Immaculate Conception of Mary

[Mannyfit75]

However Pius IX stated in the declaration that the Church had always maintained the doctrine even though it had never been dogmatically defined. If it had always been maintained, it would though have been part of the infallible teaching of the Majisterium which Catholics are bound to believe, are they not?

Correct, it was always maintain. In 1476 Pope Sixtus declared December 8 as the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, he stop short in not defining it as dogmatic. The Catholic belief of the Immaculate Conception stem before that time. There were always theologian discussion over this doctrine.

It is like the Trinity, which was not defined until 325 AD. St. Athanasius first came up with the belief that God is Three in One. This was a common belief until that doctrine was challenge by Arianism heresy, which Jesus Christ was just a created being. This heresy was condemned in the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D.

Catholics are required to believe it since it official Church teachings. To deny it would be like lying to yourself when you recite the Creed by saying this line, “We Believe in the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.”

 

[kaycee]

Wow, what stubborn Protestant resistance this always manages to bring out… it never ceases to amaze me.

Then they bring out the “sola scriptura” defense, as if that notion wasn’t self-refuting enough. Basically, you can’t listen to the Church when they declared the Immaculate Conception, BUT somehow they got the canon of “God-breathed” scripture right. Why do they blindly follow the Church’s decision on which books belonged in scripture, but not their decision regarding the Immaculate Conception?

Sorry but the truthfullness of the magisterium gets stretched passed the breaking point when it claims the Immaculate Conception has always been believed and then we find church controversies brewing over the concept of the Immaculate Conception a thousand years later, when the Dominicans and the Franciscans were at each other’s throats over the issue. At the time, the “infallible authority” remained silent, following a middle course between the two sides.

** As late as the nineteenth century we find the Roman Catholic bishop Milner saying, **

"The Church does not decide the controversy concerning the 
Conception of the Blessed Virgin, and several other disputed 
points, because she sees nothing clear and certain concerning 
them either in the written or unwritten Word, and therefore 
leaves her children to form their own opinions concerning them 
(cited in Salmon, The Infallibility of the Church, p. 182"

 

[SyCarl]

Wow, what stubborn Protestant resistance this always manages to bring out… it never ceases to amaze me.

Then they bring out the “sola scriptura” defense, as if that notion wasn’t self-refuting enough. Basically, you can’t listen to the Church when they declared the Immaculate Conception, BUT somehow they got the canon of “God-breathed” scripture right. Why do they blindly follow the Church’s decision on which books belonged in scripture, but not their decision regarding the Immaculate Conception?

Well quite simply the Immaculate Conception was dogmatically defined in 1854. What was the situation before 1854? Did God suddenly change what had to be believed in 1854 and if so why? If He did not change what had to be believed, and it was always necessary to believe it, why did the Church wait until 1854 to define it? Would the Church not have failed people who lived before the definition and did not hold the precise doctrine defined, as Thomas Aquinas didn’t?

 

[exoflare]

Sorry but the truthfullness of the magisterium gets stretched passed the breaking point when it claims the Immaculate Conception has always been believed and then we find church controversies brewing over the concept of the Immaculate Conception a thousand years later,

Yes, people have free will and aren’t forced to believe what the Church states as true. New heresies arise all the time. Does this surprise you?

Please tell us how this reasoning of yours mysteriously excludes the fact that Christ’s divinity wasn’t infallibly declared until the Council of Nicea (when numerous debates started to surface)? This teaching must not have been true, then, right?

 

[SyCarl]

Yes, people have free will and aren’t forced to believe what the Church states as true. New heresies arise all the time. Does this surprise you?

Please tell us how this reasoning of yours mysteriously excludes the fact that Christ’s divinity wasn’t infallibly declared until the Council of Nicea (when numerous debates started to surface)? This teaching must not have been true, then, right?

The divinity of Christ was defined by Scripture before the Council of Nicea. In fact, the writers of the New Testament show that the divinity of the Messiah could be found in the Old Testament.

