The Mother of the Savior by Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange

[Stone]

PART I. THE DIVINE MATERNITY AND THE PLENTITUDE OF GRACE

CHAPTER 2. MARY’S FIRST PLENITUDE OF GRACE


“Hail, full of Grace” (Luke 1:28.)

HAVING seen the nobility of Mary’s title, Mother of God, it is now appropriate to examine the meaning and implications of the words spoken to her by the Angel Gabriel on the day of the Annunciation: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: Blessed art thou among women.” (Luke 1:28). As a help to understanding these words spoken in God’s name we shall consider: 1st—the different plenitudes of grace; 2nd—the privilege of the Immaculate Conception; 3rd—the sublimity of Mary’s first grace,


ARTICLE 1. THE DIFFERENT PLENITUDES OF GRACE

According to the usage of Holy Scripture, which becomes more and more explicit in the New Testament, it is grace in the strict sense of the term which is implied in the term “fullness of grace”—that is to say, grace which is really distinct from nature, both human and angelic, grace which is a free gift of God surpassing the natural powers and exigencies of all nature, created or creatable.36 Habitual or sanctifying grace makes us participate in the very nature, in the inner life of God, according to the words of St. Peter (2 Peter 1;4): “By whom he hath given us most great and precious promises: that by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature.” By grace we have become adopted children of God, heirs and co-heirs with Christ (Rom. 8:17); by grace we are “born of God.” (John 1:13). It prepares us to receive eternal life as a heritage and as a reward of the merits of which it is itself the principle. It is even the germ of eternal life, the semen gloriae as Tradition terms it, since by it we are disposed in advance for the face to face vision and the beatific love of God.

Habitual grace is received into the very essence of the soul as a supernatural graft which elevates and deifies its vitality. From it there flows into the faculties the infused virtues, theological and moral, and the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, all of which supernatural organism constitutes a sort of second nature of such a kind as to enable us to perform con-naturally the supernatural and meritorious acts of the infused virtues and the seven gifts. We have, too, by habitual grace the Blessed Trinity dwelling within us as in a temple where They are known and loved, even as it were experimentally. And at times we do know Them in this quasi-experimental fashion when by a special grace They make Themselves known to us as the life of our life, for “ . . . you have received the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry Abba (Father).” (Rom. 8:15). Then does the Holy Ghost inspire us with filial love, and in that sense “ . . . the spirit himself giveth testimony to our spirit, that we are the sons of God.” (Rom. 8:16).

While habitual grace makes us thus children of God, actual or transitory grace first of all disposes us for adoptive childhood, and subsequently makes us act, through the infused virtues and gifts working separately or both together, in a manner becoming God’s children. This new life of grace, virtues and gifts, is none other than eternal life begun on earth, since habitual grace and charity will outlive the passage of time.

Grace—call it, if you will, a participation in the divine nature—was no less gratuitous for the angels than for us. As St. Augustine says (De Civ. Dei, XII, c. 9): “God created them, at the same instant forming their nature and endowing them with grace.” When creating the angels God conferred grace on them, to which grace their nature, richly endowed though it was, could lay no claim. The angels, and man also, could have been created in a purely natural condition, lacking the divine graft whence issues a new life.

The grace intended in the words “Hail, full of grace” addressed to Our Lady is therefore something higher than nature or the exigencies of nature, created or merely possible. It is a participation in the divine nature or in the inner life of God, which makes the soul to enter into the kingdom of God, a kingdom far surpassing all the kingdoms of nature—mineral, vegetable, animal, human, and even angelic. So elevated is grace that St. Thomas could say: “The good of the grace of one soul is greater than the good of the nature of the whole universe.”2 The least degree of grace in the soul of a newly baptised child is worth more than all created natures, including those that are angelic. Being a participation in the inner life of God, grace is something greater than all miracles and exterior signs of divine revelation or of the sanctity of God’s favored servants. And it is of this grace, germ and promise of glory, that the angel spoke when he said to Mary: “Hail, full of grace.” Gazing at Mary’s soul, he saw that, though he himself was in the possession of the beatific vision, Mary’s grace and charity far surpassed his for she possessed them in the degree required to become at that instant the Mother of God.

Mary, of course, had received from the Most High natural gifts of body and soul in wonderful perfection. Judged even from the natural level, the soul of Jesus united in itself all that there is of beauty and nobility in the souls of the great poets and artists, of men of genius and of men of generosity. In an analogous way the soul of Mary was a divine masterpiece because of the natural perfection of her intelligence and will and sensibility. There is no shadow of doubt that she was more gifted than anyone who has ever struck us as remarkable for penetration and sureness of mind, for strength of will, for equilibrium or harmony of higher and lower faculties. Since she had been preserved from original sin and its baneful effects, concupiscence and darkness of understanding, her body did not weigh down her mind but rather served it. When forming the body of a saint, God has in mind the soul which is to vivify it: when forming Mary’s body He had in mind the Body and the infinitely holy Soul of the Word made flesh. As St. Albert the Great loves to recall, the Fathers of the Church say that Mary, viewed even naturally, had the grace of Rebecca, the beauty of Rachel, and the gentle majesty of Esther. They add that her chaste beauty never held the gaze for its own sake alone, but always lifted souls up to God.

The more perfect these gifts of nature in Mary, the more elevated they make her grace appear, for it surpasses them immeasurably.

When speaking of fullness of grace it is well to note that it exists in three different degrees in Our Lord, in Mary, and in the just. St. Thomas explains this a number of times.37

There is, first of all, the absolute fullness of grace which is peculiar to Jesus, the Saviour of mankind. Taking into consideration only the ordinary power of God, there can be no greater grace than this. It is the eminent and inexhaustible source of all the grace which all men have received since the Fall, or will receive till the end of time. It is the source also of the beatitude of the elect, for Jesus has merited all the effects of our predestination.38

There is, in the second place, the fullness of superabundance which is Mary’s special privilege, and which is so named since it is like a spiritual river which has poured of its abundance upon the souls of men for almost two thousand years.

There is finally the fullness of sufficiency which is common to all the just and which makes them capable of performing those meritorious acts—they normally become more perfect in the course of years—which lead them to eternal life.

These three fullnesses have been well compared to an inexhaustible spring, to the stream or river which flows from it, and to the different canals fed by the river, which irrigate and make fertile the whole region they traverse—that is to say, the whole Church, universal in time and space. The river of grace proceeds from God through the Saviour, as we read “Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just: let the earth be opened, and bud forth a saviour.” (Is. 14:8). And then finally it rises once more to God, the Ocean of peace, in the form of merits, prayers, and sacrifices.

To continue the image: the fullness of the spring has not increased; that of the river, on the contrary, which flows from it has increased. Or, to speak in plain terms, the absolute fullness of Our Saviour knew no increase, for it was sovereignly perfect from the first instant of His conception by reason of the personal union with the Word. For, from the first instant, the lumen gloriae and the beatific vision were communicated to Jesus’s soul, so that the second Council of Constantinople could say (Denz. 224) that Christ did not grow more perfect by reason of His meritorious acts: “Ex profectu operum non melioratus est.” Mary’s fullness of grace, however, did not cease to increase up to the time of her death. For that reason theologians usually speak of, 1st—her initial fullness or plenitude; 2nd—the fullness of her second sanctification at the instant of the conception of the Saviour; 3rd—the final fullness (at the instant of her entry into glory), its extent, and its superabundance.5


ARTICLE 2. THE PRIVILEGE OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

The initial fullness of grace in Mary presents two aspects. One is negative, at least in its formulation: her preservation from original sin. The other is positive: her conception, absolutely pure and holy by reason of the perfection of her initial sanctifying grace in which were rooted the infused virtues and the gifts of the Holy Ghost.

