective spirituality that accompanied it, would gain enormous influence in France and other parts of Europe right up to the Second Vatican Council, but it began to be countered in an effective way already with the rise of the devotion to the Sacred Heart, a devotion that “corrected” the wayward image of God and emphasized his love and mercy before all else.
In St John’s Gospel, Jesus’ heart is pierced by a Roman spear, and out flows blood and water. This image, which St John solemnly declares to have witnessed himself, has always been taken as a sign of the sacramental life of the Church which issues from the sacrifice of Christ onto death. In later centuries, it has also been taken as one of the scriptural foundations of the devotion to the Sacred Heart. An incredible pantheon of mystics and saints have promoted the devotion to the Sacred Heart since medieval times to the present. These include Bernard of Clairvaux, Melchtilde of Helfta, Gertrude the Great, and Francis de Sales, among many others. The most significant visions occurred in the 1670s to Margaret Mary Alacoque at Paray-le-Monial. But the Church still resisted introducing the feast on a universal level and the growth of the devotion was consequently impeded.
A German nun, Sister Mary of the Divine Heart, began to have interior locutions and visions regarding the Sacred Heart of Jesus during the final decades of the nineteenth century. On June 10th, 1898, her confessor wrote to Pope Leo XIII stating that Christ had requested Sister Mary to petition for the consecration of the world to the Sacred Heart. The pope took no action. Six months later, Sister Mary wrote again to ask that the first Fridays be observed in honour of the Sacred Heart. In response, Pope Leo commissioned a group of theologians to examine the matter on the basis of revelation and sacred tradition.
The outcome was positive and a papal encyclical, Annum Sacrum, was published in May 1899. The encyclical promoted the First Friday Devotions and established June as the month of the Sacred Heart. Sister Mary was to die at age thirty-six on the eve of the feast that same year, and the following day Pope Leo consecrated the entire world to the Sacred Heart. On May 8th, 1928, Pius XI’s encyclical, Miserentissimus Redemptor, affirmed the truth of the visions of Margaret Mary Alacoque. Subsequent popes have all reaffirmed the importance of the devotion.
Space does not permit a treatment of the many other instances of official Church teaching that have been influenced by private revelations. Perhaps the most spectacular is the devotion to Divine Mercy, a devotion condemned by the Church during the 1950s because of a poor understanding of the real content of Sister Faustina’s diaries. This devotion would go on to become the central element in the papacy of St John Paul II. After canonising Sister Faustina in 2000, he declared that he had just completed the most important task of his pontificate.
Edward Benet blogs at www.immaculatemother.org
I used to chase after this or that private revelation and eventually realized that doing so is just going down one rabbit trail after another. I have since contented myself with the Church’s public revelation. And that’s enough for me.
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Thank you Andrew!
Just one last thought. When Duns Scotus provided what would eventually become the theological underpinning of the dogma, he used a principle employed by St Anselm of Canterbury: “potuit, decuit, ergo fecit” (He [i.e., God] could do it, it was fitting, therefore He did it).
This is a great example of faith, Scripture and rational discourse all working together. If we break this principle into its three parts:
1. “God could do it”. Here we can consider all the many places in Scripture in which God manifests his ability to suspend the laws of nature, to foresee the future, to influence events according to his providential design. Thus we appreciate that God indeed could immaculately conceive Mary if he so wished.
2. “It was fitting that God should do it”. Here we consider those passages in Scripture which show that it was fitting that the Mother of the Lord should be pure and sinless. Mary as the New Eve, the sinless nature of the old Eve and Adam before the Fall as types of the New Eve and New Adam, the many passages in Exodus which show that the Ark of the Covenant couldn’t in any way be defiled, etc. We recently listened to Fr Mike’s podcasts on these passages and they are quite striking (Bible in a year podcast from Ascension Presents).
3. “Therefore he did it”. Here the most important Scriptural reference is kecharitomene, which indicates that the Lord indeed perfected her.
Thanks again for the courtesy and sincere searching Andrew (all too often lacking in discussions such as these). I am no theologian and I hope not to have done Our Lady any disservice. Scott Hahn, Edward Sri and Brant Pitre are all absolutely brilliant on this topic.
