Lesson

Mother of Jesus

(The True Feminine Mystique)

Peace be to you.

Did you ever think that there should be a feminine principle in religion?

Just suppose there was nothing about woman within religion. What a rightful protest we would hear.

All religions have a feminine principle.

I have on my desk a statue that was given to me by a former missionary in China. It is a statue of Quan Yen. Quan Yen, according to the Chinese legend, was a young princess who lived about 500 years before Christ and she wanted to dedicate her virginity to God and her father killed her. According to the legend, a tiger dragged her into hell, and she began pleading mercy for all of the inmates of hell; so disrupted hell, so introduced charity, that the devil ordered her out of hell. So she became to the Chinese, Quan Yen, the goddess of mercy. Probably just an oriental yearning for some great woman in religion.

Take the Moslems. Mohammed had a daughter whose name was Fatima. She died at a very early age and Mohammed mourned her deeply. And he wrote concerning her, “Of all the women in heaven, she is the most blessed next to Mary.”

Did you know that the Koran of the Moslems has over 40 verses in it concerning our blessed Mother? They believe in the Immaculate Conception. They believe in the virgin birth.

Then there are African people who believe in the tradition that when a son succeeds to a throne, the inauguration ceremonies consist of sitting on the lap of his mother.

In other words, he derives some authority from the maternal principle.

Take, for example, the great Latin poet Virgil, in his Fourth Decalogue, which has been called a Messianic poem. He has this line: “Smile, chaste woman, on thy infant boy with whom the Iron Age will pass away and the Golden Age when all the earth be born.” Then, going back to Homer, the great Greek poet who lived 1000 years before Christ, he threw into history the story of a defeated man and the sorrowful woman. The sorrowful woman, you remember, while her husband Ulysses was away on a voyage, she had many suitors and she said to each of them, “Just as soon as I finish weaving this garment, I will consider your plea.” And every night she always undid the stitches she put in during the day until her husband came back. No one could ever understand why this great poet should have made all history understand the defeated man and the sorrowful woman until there came a defeated man and a sorrowful woman, which brings us to the subject of the real feminine principle in religion.

I believe that all love begins with a dream.

I think every person has in his mind, in his heart, the image of the one he loves. It is made up of memories, thoughts, dreams, ideals, experiences. And then one day someone appears. It’s called “love at first sight”. It is not love at first sight. It is love at second sight. Every great love is a dream come true. Did you ever see a dream walking? Well, I did. And that is why love is very much like music. We hear music for the first time and we like it. Why? Because we already have that music inside of our own hearts.

Now when God became man, or when he willed it from the very creation of the world, he had a dream about a mother, the woman who would be his mother when he would take on flesh, could decide the time of his birth, circumstances, people, knew all of the details.

He thought of her long, long before she was born. She was the dream come true, the world’s first love.

Just suppose you could have made your own mother. Would you not have made her the most beautiful, kind woman in all the world?

Well, God could make his own mother.

God could make his own mother in somewhat the same way that artists can create. I suppose one of the most famous of all of the mothers’ paintings is Whistler’s. When someone complimented Whistler about his painting, he said, “Well, you know how it is. One tries to make one’s mommy just as good as one can.”

Immaculate Conception:

So Almighty God, who pre-existed his own mother, made her just as beautiful as God could. That is why she was immaculately conceived.

Now what does immaculate conception mean? It means simply that she was conceived without the stain of original sin.

One thing I cannot understand is why people today disbelieve in the Immaculate Conception, because most people today believe they are without sin. Therefore, they are all immaculately conceived.

The Immaculate Conception does not mean that our blessed Lady did not need to be redeemed like you and I did. It merely meant that from the moment of her conception she was immune from the stain of sin.

And was not this fitting? You have a distinguished visitor announced at your home; do you not sweep the front hall?

Well, if God was going to enter this world, do you not think that he should come into portals that were rather clean?