 

[kaycee]

Yes, people have free will and aren’t forced to believe what the Church states as true. New heresies arise all the time. Does this surprise you?

Please tell us how this reasoning of yours mysteriously excludes the fact that Christ’s divinity wasn’t infallibly declared until the Council of Nicea (when numerous debates started to surface)? This teaching must not have been true, then, right?

The analogy is not very applicable. Christ’s divinity is IN the Bible and mentioned repeatedly as opposed to the IC.

 

[exoflare]

Well quite simply the Immaculate Conception was dogmatically defined in 1854. What was the situation before 1854? Did God suddenly change what had to be believed in 1854 and if so why? If He did not change what had to be believed, and it was always necessary to believe it, why did the Church wait until 1854 to define it?

Kind of like I said just a moment ago…

Read the above, except replace “Immaculate Conception” with “Divinity of Christ”, and “1854” with “325”. Hilarity ensues.

 

[Mannyfit75]

Well quite simply the Immaculate Conception was dogmatically defined in 1854. What was the situation before 1854? Did God suddenly change what had to be believed in 1854 and if so why? If He did not change what had to be believed, and it was always necessary to believe it, why did the Church wait until 1854 to define it? Would the Church not have failed people who lived before the definition and did not hold the precise doctrine defined, as Thomas Aquinas didn’t?

The dogma itself is not the means of salvation but they are ought to believe it in. In those people who did not know any better, or didn’t understand it, it would be left up to God’s mercy. Thomas Aquinas believed that Mary all her life was spotless. The sources of the Immaculate Conception is founded in Patristic sources or writings of the Early Church Fathers. This was not new. It was a common belief like I said before.

If you have any questions please refer to this website.

scripturecatholic.com

I know you want to seek the answers concerning this dogma, and have a difficult time grasping it. It is difficult because you are seeing this in a Protestant point of view. Pray to the Holy Spirit to help you understand.

I do hope that you don’t end up like kaycee who is well known for his Extremist Anti-Catholic views. I do hope you approach this doctrine with deep understanding, like ALLFORHIM, and happygal, two of the most respected Protestants in CAF… not to mention Daniel Marsh, and Curious.

 

[exoflare]

The analogy is not very applicable. Christ’s divinity is IN the Bible and mentioned repeatedly as opposed to the IC.

Well then there wouldn’t have been any debate on it if it were so “clear”, now, would there?

Besides, as I said before, you have no basis for determining what belongs in the Bible to begin with (oh yeah, it was another one of those evil Church councils…). To cite the “Bible” as your authority here would be circular reasoning.

 

[Good_Fella]

“Our era is the era of the Immaculata…The infernal serpent shows his head
all over the world; but Mary will crush him and win decisive victory even though he
constantly seeks to bite her heel.” [St. Maximilan Kolbe]

These words of the saint are realized by the fact that today Satan is earnestly trying
to blot Mary out of Holy Scriptures altogether. Modern bibles used by Protestants,
and maybe even Catholics, have erroneously altered many passages concerning
the Mother of God, de-emphasizing her role in God’s plan of salvation. For instance,
the expression used by the angel Gabriel when he addressed Mary not by her own name,
“Hail full of grace, the Lord is with you,” has been changed to “Rejoice, highly favored
daughter.” Mary is presented as just another Judith, Deborrah, and Esther, who had in fact
prefigured someone greater than themselves: “The Lord has done great things for me and holy is
his name!” But these blessed daughters of Jerusalem were never “full of grace”; nor were
they totally opposed to the offspring of Satan -original sin- in their highly favoured state.For they
had no intrinsic role in the promise of Christ’s redemption to undo the disobedience of Eve. By
the goading of Eve, Adam completed the Fall. By the “Fiat” of the new Eve, the new Adam re-
opened the gates of paradise. Through Mary God has restored our original state of innocence,
consummated by her Son’s death on the cross.

