Question about Immaculate Conception

[JohnStrachan]

If it is really important that Mary was born without the stain of original sin, why not the same for her parents?

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Mary needed to be born without original sin because she was going to carry God in her womb.

Mary is not God; her mother Anne didn’t need to be free of original sin to carry Mary in her womb.

 

[SMHW]

As Tis_Bearself said, St. Anne didn’t need to be free from sin to bear Mary. And St. Joachim didn’t need to be sinless for Mary to be sinless.

If Mary’s parents needed to be sinless, then wouldn’t her grandparents also need to be? And her great-grandparents? And so on?

As for Mary needing to be sinless… Well, God could have come up with some different way to redeem humanity other than having Jesus die on a cross. But as it was God’s plan for Jesus to be born and die, it was likewise proper that a woman freely chose to cooperate with this plan. Mary needed to be sinless to make a perfectly free choice. And it is only proper and fitting that Son of God was conceived and born from a sinless woman.

 

[JohnStrachan]

Mary needed to be sinless to make a perfectly free choice.

I thought God gave us all free will? Why is my free choice any different then Mary’s?

 

[Cor_ad_Cor]

This isn’t really about free will. I’m not sure what the other poster was referring to; it’s really about having a pure vessel to bear the Holy of Holies. (Remember what Jesus said about new wine in old skins?)

 

[stpurl]

You and I, and everybody but Mary, have the stain of original sin on our souls. That does not in itself mean that after baptism any one of us couldn’t live a sinless life if we chose, it just means that we are affected by the Fall and are predisposed to, well, continuing falling (into sin). Predisposing however does not mean ‘it will invariably happen’.

Adam and Eve were created, however, without original sin. They sinned anyway. So Mary’s creation without original sin did not guarantee she would not sin.

BUT Mary’s creation without sin gave her the opportunity to be ‘the new Eve’, the one whose ‘obedience’ perfectly canceled out Eve’s disobedience, just as Jesus, the new Adam, perfect canceled out Adam’s greater sin of not just disobedience but of failure to protect humanity in the person of his wife, who for him was the person most closely connected to him. Adam had no mother nor sibling. Jesus came into the world also with only one person connected to humanity through Him–His mother. Jesus had no siblings and no wife.

The symmetry is compelling.

 

[Wesrock]

SMHW:

Mary needed to be sinless to make a perfectly free choice.

I thought God gave us all free will? Why is my free choice any different then Mary’s?

It is said that we become slaves to sin for a reason.

Grace enables us to choose the good. We can’t, otherwise. Grace fixes what is broken about free will in us. Even so, you and I still have certain attachments to sin which cause reservations in us. Mary’s assent because she was Immaculately Conceived was without any reservation due to attachment to sin at all.

Regarding what I say of free will, consider these pronouncements of the Council of Orange:

CANON 1. If anyone denies that it is the whole man, that is, both body and soul, that was “changed for the worse” through the offense of Adam’s sin, but believes that the freedom of the soul remains unimpaired and that only the body is subject to corruption, he is deceived by the error of Pelagius and contradicts the scripture which says, “The soul that sins shall die” (Ezek. 18:20); and, “Do you not know that if you yield yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are the slaves of the one whom you obey?” (Rom. 6:126); and, “For whatever overcomes a man, to that he is enslaved” (2 Pet. 2:19).

CANON 7. If anyone affirms that we can form any right opinion or make any right choice which relates to the salvation of eternal life, as is expedient for us, or that we can be saved, that is, assent to the preaching of the gospel through our natural powers without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who makes all men gladly assent to and believe in the truth, he is led astray by a heretical spirit, and does not understand the voice of God who says in the Gospel, “For apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5), and the word of the Apostle, “Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God” (2 Cor. 3:5).

CANON 13. Concerning the restoration of free will. The freedom of will that was destroyed in the first man can be restored only by the grace of baptism, for what is lost can be returned only by the one who was able to give it. Hence the Truth itself declares: “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).