Edward
Dear Edward,
No need to apologize at all brother, because I greatly appreciate your faithful ramblings on this important subject.
You have provided me with a great deal to look into, some of which I already have while reading your responses to me today, but I will have to take more time to reflect on them with the Lord. I’m especially interested in re-reading about the construction of the original Ark, since my primary struggle is with being able to justify Mary’s sinlessness from birth. I can confidently do that (convey her sinlessness) after she becomes pregnant with Jesus, but I’m still working on an uncomplicated way to do so from Scripture; especially since the Bible has become far more deserving of our faith (trust) than the Catholic Church has for many people.
Arguments from authority are having less-and-less weight and impact due to the disunion within the clergy and the lack of orthopraxy as well. Regardless, I thank you greatly and hope we communicate again in the future.
In Christ,
Andrew
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Thank you for this pleasant article.
One correction: It was 1946, not 1846 with Pius XII and the letter to the Bishops. I refer to this paragraph:
During the apparition, Our Lady revealed to Bruno that she had been assumed into heaven. Bruno later recounted this in a private audience to Pius XII. Consider then the timeline: In May 1846, the pope writes to the bishops of the world regarding the Assumption and entreats Our Lady for divine favours to assist with the decision on this dogma. Less than eleven months later, Our Lady appears to a man who was vehemently opposed to all Marian devotion and tells him that she was assumed into heaven!
Thanks for pointing out the error Kevin. We’ll get it fixed. God bless,
Edward
[…] Part II […]
Dear Edward,
I asked what I did, about the references to Scripture (for the Immaculate Conception), because you wrote in your opening sentence that there is more scriptural evidence for that then there is for the Assumption. However, if I’m understanding your response correctly, the only evidence for the immaculate conception comes from the meaning of the word “kecharitomene”, which I subsequently looked into a little today. To be honest, it’s not the substantial evidence I was hoping for because, like some other things, it is highly academic and not something that is easily passed on in a convincing way to others.
In addition, and I am not looking to argue by saying this, many of the other examples you used to support your statement about the development of doctrine are not of the same equivalency. Sure, we did not have the name and defined title of “Trinity” from the Bible alone, but we did have the personal components for each of the three persons of the Godhead in plain sight for us to see throughout the whole of Scripture. The only one of the three that was far more subtle and hidden most of the time, meaning in the Old Testament, was the person of Jesus, the Messiah, as being yet to come. However, both God the Father and the Holy Spirit are represented there, and all three are presented multiple times throughout the New Testament.
So while it is true that we didn’t call them the Holy Trinity or the three persons of the One True God like we do today, they were still all represented for us to see. The importance of that is that the Truth was always there in plain sight but our understanding and ways of speaking about it (Him) did develop somewhat. The same can be said for the use of the term “hypo-static union” that was developed to name and describe the revealed reality that Jesus was both human and divine; again both clearly shown in the Bible. However, those linguistic developments are not the same as doing an in-depth word study on only one word and using that as the sole persuasion for an otherwise completely absent concept – the word “kecharitomene” used to describe or re-name (possibly) Mother Mary by the archangel. So, in short, I am looking for an uncomplicated and undeniable way to defend what the Catholic Church is now teaching and wants us all to assent to when it comes to the Immaculate Conception of Mary and her sinlessness since her creation.
One argument against that which is particularly difficult to address and overcome is one that focuses on free-will and our originally perfect creation in the Garden. For since God created us with the free-will to reject Him like our first parents did, then why wouldn’t He prefer to create us all like Mother Mary so we would never choose to sin (even though we were created without sin like our first parents)? In other words, if the Catholic Church is correct that Mother Mary was sinless throughout the whole of her life due to a special grace or graces from God then why we He choose for all of us to go through such drama and self-imposed trauma by not creating us the same way? And if God altered Mother Mary’s free-will in some way through His grace then what does that say about her fiat and complete yes to the Lord? Those are tough questions that I don’t have answers for and the Church has not helped with that because they are essentially saying “it is that way because we say so”. That’s what I’m looking to resolve.
Thank you again and if you have time to respond to this too, I will be grateful for that as well. Either way, have a blessed 2nd week of Easter brother!