Similarily, in most modern bibles the second part of Genesis 3:15 has been changed to
“…he will bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.” The new wording downplays
Mary’s role in God’s plan of salvation. Her person and place has been obscured. She is
presented less clearly as envisioned by the Church Fathers. Observe the translation
from the Latin Vulgate by St. Jerome: …“she (ipsa) will crush your head, and you will lie
in wait for his heel.” The King James Version, produced by men who were not inspired
by the Holy Spirit, reads “…it shall bruise thy head, and thou shall bruise his heel.”
The first person feminine pronoun has been removed, which undermines Mary’s
participation in our redemption. Modern scholars and Protestant Bible experts often
use “he” or “it” although Mary is clearly referred to in this passage. They ignore
and alter the usage of “she” against the wishes of the early Church Doctors and
the great mariologists of the Catholic Church: St.Alphonsus de Liguori, St. Louis de
Montfort, and St. Maximilan Kolbe.

In the Catholic tradition, the Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome stands alone among Catholic
bibles, reading “ipsa” or “she”. We should note that the Latin Vulgate was the official
translation during the Vatican ll Council. The Greek and Hebrew versions do not hold
this distinction. The Council of Trent declared, “…that this same old and Vulgate edition,
which has been approved by being used in the same Church for so many ages, should
be accounted authentic…and that no one should dare or presume to reject it under any
pretext whatsoever.” St. Augustine adds, “I would not believe the Gospel were I not moved
thereto by the authority of the Catholic Church.” Thus St. Alphonsus contends
that we should hold to the Vulgate: “We -Catholics especially- should hold dear to
the word “she” for [Mary] is our Mother.”

 

[down_under]

To say Mary was sinless and saved at conception is a wild guess based on human maternal fondness.

Actually it is an article of the faith called a dogma pronounced so by the catholic church from the very beginning. maintained for centuries and then affirmed by the pope in the immaculate conception doctrine. We still have the building where a late first century early second century person carved into the side of it. “The holy place of Mary.” This is not centamentality it is a christian teaching that has been held for 2000 years. affirmed by and argued by the very earliest christians.

P.S. Christ was a human being. So in a very real way he was the author and subject to human maternal bonds. How could he not honor his mother and father. Its a commandment.

 

[Mannyfit75]

Actually it is an article of the faith called a dogma pronounced so by the catholic church from the very beginning. maintained for centuries and then affirmed by the pope in the immaculate conception doctrine. We still have the building where a late first century early second century person carved into the side of it. “The holy place of Mary.” This is not centamentality it is a christian teaching that has been held for 2000 years. affirmed by and argued by the very earliest christians.

P.S. Christ was a human being. So in a very real way he was the author and subject to human maternal bonds. How could he not honor his mother and father. Its a commandment.

…and he is and always is God. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was believed in the beginning, it was not made up, and that is why so many early Christians refer to Mary as the Ark… pure spotless like her son. Mary is Immaculate from the moment of her conception… Jesus love his mother, most of the objections from Protestants to me seems to imply that Jesus doesn’t love his mother for denying the assumption and the Immaculate Conception… sad… sad… its truly sad that Protestants ignore Mary…

 

[SORROWS]

…and he is and always is God. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was believed in the beginning, it was not made up, and that is why so many early Christians refer to Mary as the Ark… pure spotless like her son. Mary is Immaculate from the moment of her conception… Jesus love his mother, most of the objections from Protestants to me seems to imply that Jesus doesn’t love his mother for denying the assumption and the Immaculate Conception… sad… sad… its truly sad that Protestants ignore Mary…

Mannyfit-

You will be greatly rewarded in Heaven for your constant defense of Our Lords Mother, the Blessed Virgin.
Our greatest Saints had a great devotion to her as did our beloved Pope John Paul II.
Thank you fellow Catholics for your unwavering love for Our Heavenly Mother. She is always there for us and we are there for her.

 

[Good_Fella]

Both St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure believed that Mary was completely
without sin, but that she was not given this grace at the moment of her conception.
However, Aquinas said that he would accept the official determination of the Church
concerning this doctrine. He would certainly have accepted and approved of the Apostolic
Constitution ‘Ineffabilis Deus’ of Pope Pius lX if he had been alive at the time of its solemn
promulgation. Aquinas was humbly aware that he was simply a fallible theologian in his speculations.