THE DOGMATIC DEFINITION

The definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, made by Pius IX on December 8th, 1854, reads as follows: “We declare, announce, and define that the doctrine which states that the Blessed Virgin Mary was preserved, in the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of God Omnipotent and because of the merits of Jesus Christ the Saviour of the human race, free from all stain of original sin, is revealed by God and must therefore be believed firmly and with constancy by all the faithful” (Denz. 1641).

This definition contains three especially important points: 1st—It affirms that the Blessed Virgin was preserved from all stain of original sin from the first instant of her conception. The conception meant is that known as passive or consummated—that in which her soul was created and united to her body—for it is then only that one can speak of a human person, whereas the definition bears on a privilege granted to the person of Mary. The definition states also that the Immaculate Conception is a special privilege and an altogether singular grace, the work of divine omnipotence.

What are we to understand by original sin from which Mary has been preserved? The Church has not defined its intrinsic nature, but she has taught us something about it by telling us its effects: the divine hatred or malediction, a stain on the soul, a state of non-justice or spiritual death, servitude under the empire of Satan, subjection to the law of concupiscence, subjection to suffering and to bodily death in so far as they are the penalty of the common sin.39 These effects presuppose the loss of the sanctifying grace which, along with integrity of nature, Adam had received for us and for himself, and which he lost by sin, also for us and for himself.40

It follows therefore that Mary was not preserved free from every stain of original sin otherwise than by receiving sanctifying grace into her soul from the first instant of her conception. Thus she was conceived in that state of justice and holiness which is the effect of the divine friendship as opposed to the divine malediction, and in consequence she was withdrawn from the slavery of the devil and subjection to the law of concupiscence. She was withdrawn too from subjection to the law of suffering and death, considered as penalties of the sin of our nature,41 even though both Jesus and Mary knew suffering and death in so far as they are consequences of our nature (in came passibili) and endured them for our salvation.

2nd—It is affirmed in the definition, as it was already affirmed in 1661 by Alexander VIII (Denz. 1100) that it was through the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, that Mary was preserved from original sin. Hence the opinion held by some 13th-century theologians—that Mary was immaculate in the sense of not needing to be redeemed, and that her first grace was independent of the future merits of her Son—may no longer be admitted. According to the Bull Ineffabilis Deus, Mary was redeemed by the merits of her Son in a most perfect way, by a redemption which did not free her from a stain already contracted, but which preserved her from contracting one. Even in human affairs we look on one as more a saviour if he wards off a blow than if he merely heals the wound it inflicts.

The idea of a preservative redemption reminds us that Mary, being a child of Adam and proceeding from him by way of natural generation, should have incurred the hereditary taint, and would have incurred it in fact had not God decided from all eternity to grant her the unique privilege of an immaculate conception in dependence on the future merits of her Son.

The liturgy had already made this point in the prayer proper to the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, which was approved by Sixtus IV (1476): “Thou hast preserved her (Mary) from all stain through the foreseen death of this same Son.” The Blessed Virgin was preserved from original sin by the future death of her Son, that is to say, by the merits of Christ dying for us on the Cross.

It is therefore clear that Mary’s preservation from original sin differs essentially from that of the Saviour. Jesus was not redeemed by the merits of another, not even by His own. He was preserved from original sin and from all sin for two reasons: first because of the personal or hypostatic union of His humanity to the Word in the very instant in which His sacred soul was created, since it could not be that sin should ever be attributed to the Word made flesh; secondly, since His conception was virginal and due to the operation of the Holy Ghost, so that Jesus did not descend from Adam by way of natural generation.42 These two reasons are peculiar to Jesus alone.

3rd—The definition proposes the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception as revealed, that is, as contained at least implicitly in the deposit of Revelation—in Scripture and Tradition, or in one at least of those two sources.

THE TESTIMONY OF THE SCRIPTURES

The Bull Ineffabilis Deus quotes two texts of Scripture, Genesis 3:15, and Luke 1:28, 42.

The privilege of the Immaculate Conception is revealed as it were implicitly or confusedly in the book of Genesis in the words spoken by God to the serpent, and thereby to Satan (Gen. 3:15): “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.” The pronoun we translate as “she” in “she shall crush thy head” is masculine in the Hebrew text, and stands for the posterity or seed of the woman; this is true also of the Septuagint and the Syraic versions. The Vulgate however has the feminine pronoun “ipsa,” referring the prophecy directly to the woman herself. However there is no essential difference of meaning between the two readings since the woman is to be associated with the victory of Him Who will be the great representative of her posterity in their conflict with Satan throughout the ages.

Taken by themselves these words are certainly not sufficient to prove that the Immaculate Conception is revealed. But the Fathers of the Church, in their comparison of Eve and Mary, have seen in them an allusion to it, and it is on that account that the text is cited by Pius IX.

To the naturalist exegete the text means no more than the instinctive revulsion man experiences towards the serpent. But to the Jewish and Christian tradition it means much more. The Christian tradition sees in that promise—it has been termed the protoevangelium—the first sketch of the Messiah and His victory over the spirit of evil. For Jesus is pre-eminently the posterity of the woman in conflict with the posterity of the serpent. But if Jesus is termed the posterity of the woman, that is not because of His remote connection with Eve, who was able to pass on to her descendants only a fallen and wounded nature, deprived of the divine life. Rather is it because of His connection with Mary, in whose womb He took a stainless humanity. As Fr. F. X. le Bachelet says, in col. 118 of the article referred to already, “We do not find in Eve the principle of that enmity which God will put between the race of the woman and the race of the serpent; for Eve, like Adam, is herself fallen a victim to the serpent. It is only between Mary, Mother of the Redeemer, that enmity ultimately exists. Hence the person of Mary is included, though in a veiled manner, in the protoeuangelium, and the Vulgate reading “ipsa” (she) expresses something really implied in the sacred text, since the victory of the Redeemer is morally, but really, the victory of His Mother.”

For that reason early Christianity never ceased to contrast Eve who shared in Adam’s sin by yielding to the serpent’s suggestion with Mary who shared in the redemptive work of Christ by believing the words of the angel on the morning of the Annunciation.43

The promise of Genesis speaks of a victory that will be complete: “She shall crush thy head.” And since the victory over Satan will be complete, so also the victory over sin which makes the soul slave and the devil master. But as Pius IX teaches in the Bull Ineffabilis Deus, the victory over Satan would not be complete if Mary had not been preserved from original sin by the merits of her Son: “De ipso (serpente) plenissime triumphans, illius caput immaculato pede (Maria) contrivit.”

The Immaculate Conception is contained therefore in the promise of Genesis as the oak is contained in the acorn. A person who had never seen an oak could never guess the value of the acorn, nor its final stage of development. But we who have seen the oak know for what the acorn is destined, and that it does not yield an elm nor a poplar. The same law of evolution obtains in the order of progressive divine revelation.

The Bull Ineffabilis quotes also the salutation addressed by the angel to Mary (Luke 1:28): “Hail, full of grace . . . blessed are thou among woman,” as well as the similar words uttered by St. Elisabeth under divine inspiration (Luke 1:42). Pius IX does not state that these words are sufficient by themselves to prove that the Immaculate Conception is revealed; for that, the exegetic tradition of the Fathers must be invoked.

This tradition becomes explicit with St. Ephrem the Syrian (d. 373).44 Among the Greeks it is found on the morrow of the Council of Ephesus (431), especially in the teaching of two bishop-opponents of Nestorious, St. Proclus who was a successor of St. John Chrysostom in the chair of Constantinople (431–446) and Theodore, bishop of Ancyra. Later we find it in the teaching of St. Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem (634–638), Andrew of Crete (d. 740), St. John Damascene (d. towards the middle of the 8th century). These different testimonies will be found at length in the article Marie of the Diet. Apol., cols. 223–231.