God’s paradise for man:

Look at all the trouble that God went to, to make a paradise for man, just in order to celebrate the first nuptials of man and woman. Well, here is a new paradise, not the paradise of creation but the paradise of the incarnation, and should he not therefore make this garden much more beautiful? Should it not be a garden in which there would not grow a single weed of sin, over whose portals the name of evil could never be written, and this paradise of the incarnation to be gardened by the Adam new was our blessed Lady, the feminine principle in religion.

Annunciation:

When the time therefore came, God sent out an angel from the great white throne of light. The angel descended down over the plains of Hebron and came to a humble virgin kneeling in prayer and said, “Hail, full of grace”, (1) which means, “The Lord love you”, and asked that chosen woman if she would give to God a human nature. And she said, “Be it done to me according to thy will.” (2) In Latin, it is “fiat”, = be it done.

There are three great fiats in the world.

Fiat lux – let there be light of creation.
Fiat voluntas tua – suffering on the cross.
Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum –“Be it done to me according to thy word,” the Annunciation, when Mary, in the name of us all said, “I allow you to come in to this world. I will be your reed. I will give you a human nature.”

And so, God took upon himself in this cloistered garden a new nature. And from this woman Christ is born.

Wedding at Cana.

I need hardly tell you that there is no such thing as adoration of Mary. We have not made Mary important; it is our Lord that made her important.

And then, notice how he changed her role in relationship to us. Here we go to the marriage feast of Cana. This was at the beginning of the public life. Now at the marriage feast of Cana, our Blessed Lord came and brought along with him, from the Jordan, all of his disciples, and that is why I think the wine gave out. There were so many gatecrashers. You just can’t imagine a wedding ceremony in a wine country without providing enough wine. In any case, the wine gave out.

Now who is the first one to notice it? Our Blessed Mother. She knows our needs very often before we do.

And she said the simple prayer, “They have no wine.” (3) Now He gave a strange answer. He said, “Woman, what is that to me?”, (4) or, more in the original Greek, “What is mine is thine, my hour has not yet come.” (5)

Let us analyze this. ‘My Hour has not yet come”. Whenever our Blessed Lord used the word, ‘hour”, He always used it in relationship to His passion and His death – always.

For example, when they attempted to stone Him on two or three occasions, the gospel said His hour was not yet come. (6) When Judas came down to the garden to betray Him, our Lord said, “This is your hour, your hour, the hour of evil.”(7) The night of the Last Supper, “Father, the hour has come.” (8)

So, our Lord is saying to his mother, “The hour of my passion and death has not come. What do you want me to do? Do you want me to work my first miracle? Do you want me to prove that I am the expected Messiah, Christ, the Son of the living God? Do you realize that if I work this miracle and announce myself as the Christ and the Son of God that I will be sent to the cross? Do you want to be a mother that is sending your son to the battlefield? My dear mother, if that is what you intend to do, if you want me to begin now my public life and to usher in my death, my passion, my redemption of men, then your relation to me will change.

Up to this point in our private home life, you have been known as the mother of Jesus, but the moment that I begin my redemptive work, you will not just be my mother, you will be the mother of everyone whom I will redeem. Then you will be not just the mother of Jesus, then you will be the mother of all humanity, and I salute you. I call you now woman, the universal mother of the world.”

Three years pass, we come to the Cross.

In the middle of those three years, one day the blessed mother worried about His long night prayers and His all day preaching, was waiting in the crowd, and someone said, “Your mother waits,” (9) and our Blessed Lord said, “Who is my mother?” (10)

And then He said relationship is not of blood; in the new order, relationship is of the spirit. “He that doth the will of my father in heaven is my mother, my father, my brother, my sister.” (11)

Now we come to the cross. Our Lord looks down from the cross upon the two most precious creatures that He has on this earth, John and His mother. And He speaks first of all to His mother.

He does not call her ‘mother’. This is redemption, the hour has come. He says, “Woman”, – “woman”,(12) and inasmuch as a crown head could gesture, indicating John, he adds, “This is your son.” ,(13) He did not call John, John because if He called him John, he would have been just the son of Zebedee.
But leaving him unnamed, in his anonymity, John stood for all humanity.
So, our blessed mother is now made the mother of all humanity, and not in virtue of a metaphor or a figure of speech, but in virtue of the veritable pangs of childbirth.
Was she to have other children? Yes! But not according to the flesh; of the spirit.
John was the first of that long line in which we are added, millions and millions of sons and daughters.

