I. Adam and Eve came into existence immaculate, in the state of grace. This was to have been the birthright of humanity; but Adam, at the suggestion of Satan, chose the lower state of mere natural existence, and so lost the power of transmitting what He had rejected. Thenceforth all men are born defective, deprived of supernatural life; and in that fallen state they resemble Satan in his inaptitude for God and propension towards evil. This privation of grace and the higher life is the state of original sin. From this the Blessed Virgin was preserved. She was antecedently liable to it, as being descended by ordinary generation from Adam. She was saved by the Redemption, as we are, but in a better way, by prevention, and not by cure. No act of hers nor of her parents, but the intervention of the merits of her Divine Son, saved her from the torrent which was about to descend upon her. She came into life then, like Adam and Eve, adorned with sanctifying grace, living the supernatural life, possessing God with her. This is her Immaculate Conception. Our Lady can say, and she alone: “I am clean and without sin; I am unspotted and there is no iniquity in me’’ (Job xxxiii. 9). Admire here the great goodness of God, the great power of the merits of Jesus, who is “wonderful in His saints’’ (Ps. Ixvii. 36), and most of all in His Mother.
II. Holy Scripture, in the most significant way, associates the woman with her Child in the triumph over Satan. At the moment of the fall God foretold a second struggle of a man and a woman, which was to retrieve the first struggle with the serpent. A second Adam was to take up that part of the task in which the first Adam had failed, and introduce the strain of supernatural life into the race. As Eve furnished the occasion for the sin of Adam, her sex was to be rehabilitated by the axction of another woman, who was to furnish the material body and blood to the Victim of the redeeming sacrifice. Christ reversed the destructive act of Adam, Mary reversed the co-operation of Eve in it. The woman shares in the enmity of her Child against the serpent and has a part in the crushing of his head. The enmity of Satan was not directed only against the Saviour, but “the dragon was angry against the woman’’; “and he persecuted the woman who brought forth the Man-child’’ (Apoc. xii. 17, 13). Thus strangely does God associate the creature with the work of the Creator, one of the redeemed ones with the Redeemer. No one may put asunder the woman and her Child thus joined together by God. “Christianity requires both the worship of Jesus and the veneration of His Mother. We need both His merits and her intercession.
III. The triumph over Satan is triumph over sin. Union with Jesus in that triumph is similarity to Him in sinlessness. This, even more than the material relationship, was the bond between Him who possessed the Divine Nature, and the Mother who was only human. It would not have reversed the disgrace of Eve if Mary had not been made equal to her at first, but only equal to Eve in her fallen state. The triumph of Our Lord would not have been absolutely stainless, if it could be said that He was the Son of one who had formerly been under the dominion of Satan and sin. The devil would have some compensation in defeat, if he could impugn the character of the Mother of his Conqueror. “But God foretold that the serpent could do no more than “lie in wait for her heel’’; and St. John further tells us how the woman escaped unharmed from all the snares of the dragon, through the protecting power of God (Apoc. xii). The Blessed Mother of God is, then, an impregnable bulwark against the power of hell, and is distinguished by her successful enmity against Satan, and his unchanging hate towards her. This indicates not only her dignity but her office. She is our natural protector. If we be on her side we shall be on the side of Jesus.
Part 2.
I. Science teaches us that, where there is an apparent gap in the chain of life, there must be some being which fills it. There was one important deficiency; there was no example of a simple human being who was sinless and full of grace. The only two who were so created hastened promptly to disembarrass themselves of the great privilege at the mere word of the tempter. The completeness of God’s work in Creation and Redemption required that there should be an example of what His grace was able to effect in human nature, a being that we could look up to as the ideal of simple creatures in the class below the Divine Man. Many had risen to great holiness by repentance for their sins, others by innocence which they never lost; Jeremias and John the Baptist had further been purified from sin before their birth. Still, in one remote corner of human life Satan had found a strong hold; all were, in the first moments of existence, subject to him by original sin. It was necessary in one case to drive him from that last retreat, and exhibit one being absolutely free from sin and full of all human perfection. For the glory of God, the Blessed Virgin was preserved from even the indeliberate inherited stain of sin; she was conceived immaculate. Honour her as the delight of the Almighty, the highest of His works, the fullest manifestation of His power and holiness, the example of perfect human life among mere creatures.
II. “There shall no evil come to thee, nor shall the scourge come near thy dwelling’’ (Ps. xc. 10). The dignity of the Son of God required that His Mother should be conceived immaculate. Sin is infinitely hateful to Jesus Christ; it is the direct contrary of God; its action on Him was death-dealing; there could be no possible fellowship between Christ and Belial. It is inconceivable that the Holy One of God could have been born of an ordinary sinful mother, that He could have assumed to His Divinity flesh and blood which had been infected with the horrible putrefaction of sin, that He could have dwelt in a tabernacle which had not been reserved for Him alone, but had been the dwelling-place of the abomination of desolation. The holiness which becometh the actual House of God should be something more than the patched-up sanctity which overlies a foundation of original corruption. Therefore He “set His tabernacle in the sun’’ (Ps. xviii. 6); in a place of brilliant purity. He prepared it for Himself in advance; not merely for a few days or years, but from the commencement of its existence. Learn hence how holy must be your soul if you would have Jesus to dwell in it. The smallest stain in it is loathsome to Him, and impedes the operation of His grace.
III. “Fear not: thou shalt not die; for this law is not made for thee, but for all others’’ (Esth. xv. 12, 13). These are the accents of generosity and love. Jesus could not begrudge His Mother the highest gift of His grace, and bestow it less on her than on His Precursor, Jeremias, and Adam and Eve. He could not cast His Mother to be the prey of the wolves of sin. God the Father had predestined her, the Holy Ghost had sanctified her as His spouse; God the Son could not but bestow this special grace upon His Mother. The magnificent generosity of God, who rewards eternally a cup of cold water given to a disciple, gave of necessity an immense grace to the Mother who gave Him the Precious Blood. How could He leave her a moment without supernatural life, who consented to give Him natural life? She gave herself entirely to Jesus, to co-operate in His work of Redemption, and thereby she merited to receive the first and greatest share in its fruits. The Immaculate Conception was a gift worthy of God; to withhold it would be an economy unworthy of a man and a son. Learn hence that if you be faithful to Jesus, He will grudge you nothing that is in His power to grant, and in your capacity to receive. Thank Him for encouraging you by His generosity to His Mother; rejoice at the high privilege that she was worthy to receive.
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