Short Answers: Why is Mary Immaculate?

While listening to the Mass readings at the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the word “fruit” from the first reading (Genesis 3:9-15, 20) grabbed my attention. However, before I discuss where my mind wondered from there, we should recall the dogmatic words of Ineffabilis Deus (1854) on the Immaculate Conception:

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.

“Fruit”

Returning to the word “fruit,” I thought about Elizabeth’s words to Mary: “Blessed is the fruit of your womb.” Then, I thought about Jesus’s words: “For each tree is known by its own fruit.” At that moment, it occurred to me that we know Mary by her own fruit, Jesus, and that she must have been a good tree. Let me explain.

Mary’s own fruit was/is the eternal Son of God. Eternally, God chose her to be a unique tree designed to grow a unique fruit for the life of the world. This sounds simple enough. The question many ask, however, is this: Did God create Mary full of grace, or did He fill her with grace at some point after her birth?

Full of Grace

For Mary to be the Mother of God, she needed to be a special kind of tree whom God prepared with divine grace to bear a divine kind of fruit, a fruit she could rightfully call her own. She needed to be a God-bearing tree. To be a God-bearing tree, she needed to be a God-bearing seed who could become this type of tree just as an apple tree needs to sprout from an apple seed. The only way for Mary to be a special kind of seed in the human sense would be for God to create her full of grace, devoid of Original Sin.

“Need”

I should pause here and explain what I mean by “need.” Sometimes we must do something absolutely. For example, I need to breathe to live. Sometimes, however, we must do something relatively, simply because it is the rational thing to do. For example, if I want to know the total amount of money five people have in their pockets, I will need to count all the money in all five people’s pockets. Counting the money in only four people’s pockets would be unreasonable. So, I’m using the word need in the second sense.

The Immaculate Conception

When speaking of Mary’s Immaculate Conception, God needed to create her full of grace, not out of some absolute obligation, but because He eternally chose her to be the mother of His eternal Son. Again, He chose and created her to bear a unique, divine fruit. Therefore, He needed to make her a unique tree who sprouted and grew from a unique seed.

Creating Mary to bear God without giving her grace, and then filling her with grace at some point leading up to Jesus’s conception, would be like creating a lemon seed to become an apple tree and bear apples. Yes, God can do this, but if His purpose is to create an apple tree, it would make much more sense for Him to create an apple seed fit for His purpose.

Rebuttal

If Mary is free from sin, would not God also need to create her parents free from sin and so on? God did not need to preserve Mary’s parents from sin because God never predestined and designed them to bear His eternal Son.

Additional Reading

For more on Mary’s Immaculate conception, please click here. For an article on how grace works, please click here.  Please click here for an article on how we grow in and merit grace.

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