In Christ,
Andrew
Hi again Andrew. Thanks for your courteous and respectful comments.
The questions you ask are very deep and someone like Scott Hahn or Bishop Barron would be able to give you a more adequate answer than someone like me can muster. Kecharitomene is the clearest allusion in Scripture to the Immaculate Conception, though, of course, it is not decisive by itself. The Church still needed those centuries of the work of the Spirit in the crystallisation of the teaching before it was finally elaborated in 1854. However, it is not the only Scriptural foundation. For matters like this, and indeed for many issues such as the nature of the Eucharist, the dynamics of Salvation, the relationship between the persons in the Trinity, etc., no reference from Scripture is decisive by itself. The last 500 years of the ever-increasing fragmentation of Protestantism is proof that Scripture alone does not suffice. However, when Scripture is read in its totality with the mind of the Church (in the light of Tradition and interpreted with the aid of the Holy Spirit by the legitimate authorities appointed by Christ), then it is a different matter.
The Fathers of the Church read Scripture in this way and found much support for the sinless nature of Mary. For example at Cana, Jesus did something that has absolutely no parallel in any other Greek documents from that time: he addressed his own mother as “woman” (he did so again from the cross). For the Fathers, this was an unambiguous reference to the “woman” of Genesis, the first Eve, by whose disobedience sin had come into the world. Jesus addresses his mother as “woman” and then speaks of his “hour”, which is a reference to his passion, death and resurrection in which sin and death are defeated. In short, the whole Johannine account of the redemption has these parallels with the Genesis story of the Creation and its Fall. Adam and Eve choose the path of death by means of the tree of knowledge. The tree of the cross causes the death of Jesus, the new Adam. In all of this, Mary is presented by John as the Woman of the New Creation. Thus Eve, the Woman immaculately conceived at the first Creation (before the Fall), is understood as a type of Mary, who was similarly sinless. This parallel is proclaimed clearly by very early Fathers such as Justin Martyr (died about 160) and Irenaeus (d. 220).
For more on how the early Fathers saw in the Cana story a clear allusion to the Second Eve and her sinless nature, please check out: https://catholicstand.com/what-the-chosen-gets-wrong-about-cana-part-i/
There are many other Scriptural supports for the Immaculate Conception, but of course they are only supports and none of them constitutes a “proof-text”. They can be interpreted in other ways. That is why on matters like these we need to read Scripture with the mind of the Church.
One such foundation is Psalm 131. The Ark of the Covenant has always been understood to be a type of Mary. Just as the Ark held the presence of God, so Mary becomes the place where God comes to dwell among his people. The old Ark needed to be constructed, cared for and maintained in a quite extraordinary way. It couldn’t be defiled in even the minimal way under punishment of death! So too it is fitting that God should have sanctified the Ark of the New Covenant: “Arise, O Lord, into your resting place: you and the ark, which you have sanctified” (Psalm 131).
Another reference used by the Fathers and various saints as alluding to spousal relationship between the Holy Spirit and Mary comes from the Song of Solomon 4:7 (RSVCE) “You are all fair, my love; there is no flaw in you.”
I will search for other references when I have more time and post them here later today hopefully.
On the issue you raise in your last paragraph, Andrew, we are dealing with the question of free-will and evil. It is the most difficult of all topics and one that st Augustine devoted much energy to when he elaborated the doctrine of original sin. But there is a good theological answer that the Church provides for why Mary was preserved from original sin, but yet God tolerated sin to enter the world through our first parents. I will write this down later today when I get time. Regards for now,
Edward
SCRIPTURAL FOUNDATION FOR IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
Hi once again Andrew,
there is a good summary of the scriptural basis of the dogma by Tim Staples at:
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-immaculate-conception-in-scripture
Below is a summary of his points, but the full article is well worth the read. In a separate comment, we will return to your interesting question on free will and grace in the case of Mary.
1. Mary is revealed to be “full of grace” in Luke 1:28.
2. Mary is revealed to be the fulfillment of the prophetic “Daughter of Zion” of Zech. 2:10; Zeph. 3:14-16; Isaiah 12:1-6, etc.