Understood in the light of this exegetic tradition, the words of the angel to Mary “Hail, full of grace”—that is “Hail, thou art fully pleasing to God and loved by Him”—are not limited temporally in their application in such a way as to exclude even the initial period of Mary’s life. On the contrary, the Blessed Virgin would not have received complete fullness of grace had her soul been even for an instant in the condition of spiritual death which follows on original sin, had she been even for an instant deprived of grace, turned away from God, a daughter of wrath, in slavery to the devil. St. Proclus says that she was “formed from stainless clay.”45 Theodore of Ancyra says that “the Son of the Most High came forth from the Most High.”46 St. John Damascene writes that Mary is the holy daughter of Joachim and Anne “who has escaped the burning darts of the evil one,”47 that she is a new paradise “to which the serpent has no stealthy access,”48 that she is exempt from the debt of death which is one of the consequences of original sin,49 and that she must therefore be exempt from the common fall.

If Mary had contracted original sin her fullness of grace would have been diminished in this sense that it would not have extended to the whole of her life. Thus, Our Holy Mother the Church, reading the words of the angelic salutation in the light of Tradition and with the assistance of the Holy Ghost, saw revealed implicitly in it the privilege of the Immaculate Conception. The privilege is revealed in the text not as an effect is in a cause which could exist without it, but as a part is in a whole; the part is actually contained in the whole at least by way of implicit statement.

THE TESTIMONY OF TRADITION

Tradition itself affirms the truth of the Immaculate Conception more and more explicitly in the course of time. St. Justin50, St. Irenaeus,51 Tertullian,52 contrast Eve, the cause of death, and Mary, the cause of life and salvation. This antithesis is constantly on the lips of the Fathers53 and is found also in the most solemn documents of the Church’s magisterium, especially in the Bull Ineffabilis Deus. It is presented as perfect and without restriction; thus, Mary must always have been greater than Eve, and most particularly at the first moment of her life. The Fathers often say that Mary is stainless, that she has always been blessed by God in honour of her Son, that she is intemerata, intacta, impolluta, intaminata, illibata, altogether without spot.

Comparing Mary and Eve, St. Ephrem says: “Both were at first simple and innocent, but thereafter Eve became cause of death and Mary cause of life.”54 Speaking to Our Blessed Lord, he continues: “You Lord and Your Mother are the only two who are perfectly beautiful under every respect. In You there is no fault, and in Your Mother there is no stain. All other children of God are far from such beauty.”55

In much the same way St. Ambrose says of Mary that she is free from every stain of sin “per gratiam ab omni integra labe peccati.”56 St. Augustine’s comment is well known: “The honour of the Lord does not permit that the question of sin be raised in connected with the Blessed Virgin Mary.”57 If however the question be put to the saints “Are you sinless? he affirms that they will answer with the Apostle St. John (i John, 1:8): “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” There are two other texts which seem to show that St. Augustine meant his words to be understood in the sense of the Immaculate Conception,58 Many other texts of the Fathers will be found in the works of Passaglia,59 Palmieri60 and Le Bachelet.61

It should not be forgotten that the Feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary has been celebrated in the Church, especially in the Greek Church, since the 7th and 8th centuries. The same Feast is found in Sicily in the 9th, in Ireland in the loth, and almost everywhere in Europe in the 12th century.

The Lateran Council, held in the year 649 (Denz., 256) calls Mary “Immaculate.” In 1476 and 1483 Pope Sixtus IV speaks favorably of the privilege in connection with the Feast of the Conception of Mary (Denz., 734 sqq.). The Council of Trent (Denz., 792) declares, when speaking of original sin which infects all men, that it does not intend to include the Blessed and Immaculate Virgin Mary. In 1567 Baius is condemned for having taught the contrary (Denz., 1073). In 1661 Alexander VII affirmed the privilege, saying that almost all Catholics held it, though it had not yet been defined (Denz., 1100). Finally, on December 8th, 1854, we have the promulgation of the solemn definition (Denz., 1641).

It must be admitted that in the 12th and 13th centuries certain great doctors, as, for example, St. Bernard,62 St. Anselm,63 Peter Lombard,64 Hugh of St. Victor,65 St. Albert the Great,66 St. Bonaventure67 and St. Thomas Aquinas appear to have been disinclined to admit the privilege. But this was because they did not consider the precise instant of Mary’s animation, or of the creation of her soul, and also because they did not distinguish, with the help of the idea of preservative redemption, between the debt to contract the hereditary stain and its actual contraction. In other words, they did not always distinguish sufficiently between “debebat contrahere” and “contraxit peccatum.” We shall see later that there were three stages in St. Thomas’s doctrine and that though he appears to deny the Immaculate Conception in the second, he admits it in the first, and probably in the third also.

THEOLOGICAL REASONS FOR ADMITTING THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

The principal argument ex convenientia, or from becomingness, for the Immaculate Conception, is an elaboration of the one which St. Thomas (Ilia, q. 27, a. 1) and others give for Mary’s sanctification in her mother’s womb before birth. “It is reasonable to believe that she who gave birth to the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, received greater privileges of grace than all others. . . . We find however that to some the privilege of sanctification in their mother’s womb has been granted, as for example to Jeremias . . . and John the Baptist. . . . Hence it is reasonable to believe that the Blessed Virgin was sanctified before birth.” In a. 5 of the same question we read also: “The nearer one approaches to the source of all grace the more grace one receives; but Mary came nearest of all to Christ, Who is the principle of grace.”68

But this argument ex convenientia needs to be expanded before it will prove the Immaculate Conception.

It is Scotus’s glory (Thomists should consider it a point of honour to admit that their adversary was right in this matter) to have shown the supreme becomingness of this privilege in answer to the following difficulty which St. Thomas and many other theologians put forward: Christ is the universal Redeemer of all men without exception (Rom. 3:23; 5:12, 19; Gal. 3:22; Cor. 5:14; 1 Tim. 2:16); but if Mary did not contract original sin she would not have been redeemed; hence, since she was redeemed, she must have contracted original sin.

Duns Scotus answers this objection69 by referring to the idea of a redemption which is preservative, not liberative. He shows how reasonable this idea is, and in some places at least does not link it up with his peculiar doctrine concerning the motive of the Incarnation, so that it can be admitted independently of what one thinks about the second matter.

This is his line of argument.

It is becoming that a perfect Redeemer should make use of a sovereign mode of redemption, at least in regard to the person of His Mother who was to be associated more closely with Him than anyone else in the work of salvation. But the sovereign mode of redemption is not that which liberates from a stain already contracted, but that which preserves from all stain, just as he who wards off a blow from another saves him more than if he were simply to heal a wound that has been inflicted. Hence it was most becoming that the perfect Redeemer should, by His merits, preserve His Mother from original sin and all actual sin. This argument can be found in embryo in Eadmer.70

The Bull Ineffabilis gives this argument, in a somewhat different form, along with others. For example, it states that the honor and dishonor alike of parents affect their children, and that it was not becoming that the perfect Redeemer should have a mother who was conceived in sin. Also, just as the Word proceeds eternally from a most holy Father, it was becoming that He should be born on earth of a mother to whom the splendor of sanctity had never been lacking. Finally, in order that Mary should be able to repair the effects of Eve’s fall, overcome the wiles of the devil, and give supernatural life to all, with, by, and in Christ, it was becoming that she herself should never have been in a fallen condition, a slave to sin and the devil.

If it be objected that Christ alone is immaculate, it is easy to answer: Christ alone is immaculate of Himself, and by the double title of His Hypostatic Union and His virginal conception; Mary is immaculate through the merits of her Son.

The consequences of the Immaculate Conception have been developed by the great spiritual writers. Mary has been preserved from the two baneful fruits of original sin, concupiscence and darkness of understanding.