And He said to John, “This is your mother.” ,(14) That’s why we love Our Lady. Our Blessed Lord made her our mother, the feminine principle in religion. And there is no such thing as doing her honor in a way to make us forget our Lord.

Suppose I visited your home. When I went into your home, I refused to talk to your mother. What would you think? You would not entertain me very long, would you? Well, do you think our Blessed Lord is going to think very kindly of us if we pay no attention to her?

Mary, the intercessor:

And we ask her to intercede for us because sometimes when we want a favor, we go to the mother of the one from whom we want the favor.

She has some very special powers of intercession.

We say the rosary.

Yes, a repetition of Our Father and Hail Mary, but that merely means when we love anyone we keep saying over and over again, “I love you”. Why do we say over and over again, “I love you”? Well, because it’s a new moment of time, it’s a new location in space.

And so, in the rosary we keep saying the Our Father and Hail Mary as a way of telling her, “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.” And her intercession is tremendous.

One day it seems that our blessed Lord was walking through the courts of heaven and He saw some souls that apparently got into heaven very easily, and He went to Peter. He said, “Peter, I have given to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. How did these souls gain entry into my kingdom?” Peter said, “Don’t blame me, Lord, every time I close a door, your mother opens a window.” And that’s the way, perhaps, some of us will get in, the open window. George Bernard Shaw said shortly before he died, “I think maybe His mother will let me in.”

So, we are her children, and as her children, we never grow up. And we say to her, in the lovely language of Mary Dixon Thayer,

“Lovely lady dressed in blue, teach me how to pray. God was just your little boy; tell me what to say. Did you lift Him up sometime, gently on your knee? Did you sing to Him, the way mother does to me? Did you ever try telling Him stories of the world, and oh, did He cry? Do you think He cares if I tell you things, just little things that happen? And do angels’ wings make a noise? Can He hear me if I speak low? Does He understand me now? Tell me, for you know. Lovely lady dressed in blue, teach me how to pray. God was just your little boy, and you know the way.” (15)

God love you.

Questions and Insights

1. In today’s lesson on – Mother of Jesus
what stood out the most to you?

2. Why do you think Bishop Sheen gave the subtitle “The True Feminine Mystique” to this lesson?

3. How would you explain to someone seeking a deeper understanding on the Church’s teaching on the Mother of Jesus.

4. Now that you have learned more about – Mother of Jesus
what changes do you think this will have in your daily life?

Catechism of the Catholic Church

484. “The Annunciation to Mary inaugurates ‘the fullness of time’,[Gal 4:4 .] the time of the fulfillment of God’s promises and preparations. Mary was invited to conceive him in whom the ‘whole fullness of deity’ would dwell ‘bodily’.[Col 2:9 .] The divine response to her question, ‘How can this be, since I know not man?’, was given by the power of the Spirit: ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you.'[Lk 1:34-35 (Greek).]”
485. “The mission of the Holy Spirit is always conjoined and ordered to that of the Son.[Cf. Jn 16:14-15 .] The Holy Spirit, ‘the Lord, the giver of Life’, is sent to sanctify the womb of the Virgin Mary and divinely fecundate it, causing her to conceive the eternal Son of the Father in a humanity drawn from her own.”
486. “The Father’s only Son, conceived as man in the womb of the Virgin Mary, is ‘Christ’, that is to say, anointed by the Holy Spirit, from the beginning of his human existence, though the manifestation of this fact takes place only progressively: to the shepherds, to the magi, to John the Baptist, to the disciples.[Cf. Mt 1:20 ; Mt 2:1-12 ; Lk 1:35 ; Lk 2:8-20 ; Jn 1:3 1-34 ; Jn 2:11 .] Thus the whole life of Jesus Christ will make manifest ‘how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power.'[Acts 10:38 .]”
723. “In Mary, the Holy Spirit fulfills the plan of the Father’s loving goodness. With and through the Holy Spirit, the Virgin conceives and gives birth to the Son of God. By the Holy Spirit’s power and her faith, her virginity became uniquely fruitful.[Cf. Lk 1:26-38 ; Rom 4:18-21 ; Gal 4:26-28 .] ”
724. “In Mary, the Holy Spirit manifests the Son of the Father, now become the Son of the Virgin. She is the burning bush of the definitive theophany. Filled with the Holy Spirit she makes the Word visible in the humility of his flesh. It is to the poor and the first representatives of the gentiles that she makes him known.[Cf. Lk 1:15-19 ; Mt 2:11 .] ”
725. “Finally, through Mary, the Holy Spirit begins to bring men, the objects of God’s merciful love,[Cf. Lk 2:14 .] into communion with Christ. And the humble are always the first to accept him: shepherds, magi, Simeon and Anna, the bride and groom at Cana, and the first disciples. ”
726. “At the end of this mission of the Spirit, Mary became the Woman, the new Eve (‘mother of the living’), the mother of the ‘whole Christ.'[Cf. Jn 19:25-27 .] As such, she was present with the Twelve, who ‘with one accord devoted themselves to prayer,'[Acts 1:14 .] at the dawn of the ‘end time’ which the Spirit was to inaugurate on the morning of Pentecost with the manifestation of the Church.”

