Feast of the Immaculate Conception — Homily by Fr. Ermatinger

Translation of the Epistle for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception

The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His ways, before He made anything, from the beginning. I was set up from eternity, and of old, before the earth was made. The depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived; neither had the fountains of waters as yet sprung out; the mountains with their huge bulk had not as yet been established: before the hills I was brought forth; He had not as of yet made the earth, nor the rivers, nor the poles of the world. When He prepared the heavens, I was present; when with a certain law and compass He enclosed the depths; when He established the sky above, and poised the fountains of waters; when He compassed the sea with its bounds, and set a law to the waters that they should not pass their limits; when He balanced the foundations of the earth; I was with Him, forming all things, and was delighted every day, playing before Him at all times, playing in the world: and my delight is to be with the children of men. Now therefore, children, hear me: blessed are they that keep my ways. Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not. Blessed is the man that hears me, and who watches daily at my gates, and waits at the posts of my doors. He that shall find me, shall find life, and shall have salvation from the Lord.

Continuation of the Holy Gospel According to St. Luke

At that time: the Angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee, called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David: and the virgin’s name was Mary. And when the Angel had come to her, he said: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.

The Saving Words of the Gospel. 

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Transcription of Homily

Hail, full of grace.

Several figures in Scripture are called “full of grace”. In Acts Chapter Six, right before the martyrdom of St. Stephen, he’s called, πλήρης χάριτος (pleres charitos) – “full of grace”. Our Lord in John’s Prologue is referred to as “full of grace”. It says, From His fullness, we have received πληρώματος… χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος (pleromatos… charin anti charitos) – grace upon grace. From His fullness, we have received grace upon grace. And then, we have this here title of Our Lady “Hail Full of Grace”. And these are three different usages. Even though in English they may sound the same, they’re not the same. 

In the case of Stephen, he was πλήρης χάριτος; it’s an adjective. So, it’s a description of him in a state of grace, he obviously received special grace for martyrdom. So, we know that a child baptized is, in a certain sense, full of grace in that it’s in a state of grace. But the Council of Trent is pretty clear to tell us that as we progress through the spiritual life, the degree of grace can increase or decrease, or if we have the misfortune of committing mortal sin, we lose it all. And then, there are particular graces for certain missions. No doubt, Stephen received a grace of martyrdom at the time to not fail in the time of trial.

Christ, though, is not merely full of grace. He is the source of grace. And it says, From His fullness, we have all received grace upon grace. He is the source of all grace. He is the Godhead. He is the Word made flesh, the Son of the Father born in the womb of a mother that He made, as Fulton Sheen said, And He made her just as nice as He could.

God had the opportunity to create His own mother. How is He going to cheat Himself out of the best? And so, this title that Our Lady is addressed by. And so, this is not just an adjective, this is a title, it’s a past participle, κεχαριτωμένη (Cheharitomene). And it’s a past participle, and in this form, this Greek form, it means something that has happened in the past and perdures into the present. And so, what does this κεχαριτωμένη mean? It means that “You, who have been filled with grace.” That’s what he’s calling her; as one word, as a title. “You who have been filled with grace and continue to be so.” And so, this is not being merely in a state of grace, this is the fullness, this is a perfection of grace. “You who have been filled,” this fullness regards perfection. Perfection means there is no interruption, there is no lack, there was never a moment in her existence when she was not full of grace, she never lost it and never would. So, this is a singular grace, this is a singular gift that only the Blessed Virgin Mary received. 

There are other figures who were conceived in grace in Scripture. Adam and Eve, for example, conceived in grace. God brought them into existence, as the Church states, in a state of not only supernatural grace but also with all of the actual graces that they needed to overcome the trial that would come their way. And along with the grace, the actual grace and the habitual grace that they had, they also had the preternatural gifts, which means they had infused knowledge. They had a clarity that escapes us. They had ordered faculties, ordered passions. They didn’t have a will that wanted something and another like saying, “Well, you know, you really shouldn’t. They didn’t have that. This type of internal division, this schizophrenia that we all experience as a result of original sin. They were also immortal. Imagine too, their entire being, their imagination, their memory, their intellectual faculties, everything that has to do with their cognitive faculties, their will, their passions, their desires, everything was, by nature and by supernature, ordered towards worship of the Godhead; everything in them.

And so, when Satan comes to them in Chapter 3 of Genesis, these two first parents of ours are put to the test, and they fail. Imagine the violence they had to do to themselves in order to disobey God. This was not about fruit; this was not about ‘what does that taste like?’ This was a rebellion against the One who had created them. And the nature of the temptation was an insidious suggestion that God was just like you, and then He ate the fruit. “Once you eat the fruit, you’ll be just like him, and His little secret will be known.” So, it was an attack on trust.

