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Who are you, Immaculata?
An ancient belief of the Church, reflected in the writings of the early fathers, and celebrated as a feast day (December 8) since the 8th century, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception was infallibly defined in 1854 by Pope Pius IX:
“The Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, and in view of
the foreseen merits of Jesus Christ, the savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin.”
Defined as a dogma to settle the apparent conflict with the meaning of universal redemption through Christ, when a thirteenth century Franciscan, Blessed Duns Scotus, explained that the Immaculate Conception came through God’s application of the grace of Christ’s redemptive sacrifice beforehand.
Mary’s Immaculate Conception often occupied the imagination and writings of Father Kolbe:
“Who are you, O Immaculate Conception?
Not God, for God has no beginning. Not an angel directly created from nothing. Not Adam, made from the dust of the earth.
Not Eve,drawn from Adam’s body. Nor is she the Incarnate Word who already existed from all eternity and who was conceived,
but is not really a “conception.” Prior to their conception the children of Eve do not exist, hence they can more properly be called
“conceptions”; and yet you, O Mary, differ from them, too, because they are conceptions contaminated by original sin, whereas
you are the one and only Immaculate Conception.”
(Pg. 210, The Kolbe Reader, Fr, Anselem W. Romb, OFM Conv., 1987, Franciscan Marytown Press)
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