Since the definition of the Immaculate Conception we are obliged to hold that concupiscence has been not only bound, or restrained, in Mary from the time she was in her mother’s womb, but even that she was never in any sense its subject. There could be no disordered movement of her sensitive nature, no escape of her sensibility from the previous control of reason and will. Her sensibility was always fully subject to her rational powers, and thereby to God’s Will, as obtained in the state of original innocence. Thus Mary is virgin of virgins, most pure, “inviolata, intemerata,” tower of ivory, most pure mirror of God,

Similarly, Mary was never subject to error or illusion. Her judgment was always enlightened and correct. If she did not understand a thing fully she suspended her judgment upon it, and thus avoided the precipitation which might have been the cause of error. She is, as the Litanies say, the Seat of Wisdom, the Queen of Doctors, the Virgin most prudent, the Mother of good counsel. All theologians realise that nature spoke more eloquently to her of the Creator than to the greatest poets. She had, too, an eminent and wonderfully simple knowledge of what the Scriptures said of the Messiah, the Incarnation, and the Redemption. Thus she was fully exempt from concupiscence and error.

But why did the Immaculate Conception not make Mary immune from pain and death since they too were consequences of original sin?

It should be noted that the pain and death which Jesus and Mary knew were not consequences of original sin as they are for us. For Jesus and Mary they were consequences of but human nature, which, of itself, and like the animal nature in general, is subject to pain and death of the body: it was only because of a special privilege that Adam had been exempt from them in the state of innocence. As for Jesus, He was conceived virginally in passible flesh in order to redeem us by dying, and when the time came He accepted suffering and death, its consummation, freely for love of us. Mary, for her part, accepted suffering and death voluntarily in imitation of Him and to unite herself to Him; she was one with Him in His expiation and in His work of redemption.

There is one wonderful thing, one delight of contemplatives, which we should not overlook. It is that the privilege of the Immaculate Conception and the fullness of grace did not withdraw Mary from pain, but rather made her all the more sensitive to suffer from contact with sin, the greatest of evils. Precisely because she was so pure, precisely because her heart was consumed by the love of God, Mary suffered pains to which our imperfection makes us insensible. We suffer if our self-love is wounded, or our pride, or our susceptibilities. Mary, however, suffered from sin, and that in the measure of her love of God Whom sin offends, and her love of Her Son Whom sin crucifies; she suffered in the measure of her love of us, whom sin wounds and kills. Thus the Immaculate Conception increased Mary’s sufferings and disposed her to bear them heroically. Not one of them did she squander. All passed through her hands in union with those of her Son, thus to be offered up for our salvation.

ST. THOMAS AND THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

As certain commentators have suggested, three periods may be distinguished in St. Thomas’s teaching.

In the first—that of 1253–1254, the beginning of his theological career—he supports the privilege, probably because of the liturgical tradition which favored it, as well as because of his pious admiration for the perfect holiness of the Mother of God. It is in this period that he wrote (I Sent., d. 44, q. I, a. 3, ad 3): “Purity is increased by withdrawing from its opposite: hence there can be a creature than whom no more pure is possible in creation, if it be free from all contagion of sin: and such was the purity of the Blessed Virgin who was immune from original and actual sin.” This text states therefore that Mary was so pure as to be exempt from all original and actual sin.

During the second period St. Thomas, seeing better the difficulties in the question—for the theologians of his time held that Mary was immaculate independently of Christ’s merits—hesitated, and refused to commit himself. He, of course, held that all men without exception are redeemed by one Saviour. (Rom. 3:23; 5:12, 19; Gal. 3:22; 2 Cor. 5:14; 1 Tim. 2:6). Hence we find him proposing the question thus in Ilia, q. 27, a. 2: Was the Blessed Virgin sanctified in the conception of her body before its animation? for, according to him and many other theologians, the conception of the body was to be distinguished from the animation, or creation of the soul. This latter (called today the consummated passive conception) was thought to be about a month later in time than the initial conception.

The holy doctor mentions certain arguments at the beginning of the article which favor the Immaculate Conception—even taking conception to be that which precedes animation. He then answers them as follows: “There are two reasons why the sanctification of the Blessed Virgin cannot have taken place before her animation: 1st—the sanctification in question is cleansing from original sin . . . but the guilt of sin can be removed only by grace (which has as object the soul itself) . . . 2nd—if the Blessed Virgin had been sanctified before animation she would have have incurred the stain of original sin and would therefore never have stood in need of redemption by Christ. . . . But this may not be admitted, since Christ is Head of all men. (1 Tim. 2:6).”

Even had he written after the definition of 1854 St. Thomas could have said that Mary was not sanctified before animation. However, he goes further than that here, for he adds at the end of the article: “Hence it follows that the sanctification of the Blessed Virgin took place after her animation.” Nor does he distinguish, as he does in many other contexts, between posteriority in nature and posteriority in time. In the answer to the second objection he even states that the Blessed Virgin “contracted original sin.”71 However, it must be recognised that the whole point of his argument is to show that Mary incurred the debt of original sin since she descended from Adam by way of natural generation. Unfortunately he did not distinguish sufficiently the debt from actually incurring the stain.

Regarding the question of the exact moment at which Mary was sanctified in the womb of her mother, St. Thomas does not make any definite pronouncement. He states that it followed close on animation—cito post are his words in Quodl. VI, a. 7. But he believes that nothing more precise can be said: “the time of her sanctification is unknown” (Ilia, q. 27, a. 2, ad 3).

St. Thomas does not consider in the Summa if Mary was sanctified in the very instant of animation. St. Bonaventure had put himself that question and had answered it in the negative. It is possible that St. Thomas’s silence was inspired by the reserved attitude of the Roman Church which, unlike so many other Churches, did not celebrate the Feast of the Conception (cf. ibid., ad 3). This is the explanation proposed by Fr. N. del Prado, O.P., in Santo Tomas y la Immaculada, Vergara, 1909, by Fr. Mandonnet, O.P, Diet. Theol. Cath., art. Freres Precheurs, col. 899, and by Fr. Hugon, O.P, Tractatus Dogmatici, t. II, ed. 5, 1927, p. 749. For these authors the thought of the holy doctor in this second period of his professional career was that expressed long afterwards by Gregory XV in his letters of July 4th, 1622: “Spiritus Sanctus nondum tanti mysterii arcanum Ecclesiae suae patefecit.”

The texts we have considered so far do not therefore imply any contradiction of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. They could even be retained if the idea of preservative redemption were introduced. There is however one text which cannot be so easily explained away. In III Sent., dist. Ill, q. 1, a. 1, ad 2am qm, we read: “Nor (did it happen) even in the instant of infusion of the soul, namely, by grace being then given her so as to preserve her from incurring the original fault. Christ alone among men has the privilege of not needing redemption.” Frs. del Prado and Hugon explain this text as follows: The meaning of St. Thomas’s words may be that the Blessed Virgin was not preserved from original sin in such a way as not to incur its debt, as that would mean not to stand in need of redemption. However, one could have expected to find in the text itself the explicit distinction between the debt and the fact of incurring the stain.

