Immaculate Conception and Spiritual Genetics

In the Constitution Ineffabilis Deus of 8 December, 1854, Pope Pius IX pronounced and defined that the Blessed Virgin Mary "in the first instance of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin." Today the Church celebrates this event in salvation history with the feast of the Immaculate Conception. (BTW, in Mass this morning, I listened very carefully and not once did I hear Mary worshipped or exalted above her human, but special station in life.)

The idea of Mary's freedom from original sin since her conception is not new and the pronouncement of 1854 was the Church dogmatizing what had already been believed by the Church since the early Church Fathers. So it is not a novel doctrine created in 1854 that the Church's detractors often say. How can the Catholic Church make dogma? Only by Jesus handing the keys to Peter and giving him and his successors the authority to bind things on earth that will be bound in heaven. Now that's authority, but not man's. It is God's given to man through the transfer of the keys of the kingdom.(But that's the topic of another blog)

The Church Fathers came to the belief that Mary was preserved from sin through the merits of Christ on the Cross. Since God is not bound by our linear view of the passage of time, it is not too difficult to conceive that He could save her by his death on the Cross. All humans need the Savior and Mary is no exception. It's just the timing of which that doesn't fit into our finite construct of time and events. Christ has been the savior since the beginning of time and remains so eternally.

Now the Genetics of the Incarnation. God contributed His part, divine nature and Mary, the human part, the "carne". In genetics each parental contribution (gamete) carries the specific qualities and "nature" or genetic make up of the contributing parent. In order for Jesus to be truly human, he had to "inherit" a flesh component that carried the nature of his mother. In order to be divine, he had to "inherit" the divine nature of God the Father through the Holy Spirit. The fancy word for this is the Hypostatic Union. The Hypostatic Union is the union of the divine nature and the human nature in the one divine person of Jesus Christ.
Therefore, Mary's flesh could not have born the stain of original sin. Genetically speaking, she had to be sinless in order to contribute sinless flesh to Christ. To assume Mary was born with original sin would necessitate that she had to transmit this "sin nature" to her son. We know that this isn't the case and Christ is sinless, the perfect lamb of God. Therefore, Mary too had to be "sine macula" without stain of original sin; Immaculate. Non-Catholics believe we are exalting her to a divine status by using the title "Immaculate." This is not the case at all, but is a theological term based on sound reason and explained by "spiritual genetics."

Church Fathers and The Sinlessness of Mary

In refuting Pelagius St. Augustine declares that all the just have truly known of sin "except the Holy Virgin Mary, of whom, for the honour of the Lord, I will have no question whatever where sin is concerned" (De naturâ et gratiâ 36).

St. Ambrose (d.397) refers to the Blessed Virgin as "free from all stain of sin."

St. Severus, Bishop of Antioch (d.538) states: "She (Mary)...formed part of the human race, and was of the same essence as we, although she was pure from all taint and immaculate."

St. Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem (d.638), refers to Mary's pre-purification in this address to the Virgin: "You have found the grace which no one has received.... No one has been pre-purified besides you."

St. Andrew of Crete (d.740) tells us that the Redeemer chose "in all nature this pure and entirely Immaculate Virgin."

Theognostes of Constantinople (c.885) makes explicit reference to Mary's sanctification as taking place at the moment of conception: "It was fitting indeed that she who from the beginning had been conceived by a sanctifying action...should also have a holy death...holy, the beginning...holy, the end, holy her whole existence."

Genesis 3:15 and Luke 1:28 in Sacred Scripture are not "proof texts" for the doctrine but have provided the Church with evidence that points to this belief. The idea of Mary being the New Eve giving birth to the New Adam furthers the understanding of this dogma.

Proof From Reason from New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia:
There is an incongruity in the supposition that the flesh, from which the flesh of the Son of God was to be formed, should ever have belonged to one who was the slave of that arch-enemy, whose power He came on earth to destroy. Hence the axiom of Pseudo-Anselmus (Eadmer) developed by Duns Scotus, Decuit, potuit, ergo fecit, it was becoming that the Mother of the Redeemer should have been free from the power of sin and from the first moment of her existence; God could give her this privilege, therefore He gave it to her. Again it is remarked that a peculiar privilege was granted to the prophet Jeremiah and to St. John the Baptist. They were sanctified in their mother's womb, because by their preaching they had a special share in the work of preparing the way for Christ. Consequently some much higher prerogative is due to Mary. (A treatise of P. Marchant, claiming for St. Joseph also the privilege of St. John, was placed on the Index in 1833.) Scotus says that "the perfect Mediator must, in some one case, have done the work of mediation most perfectly, which would not be unless there was some one person at least, in whose regard the wrath of God was anticipated and not merely appeased."