3. Mary is revealed to be “the beginning of the new creation” in fufillment of the prophecy of Jer. 31:22.
4. Mary is revealed to possess a “blessed state” parallel with Christ’s in Luke 1:42.
5. Mary is not just called “blessed” among women, but “more blessed than all women” (including Eve) in Luke 1:42.
6. Mary is revealed to be the spotless “Ark of the Covenant” in Luke 1.
7. Mary is revealed to be the “New Eve” in Luke 1:37-38; John 2:4; 19:26-27; Rev. 12, and elsewhere.
8. Mary is revealed to be free from the pangs of labor in fulfillment of Isaiah 66:7-8.
Here I am again Andrew. There’s no getting rid of me.
In this comment, I want to reply to your following remarks:
For since God created us with the free-will to reject Him like our first parents did, then why wouldn’t He prefer to create us all like Mother Mary so we would never choose to sin (even though we were created without sin like our first parents)? In other words, if the Catholic Church is correct that Mother Mary was sinless throughout the whole of her life due to a special grace or graces from God then why we He choose for all of us to go through such drama and self-imposed trauma by not creating us the same way? And if God altered Mother Mary’s free-will in some way through His grace then what does that say about her fiat and complete yes to the Lord? Those are tough questions that I don’t have answers for and the Church has not helped with that because they are essentially saying “it is that way because we say so”. That’s what I’m looking to resolve.
These are great points for reflection Andrew. The Church describes authentic theology as “faith seeking understanding”. That means that our starting point is to begin with faith in something that can often be hard to figure out, or even accept on an intellectual level. But, despite our struggle with comprehension, we hold to the faith and try to express the matter in words and come to a deeper understanding. This is what it means to do theology in the right way. Now there is another way of doing theology, and we often find this in secular universities and other places, but it is not the way the Church recommends. That way is to begin with intellectual investigation and by rational means to try to figure out what we ought to believe in. This method can be described as “understanding seeking faith”. If we approach the Immaculate Conception with this latter method we will have difficulty coming to faith in this dogma.
Andrew, it is not quite right to say that the Church’s attitude on the Immaculate Conception was “it is that way because we say so”. If we consider the development of the doctrine, the Church was actually very restrained and disciplined in its pronouncements on the matter. Successive popes held back from making any definitive statement. The theologians (using the faith of the Church as their starting point) did the work of debating and clarifying the matter. Then the faithful began to petition the Holy See to make the pronouncement. It was only after some divine assistance from the apparitions in Rue du Bac in Paris that the Pope went ahead and asked the bishops of the world to advise him on the matter, and then finally the pronouncement was made. So, rather than the Church declaring “Mary was immaculately conceived because we say so”, it would be more accurate to say that the Church declared Mary to be immaculately conceived because it felt that it could not do otherwise.
But to return to your main point. The matters you refer to (free will/sin/evil/grace) are the thorniest issues of all! We will not resolve them this side of the grave, but it can still be very fruitful for our spiritual lives and prayer lives to grapple with these very issues.
First of all, the Immaculate Conception dogma does not entail that the Lord altered Mary’s free will in some way. The image the Church has often used is that Jesus saves the rest of us by pulling us out of the hole of original sin, but he saves Mary by preventing her from falling into the hole in the first place. Mary did not suffer the consequences of original sin that we suffer, but she still had complete freedom throughout her life to reject God, to respond poorly to grace, to sin by omission or negligence, but she never faltered. God saw ahead of time that she would not falter and thus he deemed her worthy to be Mother of his Son, but this foreknowledge of the Lord does not in any way mean that he interfered in her free will.
Some of the Church Fathers that I referenced earlier stated that the Lord in his omnipotence could see ahead of time the state of the soul of every being that he would ever create. He saw that Mary would be the one who would respond to his grace in a superior way to every other being that would ever be created. For this reason, she was chosen to be the Mother of his Son and for this reason alone he preserved her free from the sin that would infect the rest of us. This is supported by Scripture. The Angel Gabriel says, “Mary, you have won God’s favour”. Whilst acknowledging that God’s grace is primary in these matters, we must also acknowledge that the manner in which we cooperate with grace is also relevant. Mary won God’s favour because he saw the manner in which she would co-operate with grace. Some people have said that God filled Mary more completely with grace than any other creature because she humbly emptied herself in a more complete manner than any other creature.
