Immaculate Conception: Part I
Pope Pius IX
Immaculate Conception
T HE ways of the ineffable God are mercy and truth; His Will is omnipotence; His wisdom reaches from end to end mightily and disposes all things sweetly” (Wisd. 8:1). From all eternity He foresaw the most sorrowful ruin of the entire human race. [He saw what …] would follow from the transgression of Adam. And so in a mystery hidden for ages, He determined to perfect the list work of His goodness in a more hidden mystery through the Incarnation of the Word. He did so that man who had been led into sin by the cunning wickedness of the devil. [So man] might not perish contrary to His merciful design, and that which was about to be lost in the first Adam might be more happily restored in the Second Adam.
On her God showered more love than on all other creatures.
In view of this, from the beginning and before the ages, God chose and appointed a mother for His only begotten Son. [She] from whom this Son would take His flesh and be born when the blessed fullness of time would arrive. On her God showered more love than on all other creatures. And so with her alone He was pleased with a most loving complacency.
He, therefore, filled her, far more than all the angelic spirits and all the saints. [Filled her] with an abundance of all heavenly gifts from the treasury of His divinity. In such a wonderful manner that she would always be free from absolutely every stain of sin. And that, all beautiful and perfect, she might display such fullness of innocence and holiness. That under God none greater is known, and which, God excepted, no one can attain even in thought.
Indeed, it was quite becoming that so venerable a Mother should shine. Ever adorned with the splendor of the most perfect holiness. She should be entirely free even from the stain of original sin itself. And so should have the most complete triumph over the ancient Serpent (Gen. 3:15) .
And all this because she it is to whom God the Father willed to give His only Son. Whom He begets from His heart. Equal to Himself, and Whom He loves as Himself. He willed to give Him to her in such a manner that He is by nature one and the same Son of God the Father and of the Virgin. She it is, too, whom the Son Himself chose and whom He made really and truly His own Mother. She it is, finally, from whom the Holy Spirit willed that the Son, from Whom He Himself proceeds, should be conceived and born by His operation.
The Immaculate Conception: Italian Painter: Guido Reni: 1627
And all this because she it is to whom God the Father willed to give His only Son. Whom He begets from His heart. Equal to Himself, and Whom He loves as Himself. He willed to give Him to her in such a manner that He is by nature one and the same Son of God the Father and of the Virgin.
Other Immaculate Conception articles: Immaculate Conception, Mary’s Model of Holiness