Every temptation in a certain sense is an attack on trust. Do I believe the will of God or something less? Well, you know, how that goes after the Fall. Then we’ve got the rest of Scripture which is God trying to put Adam’s family back together again, and it’s a long process and not always felicitous.

But, His plan starts some verses later in Chapter 3 Verse 15 of Genesis where He says, And I, and he tells Satan, I will put enmity between you and the woman. This woman doesn’t exist yet except in the first conception, which was in the concept of God’s mind. I will put enmity between you and the woman. This enmity, then, perhaps escapes us in terms of the gravity of the term. But to be an absolute enemy of Satan means that their sin is not part of the program. It wouldn’t make sense for the New Eve to fall into sin, or to be created in sin, because then there wouldn’t be enmity. This would be going against Scripture. This would be going against the mind of God. He doesn’t do that. We do that. He doesn’t do that. He’s not capable of going against His own will. and that’s not an imperfection.

When England was shook by the conversion of John Henry Newman, this intellectual giant in the Anglican Church, when he became Catholic, this was something of a theological institutional earthquake for all of England. He became Catholic. And then shortly after, his conversion, Pius IX, publishes his encyclical on the Immaculate Conception, and that’s when they chose to jump on Cardinal Newman, saying, “Oh, you believe this? You believe this?” And one His former friends, who is an Anglican minister, Pusey, wrote a scathing indictment against Newman and the supposed beliefs of the Catholics. I recommend you read “The Letter to Pusey,” P -U -S -E -Y, by John Henry Newman. And he gives an incredible, beautiful, clear defense of Catholic belief with regard to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

–> Click Here for “The Letter to Pusey”<–

In a few words though, he says, ‘To be Catholic, as I am, is to be immersed in history. It’s because I studied the Fathers that I realized that the Catholic Church is the Church that Christ founded.’ And he said, with regard to Mary, ‘The earliest Christian writers, Tertullian, Irenaeus, first-generation Christian Father, Catholic Church Father, Irenaeus, and Justin Martyr, all spoke of Mary in terms of the New Eve. She is the Woman. She is the Woman between whom there is enmity between Satan and her.’

And so, he says, ‘This is not my own idea. This is not something the Church invented. This is the belief of the Church, and it came from Christ to the Apostles, to the first generation of Church Fathers who have expounded on this. This is not something that I’ve come up with.’

I think that many have a hard time understanding sinlessness because we’ve lost a sense of sin, when we start to understand sin for what it is as an assault on one who is so good. But not only that, that when it is a grave sin, especially in certain areas, the first and the sixth commandment, for example, we submit ourselves to a personal demon that promotes that vice. And there is a bond, a personal bond that’s forged. Whether we know it or not, whether we intend it or not, whether we like it or not, that is the reality. When we go to Confession, we’re forgiven, but that bond with that personal demon is not necessarily severed. That is something to you over time, through much prayer, much penance, and lots of time in front of the Blessed Sacrament, which allows us to reorient our intellectual faculties, our heart, our passions, our entire being to God, as they ought to be, after the horrible damage that we’ve done to our souls through sin. And so, to extricate ourselves from that infernal relationship is not such an easy thing always.

How could the Mother of God have been subject to a relationship like that? How could the Mother of God have subjected herself to sin and therefore to demons? God wouldn’t allow it. God didn’t allow it.

Remember too that in Apocalypse Chapter 12 the Blessed Mother is revealed as the Ark of the Covenant. So, what was the first Ark of the Covenant? That was what bore three things, the Law, the Rod of Aaron, which signifies the priesthood, and some leftovers of the manna that God used to feed the Jews in the desert. And so, this first Ark of the Covenant was a prefiguring of the true Ark, which is the Blessed Virgin Mary, who would bear within herself the New Law who is Christ, sealed in His blood. He is the new priesthood. He is also the Bread of Life.

And remembering Chronicles, that not-so-happy scene where they’re moving the Ark of the Covenant on a cart. The donkey pulling the cart loses its footing and the Ark starts to slide. Uza, with the best of intentions,. seeks to stop the Ark from falling off the cart. And what happens? He’s struck dead because he touched the Ark. And that was just a prefiguring of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This sinlessness of the Blessed Virgin Mary is not something negative. It speaks of a superabundance of grace that her Lord gave her in extraordinary preparation for her mission as Ark of the Covenant, as Mother of God.

And that’s how John Henry Newman concludes his argument that because Adam and Eve were created in grace and received special actual graces in order to overcome the test, the Blessed Mother’s mission was so much greater than that of Adam and Eve, that she received still more graces than they had. And therefore, what Our Lord did for Himself by giving Him a mother like this, in a certain sense He did for us by sharing her with us.

And today we celebrate her great feast, and we thank Our Lord for sharing such a beautiful mother with us, who made her just as nice as He could.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son, the Holy Ghost.  Amen.

~Fr. Ermatinger