In the final period of his career, when writing the Exposito super salutatione angelica—which is certainly authentic72—in 1272 or 1273, St. Thomas expressed himself thus: “For she (the Blessed Virgin) was most pure in the matter of fault (quantum ad culpam) and incurred neither original nor mortal nor venial sin.” Cf. J. F. Rossi, C.M., S. Thomae Aquinatis Expositio salutationis angelieae, Introductio et textus. Divus Thomas (PL), 1931, pp. 445–479.73 In this critical edition of the Commentary on the Ave Maria, it is stated, pp. 11–15, that the passage quoted just now is found in sixteen manuscripts out of nineteen consulted by the author, who concludes that it is authentic. He gives photographs of the principal manuscripts in an appendix. Let us hope that the same conscientious work will be performed on the other opuscula of St. Thomas!74

In spite of the objection raised by Fr. P. Synave75 the text appears to be authentic. If it is, then St. Thomas returned towards the end of his life—moved, we may believe, by his love of the Mother of God—to the position he had adopted when he affirmed the Immaculate Conception in his Commentary on the Sentences. Nor is the text we are considering the only indication of such a return.76

Such an evolution of doctrine is not rare among theologians. At first they propose a thesis which they accept from tradition without seeing all its difficulties. Later reflection leads them to adopt a more reserved attitude. Finally they return to their first position, realising that God is more bounteous in His gifts than we can understand and that we should not set limits to Him without good reason. In the case of St. Thomas, we have seen that the reasons he invoked against the privilege are not conclusive, and that they even support it when considered in the light of the idea of preservative redemption.77


ARTICLE 3. WAS MARY EXEMPT FROM EVERY FAULT, EVEN VENIAL?

The Council of Trent78 has defined that “after his justification a man cannot avoid, during the whole course of his life, every venial sin, without a special privilege such as the Church recognises was conferred on the Blessed Virgin.” The soul in the state of grace can therefore avoid any venial sin considered separately, but cannot avoid all venial sins taken together by keeping itself always free from them. Mary however avoided all sin, even the least grave. St. Augustine affirms that “for the honour of her Son Who came to remit the sins of the world, Mary is never included when there is question of sin.”79 The Fathers and theologians consider, to judge from their manner of speaking, that she is free even from every voluntary imperfection, for, according to them, she never failed in promptness to obey a divine inspiration given by way of counsel. Though a minor lack of generosity is not a venial sin, but simply a lesser good, or an imperfection, not even so slight a shortcoming was found in Mary. She never elicited an imperfect (remissus) act of charity, that is to say, one that fell short in intensity of the degree in which she possessed the virtue.

St. Thomas gives the reason for this special privilege when he says: “God prepares and disposes those whom He has chosen for a special purpose in such a way as to make them capable of performing that for which He selected them.”80 In that God differs from men, who sometimes choose incapable or mediocre candidates for important posts. “Thus,” continues St. Thomas, “St. Paul says of the Apostles (2 Cor. 3:6), “It is God Who has made us fit ministers of the new testament, not in the letter, but in the spirit.” But the Blessed Virgin was divinely chosen to be the Mother of God (that is to say, she was predestined from all eternity for the divine maternity). Hence, it cannot be doubted that God fitted her by grace for her mission, according to the words spoken her by the angel (Luke 1:30): “Thou hast found grace with God. Thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus.” But Mary would not have been a worthy Mother of God had she ever sinned, for the honor and dishonor of parents is reflected on the children according to the words of the Book of Proverbs: “The glory of children are their fathers.” Besides, Mary had a special affinity to Jesus, from Whom she took flesh, but “What concord hath Christ with Belial?” (2 Cor. 6:15). Finally, the Son of God, Who is Divine Wisdom, inhabited Mary in a very special manner, not in her soul only but in her womb also; and it is said (Wisdom 1:4): “Wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul, nor dwell in a body subject to sins.” Hence it must be said without any reservation that the Blessed Virgin committed no sin, mortal or venial, so that the words of the Canticle of Canticles are fully verified in her regard (Cant. 4:7): “Thou art all fair, my love, and there is not a spot in thee.”’

Mary had therefore impeccantia (the term is parallel to inerrantia) or freedom from sin, and even impeccability. Her title to these endowments is not however the same as her Son’s. In her case it was a matter of preservation from every sin through a special privilege.81 This privilege includes first of all a very high degree of habitual grace and charity, which gives the soul a strong inclination to the act of love of God and withdraws it from sin. It includes also confirmation in grace, which when granted to a saint is had normally through an increase of charity, especially that proper to the state of transforming union, and an increase of actual efficacious graces which preserve the soul de facto from sin and move it to ever more meritorious acts. Thus Mary enjoyed a special assistance of Divine Providence. This assistance—more effective than even that which belonged to the state of innocence—preserved all her faculties from faults, and kept her soul in a state of the most complete generosity. Just as confirmation in grace is an effect of the predestination of the saints, so this preservative assistance granted to Mary was an effect of her peculiar predestination. Far from diminishing her liberty or free will, the effect of this preservation from sin was to confer on her full liberty in the order of moral goodness, with no inclination to evil (just as her mind never tended to error). Hence her liberty, following the example of that of Jesus, was a faithful and most pure image of God’s liberty, which is at once sovereign and incapable of sin.

If human masterpieces of art, in architecture, painting and music, and if the precision instruments produced by human skill all reach such perfection, what must not be the perfection of God’s masterpieces? And among these, if the works of the natural order are so perfect—the majesty of the ocean and the high mountains, the structure of the eye and ear, the human mind and the mind of the angels—how perfect must not the works of the supernatural order be, among which so remarkable a place is held by the soul of Mary which was adorned with every choice gift from the first moment of her existence?

NOTE. THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN IMPERFECTION AND VENIAL SIN

The problem82 has been taken from its proper context by the casuists. It is one which concerns interior souls, advanced in the spiritual life, and careful to avoid every more or less venial sin. Those who consider the problem in relation to less advanced souls run the risk of taking for imperfection what is really a venial sin.

At one time the problem was closely associated with another one: is it possible to commit no more than a simple imperfection by resisting a religious vocation? The answer ordinarily given to this question is that though the religious vocation does not oblige under pain of sin, sin is always involved in rejecting it for the reason that religion is a way of life that embraces the whole of life, and the other ways of life, being less safe than it, are never chosen in preference to it except through some inordinate attachment to the things of this world, as is seen in the example of the rich man in the Gospel. Thus, the rejection of a vocation involves an inordinate attachment (which is forbidden by divine precept) and not only a lack of generosity.

To see the problem of an imperfection as distinct from a venial sin in its proper perspective, it must be viewed in its relation to very generous souls, and still more in relation to the impeccability of Christ and the sinlessness of Mary. Here we may ask: Was there any voluntary imperfection in the lives of Jesus and Mary? The question is obviously a most delicate one.

The answer usually given to this problem is that there was never any imperfection, however slightly voluntary, in the lives of Jesus and Mary, for they never failed in their prompt obedience to every divine inspiration given by way of counsel. But if there had been any lack of promptitude, it would have been a mere lack of generosity, not a moral disorder in the strict sense of the term, as is an inordinate attachment to the things of this world.

As regards interior souls, it may be said that as long as they have not taken the vow of always doing the most perfect thing, they are not bound under pain of venial sin to act always with the maximum of generosity possible to them at any given instant.83 It is becoming, however, that those more advanced should, without binding themselves by vow, promise the Blessed Virgin always to do what will appear to them evidently the most perfect in any given circumstance.