 

[Techno2000]

Hi all!

I am not yet a Catholic, but I do have this one nagging question for which I hope I might find some help. I still cannot get my head around the necessity for the doctrine of Mary being conceived without sin.

My initial objection always seems to be the same: if the reason for Mary being without Original Sin is that only in this way would Jesus be born without Original Sin, then in order for Mary to be born without OS, Anne should have been born without it as well. But by this line of logic, it would extend all the way back to a point where a denial of Original Sin is happening.

Please help, as I am unsure as to whether or not I fully understand the doctrine, much less how to understand explaining it.

Thanks very much!

Here something you should learn about as a Catholic :

When Bernadette asked her vision for a name, Mary replied, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”
catholicpilgrims.com/lourdes/bd_lourdes_apparitions.htm

 

[Good_Fella]

Sycarl, the length of time it took for the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception
to be solemnly defined as dogma is not a question of whether God had changed his mind.
The answer why it took so long is simply “development”. Just as the doctrine of the Trinity,
the hypostatic union of two natures in Christ, and canon of Holy Scripture had taken centuries,
so also the Marian dogmas. The Gospels explicitly reveal the existence of the Trinity in the
words of Christ, as the two natures of Christ are also revealed in our Lord’s words. That Mary
was conceived without original sin is implicitly revealed in the Bible: Genesis 3:15 and Luke 1:28.

Before any doctrine can be solemnly defined, it must have solid ground to stand on. The dogma
of the Mother of God (Theotokos), for instance, developed in the early Church and was finally
defined and infallibly promulgated at the Council of Ephesus (431AD). Yet the Church first needed to know and define that Jesus Christ was a divine person, God, before this Marian dogma was established 106 years later. Likewise, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception could not be defined as dogma until the concepts of original sin and grace were fully developed.

Concerning development, Catholic theologians distinguish three stages in the progressive
awareness of revealed divine truths: implicit acceptance, an indefinite period of discussion
and controversy in which the precise meaning is being clarified, and the solemn definition.
In the life of the Catholic Church the first stage concerning the Immaculate Conception is
belief in the unique graces and privileges of Mary being the Mother of God, ever-virgin
and all-holy as the new Eve; the second stage is the controversy with Bernard’s opposition
to the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (There was opposition in the Church over the
canonization of the Book of Revelations.); and the third stage is the solemn definition
contained in the Apostolic Constitution of Pope Pius lX, ‘Ineffabilis Deus’.

In the formulation of all her doctrines and the promulgations of all her dogmas, the Church
is enlightened and guided by the Holy Spirit.

“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always,
the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows
it. The Advocate, the holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name - he will teach you
everything and remind you of all that I told you.” [John 14:16-17, 26]

 

[Good_Fella]

“I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.
But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you
to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak
what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are
coming.” [John 16:12-13]

 

[LilyM]

Here something you should learn about as a Catholic :

When Bernadette asked her vision for a name, Mary replied, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”
catholicpilgrims.com/lourdes/bd_lourdes_apparitions.htm

More important was that Bernadette was an uneducated young peasant girl who hadn’t been TAUGHT about the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception - didn’t even know what the phrase meant! (This was only four years after the Immaculate Conception had been proclaimed as dogma).

 

[JoeyWarren]

According to Jane according to Ole Charlie Boy:

“… ‘The whole world is gone after him.’ Did all the world go after Christ? ‘Then went all Judea, and were baptized of him in Jordan.’ Was all Judea, or all Jerusalem baptized in Jordan? ‘Ye are of God, little children’, and ‘the whole world lieth in the wicked one.’ Does ‘the whole world’ there mean everybody? If so, how was it, then, that there were some who were ‘of God?’ The words ‘world’ and ‘all’ are used in some seven or eight senses in Scripture; and it is very rarely that ‘all’ means all persons, taken individually. The words are generally used to signify that Christ has redeemed some of all sorts—some Jews, some Gentiles, some rich, some poor, and has not restricted his redemption to either Jew or Gentile.” (Charles H. Spurgeon, Particular Redemption, A Sermon, 28 Feb 1858).

