Can you be "full of grace" temporarily? If not, was St. Stephen sinless?

[bmullins]

Here is a really good article on the greek word if anyone wants to delve further. For what it is worth, I think the word *kecharitomene *was only used for Mary in Greek, so much so that one of my professors said “It was almost as if they had made it up just for her because they had no word to express it.”

Behind the Bible: Is Mary full of grace, or just highly favored?

Another author puts it:

Chaire kecharitomene. “Hail, Full of Grace,” we translate it. In Latin, following the venerable St. Jerome’s translation known as the Vulgate, it is Ave, gratia plena.

The word that Luke uses–κεχαριτωμένη, kecharitomene–appears to have been crafted out of thin air, appearing into the Greek vocabulary as unexpectedly as the Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and as silently as the Word became Flesh. It was the word for the moment.

The word is used nowhere else in the Scriptures or in secular Greek literature. The technical name for such a novel, unique word is hapax legomenon. Hapax legomenon–which comes to us from Greek–means “expressed once.”

This sort of word is sometimes also referred to as a nonce word. In this case, it is a one-of-a-kind word for a one-of-a-kind person in a one-of-a-kind situation. No one else in human history is κεχαριτωμένη (kecharitomene). - Andrew M. Greenwell, Esq.

 

[Wesrock]

Not sinful nature but the fallen nature of man. Jesus had to be born of this world in the state the world was in because He needed to perfect the nature of man through His own resurrection. If Mary was anything other than any of us, then Jesus did not share our humanity.

Men are born without grace (normstively), correct? Baptism fills us with God’s grace, with the Holy Spirit, creating a sort of union with God. Sin creates a lack of this grace, a disunion between God and man.

Mary, from the moment of her conception, was filled with grace by the Holy Spirit, and remained without sin her whole life. She did not have the preternatural gifts that Adam and Eve were created with. She was not immortal, immune from disease, etc . . .

Was there ever a moment when Jesus was not filled with such grace? If he can differ from us in that respect, yet still share our nature, I don’t see an issue with the Catholic doctrine of original sin or the Immaculate Conception in regard to Jesus sharing our nature.

 

[thistle]

This is a 5 year dormant thread. We are not to resurrect such threads.

 

[Wesrock]

Oops, sorry. Just saw this on the front page and didn’t’
look at the timestamp on the first post.