ARTICLE 4. THE PERFECTION OF MARY’S FIRST GRACE

The habitual grace which the Blessed Virgin received at the instant of the creation of her holy soul was a fullness or plenitude to which the words of the angel on the Annunciation day might have been applied: “Hail, full of grace.” This is what Pius IX affirms when he defines the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. He even says that, from the first instant, Mary “was loved by God more than all creatures, (prae creaturis universis), that He found most extreme pleasure in her, and that He loaded her in a wonderful way with His graces, more than all the angels and saints.”84 Many texts might be quoted from tradition to the same effect.85

St. Thomas explains the reason of this plenitude of grace when he says86: “The nearer one approaches to a principle (of truth and life) the more one participates in its effects. That is why St. Denis affirms (De caelestia hierarchia) that the angels, who are nearer to God than man is, participate more in His favors. But Christ is the principle of the life of grace; as God He is its principal cause and as Man (having first His humanity is, as it were, an instrument always united to the Divinity: ‘Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ’ (John 1:17). The Blessed Virgin Mary, being nearer to Christ than any other human being, since it is from her that He received His humanity, receives from Him therefore a fullness of grace, surpassing that of all other creatures.” It is true that St. John the Baptist and Jeremias were sanctified, according to the testimony of Sacred Scripture, in their mother’s womb, without, however, being preserved from original sin. But Mary received grace from the very first instant in a degree far excelling theirs, and received as well the privilege of being preserved from every fault—even venial—a privilege we find accorded to no other saint.87

In his Expositio super salutatione angelica St. Thomas describes Mary’s plenitude of grace (and his words are applicable to the initial plenitude) in terms of which the following is a summary:

Though the angels do not manifest special respect for men, being their superiors by nature and living in holy intimacy with God, yet the Archangel Gabriel when saluting Mary, showed himself full of veneration for her. He understood that she was far above him through her fullness of grace, her intimacy with God, and her perfect purity.

She had received fullness of grace under three respects. First, so as to avoid every sin, however slight, and to practice all the virtues in an eminent degree. Secondly, so as to overflow from her soul upon her body and prepare her to receive the Incarnate Son of God. Thirdly, so as to overflow upon all men88 and to aid them in the practice of all the virtues.

Further, she surpassed the angels in her holy familiarity with the Most High. On that account, Gabriel saluted her saying: “The Lord is with thee.” It was as if he said: “You are more intimate with God than I. He is about to become your Son, whereas I am but His servant.” In truth, Mary, as Mother of God, is more intimate with the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, than are the angels.

Finally, she surpassed the angels in purity, even though they are pure spirits, for she was both pure in herself and the source of purity to others. Not only was she exempt from original sin89 and from all mortal and venial sin, but she escaped the curse due to sin, namely, “In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children . . . into dust thou shalt return” (Gen. 3:16, 19). She will conceive the Son of God without loss to her virginity, she will bear Him in holy recollection, she will bring Him forth in joy, she will be preserved from the corruption of the tomb and will be associated by her Assumption with the Ascension of the Saviour.

Already she is blessed among women, for she alone, with and through her Son, will lift the curse which descended on the human race, and will bring us blessings by opening the gates of Heaven. That is why she is called the Star of the Sea, guiding Christians to the harbour of eternity.

Elisabeth will say to her: “Blessed is the fruit of thy womb.” Whereas the sinner looks for that which he cannot find in the object of his sinful desires, the just finds everything in what he desires holily. From this point of view, the fruit of the womb of Mary will be thrice blessed.

Eve desired the forbidden fruit, so as to have the knowledge of good and evil, and thereby to become independent and free from the yoke of obedience. She was deceived by the lying promise “You will be as God,” for far from becoming like God, she was turned away from Him. Mary, on the contrary, found all things in the blessed fruit of her womb. In Him she found God, and she will lead us to find God in Him.

By yielding to the temptation, Eve sought joy and found sadness. Mary, on the contrary, found joy and salvation for herself and us in her Divine Son.

Finally, the fruit sought by Eve had beauty only for the senses, whereas the fruit of Mary’s womb is the splendor, the eternal and spiritual glory of the Father. Mary is blessed herself, and still more blessed in her Son, Who has brought all men blessing and salvation.

The preceding is a synopsis of what St. Thomas has to say of Mary’s fullness of grace in his commentary on the Hail Mary. He has in mind most of all the fullness of the Annunciation day. But what he says is applicable also to her initial fullness, just as what is said of the stream is applicable also to its source.

MARY’S INITIAL GRACE COMPARED WITH THAT OF THE SAINTS

It has been asked if Mary’s initial grace was greater than the final grace of the greatest of angels and men, or even than the final grace of all angels and men taken together. The question is usually understood not of the final and consummated grace of Heaven, but of the grace which is final in the sense that it immediately preceded entry into glory.90

As for the first part of the question, theologians commonly hold that Mary’s initial grace was greater than the final grace of the highest of angels and men. This is the teaching, for example, of St. John Damascene,91 Suarez,92 Justin of Miechow, O.P.,93 Contenson,94 St. Alphonsus,95 Fathers Terrien,96 Godts, Hugon, Merkelbach, etc. Today, all textbooks of Mariology are unanimous in considering this teaching certain. It can even be found expressed by Pius IX in the Bull Ineffabilis Deus in the passage we have quoted already. The principal argument in favor of this teaching is arrived at from a consideration of the divine maternity, which is the reason for all the privileges conferred on Mary. There are two ways of outlining it: from the point of view of the end to which Mary’s initial grace was ordained, and from the point of view of the divine love which was its cause.

Mary’s initial grace was given her as a worthy preparation for the divine motherhood—to prepare her to be a worthy Mother of the Saviour, said St. Thomas (Ilia, q. 27, a. 5, ad 2). But even the consummated grace of the other saints is not a worthy preparation for the divine maternity, for it pertains to the hypostatic order. Hence the first grace of Mary surpasses the consummated grace of the other saints. Pious authors express this truth by taking in an accommodated sense the words of Psalm 86: “The foundations thereof are in the holy mountains.” They say that the summit of the perfection of the other saints is not as yet the beginning of the perfection of Mary.

The same conclusion is reached by considering the uncreated love of God for the Blessed Virgin. Since grace is the effect of the active love of God which makes us pleasing in His eyes as adoptive children, the more a person is loved by God the more grace he receives. But Mary, since she was to be the Mother of God, was more loved by Him in the first instant of her being than any angel or saint. Hence she received from the first instant a greater gift of grace than any of them, however favored.

Was Mary’s First Grace higher than the Final Grace of all the Angels and Saints taken together?

A number of theologians, both ancient and modern, have answered this question in the negative.97 However, the affirmative answer, which is given by Ch. Vega, Contenson, St. Alphonsus, Godts, Monsabre, Billot, Sinibaldi, Hugon, L. Janssens, Merkelbach and others, is at least probable.

For it there is, first of all, the argument from authority. Pius IX favors it in his Bull Ineffabilis Deus, when he says: “Deus ab initio . . . unigenito filio suo Matrem . . . elegit atque ordinavit, tantoque prae creaturis universis est prosecutus amore, ut in ilia una sibi propensissima voluntate complacuerit. Quapropter illam longe ante omnes angelicos Spiritus, cunctosque Sanctos coelestium omnium charismatum copia de thesauro Divinitatis deprompta ita mirifice cumulavit, ut . . . earn innocentiae et sanctitatis plenitudinem prae se ferret, et qua major sub Deo nullatenus intelligitur, et quam praeter Deum nemo assequi cogitando potest.” (This text is translated on page 14.) Taken in their obvious sense all these expressions, especially the “cunctos sanctos,” mean that Mary’s grace surpassed that of all the saints together from the first instant mentioned in the text. If Pius IX wished to say that Mary’s grace surpassed that of each angel and saint individually, he would have said “longe ante quemlibet sanctum et angelicum” rather than “longe ante omnes angelicos Spiritus cunctosque sanctos.” Nor would he have said that God loved Mary above all creatures, “prae creaturis universis,” and that He took greater delight in her alone, “ut in ilia una sibi propensissima voluntate complacuerit.” It cannot be contended that in all this there is no question of the first instant of Mary’s existence since Pius IX goes on to say, immediately after the passage just quoted, “Decebat omnino ut beatissima Virgo Maria perfectissimae sanctitatis splendoribus semper ornata fulgeret.”