Jane also said: The Biblical usage of the word “all” as you have cited in Romans 3:23 does not require the “no individual exception” rule which many Protestants insist it does.

For, “all,” or the Greek “pas,” to mean “every single one with no exception” would require that Jesus Christ, God Himself, being fully Man, would have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. In the same way, for “all” to mean “every single person, no exception”, one would have to accept this passage applies even to newborn babies who die without having actually sinned.

Instead, “pas” or “all,” actually can refer to a general sense as in the case of many Biblical passages. Charles Spurgeon, the 19th century Baptist preacher, clarifies:

I will add to this. Spurgeon must have well aware of the usages of all and the underlying Greek of the word.

all appears in 1130 times in 982

the 3 words are pas, holos, and hapas.

Only one of these means “All without exception” or “Absolutely All”

**G537 **ἅπας hapas *hap’-as
From G1 (as a particle of union) and G3956; absolutely all or (singular) every one: - all (things), every (one), whole.

The other two words used lack this absolutely all quality.
*
And it’s not Pas. It is Hapas. The Greek Stem Ha gives the word it’s “absoluteness” or “without exception” nature.

Hapas is used 44 times in 43 verses.

Paul only uses it once and guess what?

It’s not in this => Romans 3:23

but this Eph 6:13

Paul uses pas 450 times in 360 verses.

Paul uses the “ABSOLUTELY ALL” only once.

 

[Renton405]

No it does not. If it did it would include Jesus as well. The word for all is pas which is not “all without exception” or “absolutely all”. The Paul had used the Greek word “Hapas” instead, then your interpretation would be correct but that would include the Human nature of Christ as well. “Hapas” is the only one of the words used in the Greek that has a definition of “all without exception” or “absolutely all”

No, she did not acknowledge she NEEDED a savior. She acknowledged that she was ALREADY saved and she acknowledged who her SAVIOR is, that being GOD.
We have. The Greek Lexicon uses only the ROOT of the actual word used. Strong’s numbers are misleading. He intends you to believe that the actual Greek word used is charito. See the above post on the treatment of the word that is found in the Greek.

You also need to remember the protoevangelum of James… Which was written in the 1st Century… Lotsa good into on Mary that you would like to know

Origen

“The Book [the Protoevangelium] of James [records] that the brethren of Jesus were sons of Joseph by a former wife, whom he married before Mary. Now those who say so wish to preserve the honor of Mary in virginity to the end, so that body of hers which was appointed to minister to the Word . . . might not know intercourse with a man after the Holy Spirit came into her and the power from on high overshadowed her. And I think it in harmony with reason that Jesus was the firstfruit among men of the purity which consists in [perpetual] chastity, and Mary was among women. For it were not pious to ascribe to any other than to her the firstfruit of virginity” (Commentary on Matthew 2:17 [A.D. 248]).

Augustine

“In being born of a Virgin who chose to remain a Virgin even before she knew who was to be born of her, Christ wanted to approve virginity rather than to impose it. And he wanted virginity to be of free choice even in that woman in whom he took upon himself the form of a slave” (Holy Virginity 4:4 [A.D. 401]).

“It was not the visible sun, but its invisible Creator who consecrated this day for us, when the Virgin Mother, fertile of womb and integral in her virginity, brought him forth, made visible for us, by whom, when he was invisible, she too was created. A Virgin conceiving, a Virgin bearing, a Virgin pregnant, a Virgin bringing forth, a Virgin perpetual. Why do you wonder at this, O man?” (Sermons 186:1 [A.D. 411]).

"Heretics called Antidicomarites are those who contradict the perpetual virginity of Mary and affirm that after Christ was born she was joined as one with her husband" (Heresies 56 [A.D. 428]).