“…in humility and fasting, we unceasingly offered our private prayers as well as the public prayers of the Church to God the Father through his Son, that he would deign to direct and strengthen our mind by the power of the Holy Spirit. In like manner did we implore the help of the entire heavenly host as we ardently invoked the Paraclete.
Accordingly, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, for the honour of the Holy and undivided Trinity, for the glory and adornment of the Virgin Mother of God, for the exaltation of the Catholic Faith, and for the furtherance of the Catholic religion, by the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own: 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 Saviour 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”. By a singular grace and privilege: God in Christ foresaw Our Lady, and He chose her as his own dwelling place on this earth. This is why she was so privileged by grace to be free from sin, both original and actual, in order to be full of grace. Our Lady’s grace is greater than any other creature, qualitatively and quantitatively.
In view of the merit of Jesus Christ: the Blessed Mother was indeed redeemed by Christ. She is not Christ’s contender; she has been saved by the merits of Christ in advance in regard to the moment of the passion and death of Jesus on Calvary. Her singularity consists in being preserved from sin instead of being liberated from it as it happens for each one of us. Hence, her freedom was perfectly anchored to the truth of God. In being totally preserved from sin she was free from any compromise with sin and concupiscence. Therefore, Our Lady was truly free in God. She could not sin. She could not disobey God. This is freedom in full.
The Immaculate Conception enlightens the mystery of God’s goodness and perfection in a unique way. She announces in her being a creature what God meant to do when he created the world. God created man and woman not in view of sin or evil, but in view of goodness, happiness, grace and life everlasting. Evil is a consequence of sin. The more man sins against God, rejecting his commandments and his loving will, the easier he gets enslaved by those material things that he even adores.
In Mary God wins always over man’s rebellion, crushing the head of the ancient enemy, the devil. In Mary God wins over all man’s attempt to destroy with his sin the beauty of creation and to be rebellious against his own Creator and Saviour. Mary is the perfect masterpiece of God: in Her God triumphs. In her purity, beauty and true freedom are dominant and foreshadow the beauty of God himself. New heavens and new earth promised by the Saviour, for which we hope when this world will pass away, actually are already present. They have already been created: this new creation is Mary Immaculate, tota pulchra, all beauty and all holy. That uncontaminated creation not affected by sin that we ardently desire to be part of already exists and we can truly hope for it one day. Mary is for God and God wants for his glory to entrust to us his own Mother. Let us welcome her so to be pure in her. Let us become with her and in her spotless and immaculate in God’s sight. There is no other way.