A little further on in the same Bull, we are told that, according to the Fathers, Mary is higher by grace than the Cherubim, the Seraphim, and the whole Heavenly Host (omni exercitu angelorum)—that is to say, all united. Though it is universally admitted that these words refer to Mary in Heaven, it must yet be recalled that one’s degree of heavenly glory is proportionate to the preceding grace or charity at the hour of death. And in the case of Mary, this latter was proportionate to her dignity as Mother of God, a dignity for which she had been prepared from the very first instant of existence.

To the argument from the authority of the Bull Ineffabilis, two theological reasons can be added. They are based on the divine maternity, considered as the end towards which Mary’s first grace was ordained and on the uncreated love which was its cause. As a help to grasping them, it is necessary to remark that even though grace is a quality and not a quantified thing, there are many to whom it is not at once evident that if Mary’s first grace surpassed that of the highest of the saints, it must also surpass that of all angels and saints united. They say, for example, that though the eagle’s vision is more acute than that of the most keen-sighted man, it does not follow that an eagle sees more than all men taken together. Of course, in this example an element of quantity—that is, of extension and distance—enters in, which is not found in the case of Mary’s grace, so that it is really irrelevant. But, at the same time, it may be well to clarify the question still more.

1st—Since Mary’s first grace prepared her to be the worthy Mother of God, it must have been proportionate, at least remotely, to the divine maternity. But the final consummated grace of all the saints together is not proportionate to the divine maternity, since it belongs to an inferior order. Hence the final consummated grace of all the saints united is less than the first grace received by Mary.

This argument—even though not admitted by all theologians—seems to be quite conclusive. The objection has been raised that Mary’s first grace was not a proximate preparation for the divine maternity and hence was not necessarily of a different order from the grace of all the saints. To this it may be answered that, though not a proximate preparation, Mary’s first grace was a worthy and proportionate preparation, according to the teaching of St. Thomas (Ilia, q. 27, a. 5, ad 2): “The first perfection of grace (was) as it were dispositive, making the Blessed Virgin worthy to become the Mother of Christ.” But the consummated grace of all the saints united is not proportionate to the divine maternity, which is of the hypostatic order. The argument therefore retains its force.

2nd—The person who is more loved by God than all creatures united receives grace surpassing theirs, for grace is the effect of uncreated love and is proportionate to it. As St. Thomas says (la, q. 20, a. 4): “God loves one more than another by the fact that He wills him a higher good, for the divine will is the cause of the good that is in creatures.” But God has loved Mary from all eternity more than all creatures united, as being she whom He was to prepare from the first instant of her conception to be the worthy Mother of the Saviour. In the words of Bossuet: “He always loved Mary as His Mother, and considered her as such from the moment she was conceived.”98 This does not, of course, exclude the possibility that Mary advanced in holiness, or grew in grace. For grace, being a participation in the divine nature, can always increase though still remaining finite; Mary’s final fullness of grace is limited, while yet being so full as to overflow on all souls.

To these two arguments, taken from the divine maternity, another may be added, which will become increasingly evident as we speak of Mary’s universal mediation. It is that Mary could obtain by her merits and prayers—even on earth, and from the time when she could first merit and pray—more than all the saints together, for they obtain nothing except through her universal mediation. Mary is, as it were, the aqueduct which brings us grace; in the mystical body she is, as it were, the neck which joins the members with the Head. In short, from the time she could merit and pray, Mary could obtain more without the saints than they could without her. But merit corresponds in degree to charity and sanctifying grace. Hence Mary received from the beginning of her life a degree of grace superior to that which the saints and angels united had attained to before their entry into Heaven.

There are other indirect confirmations, or more or less close analogies. For example, a precious stone—a diamond—is worth more than a number of other stones united; a saint like the Cure of Ars could do more by his prayers and merits than all his parishioners together; a founder of an order like St. Benedict surpasses all his first companions by the grace he has received, for without him they could not have made the foundation whereas, had they failed him, he could have enlisted others to take their place; the intellect of an archangel surpasses that of all inferior angels united; the intellectual worth of St. Thomas is greater than that of all his contemporaries; the power of a king is greater, not only than that of his prime minister, but also that of his ministers combined.

Early theologians did not examine the question of the degree of Mary’s first grace, but that is probably because its solution appeared evident to them. They taught, for example, at the end of the treatises on grace and charity that whereas a ten-franc piece is worth no more than ten one-franc pieces, the charity signified by the ten talents of the parable is worth more than ten charities of one talent.99 That is why the devil tries to keep souls called to high sanctity by their priestly and religious vocation at the level of mediocrity. He wishes to prevent the growth of their charity, knowing that one man of great charity will do much more than many whose charity is at a lower, lukewarm level.100 Thus Mary, in virtue of the first grace which disposed her for the divine maternity, was worth more in God’s eyes than all the apostles, martyrs, confessors, and virgins united, more than all men and all angels created from the beginning.

The thought of the marvellous instruments which human skill can produce is a reminder of what the Divine Artist can do in this soul of His special choice, in her of whom it is said “Elegit earn Deus et praeelegit earn,” in her who the liturgy tells us was raised above all the angelic choirs. The first grace she received was already a worthy preparation for her divine maternity and her exceptional glory which is inferior only to that of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Nor should we forget that she suffered proportionately as He did, for she was called to be a victim with Him so as to be victorious with and by Him.

These reasons permit us to get some glimpse of the dignity and elevation of Mary’s first grace.

One more point before concluding. The classics in the literature of every country mean much more to us when we take them up in mature age, than they did when we first read them at the age of fifteen or twenty years; and the same is true of the works of the great theologians, of St. Augustine and St. Thomas. Must there not, then, be beauties hidden as yet from our eyes in God’s masterpieces, in those composed immediately by Himself, and especially in that masterpiece of nature and grace, the soul of Mary, God’s Mother? This thought alone is enough to make one begin by affirming the richness of her initial grace. Perhaps the next thing will be, to wonder if the affirmation has not been too hasty, if a probability has not been made into a certainty. But last of all, there will come a return to the first position; not now because it is beautiful, but because careful study has shown that it is true; not because it has a merely theoretical becomingness but because its becomingness acted as a motive in determining the choice that God actually made of it.


ARTICLE 5. THE CONSEQUENCE OF MARY’S PLENITUDE OF GRACE

From the instant of her conception, Mary’s initial plenitude of grace included the infused virtues and the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, which are the different parts or functions of the spiritual organism. Even from before St. Thomas’s time, habitual grace was called “the grace of the virtues and the gifts” because of its connection with them; for the infused virtues, theological and moral, flow from grace (in a degree proportioned to its perfection) as its properties, just as the faculties flow from the substance of the soul.101 The gifts flow from it also (in a similar proportionate degree) as infused permanent dispositions which make the soul docile to the inspirations of the Holy Ghost, somewhat as the sails of a boat make it docile to a favorable wind.102

Furthermore, the infused virtues and the gifts are linked up with charity which makes their acts meritorious,103 and they keep pace with it in their growth as do the five fingers of the hand with one another.104 It may well happen that the gifts of wisdom, understanding and knowledge, which are both speculative and practical, will manifest themselves in one saint more in their practical and in another more in their speculative roles. But normally all seven exist in every soul in the state of grace in a degree proportionate to its charity—the charity itself being proportionate to the sanctifying grace of the soul.

From these principles, which are commonly accepted in treatises on the virtues in general and the gifts, it is usually deduced that Mary had the infused theological and moral virtues and the gifts from the first instant of her conception, and that they flowed from and were proportionate to her initial fullness of grace. Mary—destined even then to be Mother of God and men—could not have been less perfect than Eve was at her creation. Even if she did not receive in her body the privileges of impassibility and immortality, she must have had in her soul all that pertained spiritually to the state of original justice—all, and more, even, since her initial fullness of grace surpassed the grace of all the saints together. Her virtues in their initial state must, therefore, have surpassed the heroic virtues of the greatest saints.105 Her faith, lit up by the gifts of wisdom, understanding and knowledge, was unshakably firm and most penetrating. Her hope was unconquerable, proof against presumption and despair alike. Her charity was most ardent. In fine, her initial holiness, which surpassed that of God’s greatest servants, was born with her, and did not cease to grow all through life.