Another Scriptural reference to this fact is given by Elizabeth. St Luke tells us EXPLICITLY that Elizabeth is speaking under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Thus, the third person of the Blessed Trinity is effectively testifying to the blessedness of Mary when Elizabeth exclaims, “Blessed is she who believed that the word of the Lord would be fulfilled”. Here, Elizabeth is testifying that the blessedness of Mary is not just due to the fact that God blessed her, but also to the manner in which she (Mary) received the word of the Lord.
The other matter you raise, Andrew, is fascinating. Why couldn’t the Lord preserve us all from original sin as he preserved Mary? As you point out, how much suffering this would have saved the world! This is the great “mystery of iniquity”. We will never be able to comprehend how the Lord has tolerated such evil. If he could keep Mary free from original sin without damaging her free will, why could he not do the same for us?
We can allude to possible answers, no more. Firstly, consider that Adam and Eve were immaculately conceived, yet they sinned. Even if the rest of us were immaculately conceived, then it seems very likely that many, if not most of us, would have sinned anyway. Mary was chosen because God foresaw that she, more than any other creature, would respond with greatest perfection to his grace. She was a suitable candidate for being immaculately conceived. I couldn’t say the same about myself!
Secondly, the Lord permitted this evil and great suffering because he saw that he could bring out of it even greater good. This answer never seems satisfactory to us. We look at the evil of Auschwitz and we ask what good can come out of it? Even Maximilian Kolbe’s great sacrifice in the midst of Auschwitz does not seem to compensate for the evils suffered by others here. Yet, the Church proclaims at Easter that Adam’s sin was a “happy fault” because Christ’s sacrifice somehow not only reverses the evil brought about by Adam’s sin, but brings even greater good. If the world were completely flat, we would never have the struggle of climbing mountains and our muscles would be the worse for it! Evil is a mountain that goodness has to climb, and from it, even greater good results.
The Lord preserved Mary free from original sin because it was absolute fitting that his all-holy Son should be given flesh by a pure and spotless mother. This was an extraordinary grace reserved for her. The rest of us were not preserved from original sin because, by remaining in our sin, the sufferings of Christ would be even greater and the consequent merits poured over the human race would be even more abundant. Christ permitted the consequences of our sin and accepted these consequences on his own shoulders so that even greater good could be showered on the human race.
Sorry for rambling on Andrew and thank you again!
Edward: “Sister Mary was to die at age thirty-six on the eve of the feast that same year, and the following day Pope Leo consecrated the entire world to the Sacred Heart.”
Wikipedia: “Maria Droste zu Vischering died on Thursday, June 8, 1899, [at age thirty-fife] the eve of the Feast of the Sacred Heart (properly, the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus), three days before the world consecration that Pope Leo XIII had scheduled for the following Sunday [June 11, 1899].”
Seemingly, this is only a minor correction, but if we pay attention to the date of sending the first petition to the Pope, June 10, 1898, and the day he made the act of consecrating the world to the Sacred Heart, June 11, 1899, we will notice … the person of Saint Barnabas the Apostle. First it was the eve of his commemoration (AD 1898), then the day of his commemoration (AD 1899), moreover it was the Sunday of S. Barnabæ Apostoli ~ Duplex majus
Commemoratio: Dominica III Post Pentecosten.
Why is it so important? For the name Barnabas means Son of Consolation (Gr. hyios paraklēseōs) and this glorious Apostle is the antitype of the Paraclete promised by the Lord Jesus. Leo XIII offered the whole world to the Sacred Heart for the coming of the long-awaited Paraclete!
Thomas Sunday, AD2021
Could you please explain, and reference in Scripture, the support for the immaculate conception that you spoke about and could you please also talk more about why that concept was not readily accepted during the first 16 centuries.