The only difficulty in this matter is that of the exercise of the infused virtues, already so perfect, and the gifts. Their exercise demands the use of reason and of free will. We must, therefore, ask if Mary had the use of her rational faculties from the first instant.

All theologians admit that the holy soul of Christ had the use of intellect and will from the beginning.106 They admit too that He had the beatific vision, or the immediate vision of the divine Essence,107 a doctrine which the Holy Office declared on June 6th, 1918, to be certain. Jesus is the Head in the order of grace, and therefore He enjoyed from the first instant, as a consequence of the personal union of His humanity to the Word, the glory He was to give to the elect. He had also infused knowledge similar to that of the angels, but in a much more perfect degree than it has been found in some of the saints—in those, for example, who had the gift of understanding and speaking languages they had never learned.108 Theologians teach that these two knowledges—the beatific and the infused—were perfect in Jesus from the beginning. It was only the knowledge which He acquired by experience and reflection which developed. Jesus, the sovereign priest, judge, and king of the universe, offered Himself for us, says St. Paul,109 from the moment of His entry into the world and knew everything in the past, present and future, that could be submitted to His judgement.110

Though there is little serious difference of opinion among theologians regarding Jesus” knowledge, the problem of Mary’s knowledge is much disputed. It would appear that there is no reason to assert that she had the beatific vision here on earth, especially from the first instant of her conception.111 But many theologians hold that she had per se infused knowledge from the beginning, at least from time to time—though some contend that she had it in a permanent way. On this view she would have had the use of her intellect and of her free will in her mother’s womb—on certain occasions at least—and would, in consequence, have had the use of the infused virtues and the gifts which she possessed in so high a degree. One can hardly deny this view except by asserting that Mary’s intellect, will and infused virtues remained as it were asleep, as they do in other children, and did not wake up till she attained the ordinary age of the use of reason.

For our part, we may say, first of all, that it is at least very probable, according to the teaching of the majority of theologians, that Mary had the use of her free will through her infused knowledge from the first instant of her conception, at least in a passing manner. Such is the teaching of St. Vincent Ferrer,112 St. Bernardine of Sienna,113 St. Francis de Sales,114 St. Alphonsus,115 Suarez,116 Vega,117 Contenson,118 Justin de Miechow,119 and most modern theologians.120 Fr. Terrien goes so far as to say that he found only two opponents of the doctrine: Gerson and Muratori.121

The following are the reasons that can be adduced in favor of the privilege:

1st—It is not becoming to hold that Mary, Queen of patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and all the saints, lacked a privilege granted to St. John the Baptist.122 We read of him in Luke 1:41 and 44, while he was still in the womb: “When Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the infant leaped in her womb,” and Elisabeth herself said: “For as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.” St. Irenaeus, St. Ambrose, St. Leo the Great, and St. Gregory the Great have noted that the joy of St. John the Baptist before his birth was not merely of the sense order, but was elicited by the coming of the Saviour, Whose precursor he was.123 Thus Catejan notes that this joy, being a spiritual order, presupposes the use of reason and will, and at the time there could be no question of acquired but only of infused knowledge (Comment, in Ilia P., q. 27, a. 6). The church too sings in her liturgy, in the hymn for Vespers of St. John the Baptist “Senseras Regem thalamo manentem . . . Suae regenerationis cognovit auctorem: You have recognised your kind and the author of your regeneration.” If, therefore, St. John the Baptist had the use of reason and will before birth, because of his vocation as precursor of Christ, the same privilege can hardly be denied to Christ’s mother.

2nd—Since Mary received grace and the infused virtues and the gifts in the first instant in a degree higher than that of the final grace of the saints, she must have been sanctified in the way proper to adults, that is, by disposing her through actual grace for habitual grace, and by using this latter as a principle of merit from the moment she received it; in other words, she offered herself to God as her Son did on His entry into the world. “Then I said: Behold I come to do thy will, O God” (Heb. 10:9). Mary did not, of course, know then that she would be one day the Mother of God, but none the less she would accept all that the Lord asked and would yet ask of her.

3rd—Mary’s initial fullness of grace, virtues, and gifts which surpassed already the final fullness of all the saints, could not have remained inactive at the beginning of her life. Such inactivity would appear opposed to the sweet and generous dispositions of Divine Providence in favor of the Mother of the Saviour. But unless she had the use of her free will through infused knowledge, the virtues and gifts which she possessed in so high a degree would have remained inactive for a considerable part of her life (that is, the beginning).

Almost all present-day theologians admit that it is at least very probable that, in her mother’s womb, Mary had the use of her free will through infused knowledge—transitorily, at any rate. They admit too that she had the use of this infused knowledge on certain occasions, such as the Incarnation, the Passion, the Resurrection, the Ascension; also that she had the use of it for the purpose of acquiring a more perfect knowledge of the divine perfections and of the mystery of the Blessed Trinity. There is all the more reason for admitting that Mary had this privilege when we recall that infused knowledge was given to the apostles on the first Pentecost when they received the gift of tongues, and that the great St. Teresa, after arriving at the Seventh Mansion, had frequent intellectual visions of the Trinity such as can only be explained by infused ideas. Even those theologians who are most conservative in their views do not hesitate to admit this much of Mary.124 It is in fact the least that may be attributed to the Mother of God who enjoyed the visit of the Archangel Gabriel, who was on terms of saintly familiarity with the Incarnate Word, who was constantly enlightened by Him during the hidden life, who must have received special revelations during and after the Passion, and who received on the day of Pentecost the light of the Holy Ghost in more abundant measure than the apostles themselves.

WAS MARY’S USE OF REASON AND FREE WILL IN HER MOTHER’S WOMB ONLY TRANSITORY AND INTERRUPTED?

According to St. Francis de Sales,125 St. Alphonsus,126 and theologians of the standing of Sauve,127 Terrien95 and Hugon,128 Mary’s use of her privilege was uninterrupted. Fr. Merkelbach and other theologians assert that there is no convincing argument in proof of that thesis.129 It is our opinion that though it cannot be demonstrated with certainty that Mary enjoyed the uninterrupted use of reason and free will in her mother’s womb, it is seriously probable and difficult to disprove that she had it. For if it be conceded that she had it in the first instant, it follows that she would become less perfect when deprived of it. But it does not appear becoming that so holy a creature should fall in any way without guilt on her part, all the more so since her dignity demanded that she should progress continuously and that her merit should be unbroken.130

It has been objected that St. Thomas regards the privilege as peculiar to Christ.131 Certain it is that Christ’s permanent exercise of reason and will belongs to Him alone as a strict right and consequence of the beatific vision. Mary cannot lay any such claim to the privilege. But it appears altogether becoming that the future Mother of God should have been granted it as a special and most appropriate favor. Besides, St. Thomas’s words may be explained by the fact that the Immaculate Conception had not been defined in his time and, in consequence, prominence had not been given to the motives we have adduced for admitting the privilege in Mary’s case.132 Today, however, after the Bull Ineffabilis, we realise that Mary was favored from the first instant more than all the saints united. Besides, as we have said, almost all theologians admit that she had the privilege at least transitorily from the first instant. If so, it is hard to see why it should ever have been withdrawn, interrupting her merit and progress, and leaving the initial plenitude, as it were, unproductive and sterile—all of which is opposed to the sweet and strong way in which Providence cared for Mary.

Such was the initial fullness of grace which accompanied the Immaculate Conception, and such were its first consequences. More and more can we see the implications of the angelic salutation: “Hail, full of grace.”