Thank you in advance, because my mother and I have been discussing this extensively lately and not making much progress on it together. In Christ, Andrew
Hi Andrew. Thank you for your great question. I am probably not well qualified to answer it, but here are my thoughts anyway. The important point to keep in mind is that we are talking about the development of a doctrine. St John Henry Newman did great work on explaining how doctrine can develop in an authentic way, guided by the activity of the Holy Spirit. Authentic doctrines are already implicitly contained or alluded to in Scripture and Tradition, but they often need elaboration. Believe it or not, the most fundamental of all doctrines – the Trinitarian nature of God – required this same process of development and elaboration! Some religious groups accept our entire New Testament, but they are not Trinitarian because they deny the divinity of the Holy Spirit, or deny the full divinity of Christ, or, in some other manner, deny our Trinitarian belief in the absolute equality of three persons in the one God. This denial illustrates very well that doctrines are NOT ambiguously contained in Scripture. Scripture needs to be interpreted by the Church under the influence of the Holy Spirit. These sects that deny the Trinity accept the same Scripture that we accept, but they did not experience the same development of doctrine that we experienced through the power of the Spirit operating in the Church. In the course of the first four centuries, the ecumenical councils of the Church under the successors of the apostles and of Peter elaborated the doctrine of the Trinity, the full divinity and personhood of the Holy Spirit, the full humanity and divinity of Christ in one person with two natures, etc.. None of these matters are settled by Scripture alone!
With full respect for our protestant brethern, sola scripture is a simply unworkable way of reading Scripture. It is fine for an individual Christian to read Scripture in a personal way for his own edification, as part of his daily prayer life, to deepen his relationship with the Lord, etc., but a subjectivist reading of Scripture is not a legitimate way to figure out the nature of the Eucharist, the dynamics of justification, the nature of the sacraments, or any other matter that needs to be interpreted by the successors of Peter and the apostles. Authoritative interpretation must be done with reference to Sacred Tradition (the teachings handed on by the apostles) and by the power of the Holy Spirit still active in the Church. The Immaculate Conception of Mary is one of these matters.
On the matter of the Immaculate Conception, in the first centuries, there was a general acceptance of the unique privileges of Mary and her sinless life. We know this because if we read the works of the Fathers of the Church, both West and East, they constantly talk of her purity and her sinless nature. It was a belief embedded into the very mind and heart of the Church! It was clear to all that such a mother was appropriate and fitting for the Saviour. Presumably, there was also the apostolic memory of her perfect and immaculate nature.
In the second phase of the development of the doctrine, there was a debate among theologians, who wondered how Mary would have needed redemption by Christ if she was already immaculately conceived some decades before he wrought salvation by his passion, death, and resurrection. The controversy would eventually be resolved by Duns Scotus, as I mentioned in the article. With the theological obstacle removed, the majority of theologians adhered to the belief in the Immaculate Conception by the middle of the fifteenth century.
Andrew, you wondered why the dogma was not generally accepted in the first fifteen centuries, but in actual fact that is not quite accurate. It was not fully elaborated in those centuries, but people like John Henry Newman would assert that the belief was indeed implicitly present in the faith of the Church. Like the doctrine of the Trinity in the first four centuries, the dogma was not theologically developed. It was not expressed clearly in the teachings of the Church nor in the proclamations of the ecumenical councils. Neither was the doctrine of the Trinity clearly elaborated by the early ecumenical councils! Yet the sinless nature of Mary was extolled, sung and proclaimed by saints and Fathers of the Church in a quite spectacular and almost unanimous manner. Here is a small sample of this material from the Fathers!
https://taylormarshall.com/2011/12/church-fathers-on-immaculate-conception.html
Regarding the Scriptural foundation, I can do no better than refer you to this great article on the subject. https://www.catholic.org/news/hf/faith/story.php?id=50095
The funny thing here is that this great scholarship regarding the word spoken by the Angel Gabriel to Mary, kecharitomene, has made great advances in relatively recent times. Martin Luther believed in the Immaculate Conception of Mary and would have appreciated this scholarship.
When Pope Pius IX defined the Immaculate Conception in 1854, there were some in the Church who wondered if it were wise to take this step after so many centuries. Four years later, the parish priest of Lourdes demanded that the lady who was appearing to the little shepherd girl in the city dump should reveal her name. Bernadette was almost illiterate and couldn’t have known or understood the meaning of so sublime a concept as the “Immaculate Conception”. That is why she was the perfect messenger to reveal to the world that the Church had made the correct decision in proclaiming the dogma.
Thanks again for your interest Andrew,
Edward