(The Church and active example and type of the Church)
967. “By her complete adherence to the Father’s will, to his Son’s redemptive work, and to every prompting of the Holy Spirit, the Virgin Mary is the Church’s model of faith and charity. Thus she is a ‘preeminent and . . . wholly unique member of the Church’; indeed, she is the ‘exemplary realization’ (typus)[LG 53; 63.] of the Church.”

(The Church reaches towards perfection in Mary)
829. “‘But while in the most Blessed Virgin the Church has already reached that perfection whereby she exists without spot or wrinkle, the faithful still strive to conquer sin and increase in holiness. And so they turn their eyes to Mary’:[LG 65; Cf. Eph 5:26-27 .] in her, the Church is already the ‘all-holy.'”

(Mary, place in the mystery of the Church)
773. “In the Church this communion of men with God, in the ‘love (that) never ends,’ is the purpose which governs everything in her that is a sacramental means, tied to this passing world.[1 Cor 13:8 ; cf. LG 48.]
‘(The Church’s) structure is totally ordered to the holiness of Christ’s members. And holiness is measured according to the ‘great mystery’ in which the Bride responds with the gift of love to the gift of the Bridegroom.'[John Paul II, MD 27.] Mary goes before us all in the holiness that is the Church’s mystery as ‘the bride without spot or wrinkle.'[Eph 5:27 .] This is why the ‘Marian’ dimension of the Church precedes the ‘Petrine.'[Cf. John Paul II, MD 27.]”
963. “Since the Virgin Mary’s role in the mystery of Christ and the Spirit has been treated, it is fitting now to consider her place in the mystery of the Church. ‘The Virgin Mary . . . is acknowledged and honored as being truly the Mother of God and of the redeemer…. She is ‘clearly the mother of the members of Christ’ … since she has by her charity joined in bringing about the birth of believers in the Church, who are members of its head.'[LG 53; cf. St. Augustine, De virg. 6: PL 40,399.] ‘Mary, Mother of Christ, Mother of the Church.'[Paul VI, Discourse, November 21,1964.]”

964. “Mary’s role in the Church is inseparable from her union with Christ and flows directly from it. ‘This union of the mother with the Son in the work of salvation is made manifest from the time of Christ’s virginal conception up to his death’;[LG 57.] it is made manifest above all at the hour of his Passion:
Thus the Blessed Virgin advanced in her pilgrimage of faith, and faithfully persevered in her union with her Son unto the cross. There she stood, in keeping with the divine plan, enduring with her only begotten Son the intensity of his suffering, joining herself with his sacrifice in her mother’s heart, and lovingly consenting to the immolation of this victim, born of her: to be given, by the same Christ Jesus dying on the cross, as a mother to his disciple, with these words: ‘Woman, behold your son.'[LG 58; cf. Jn 19:26-27 .]”
965. “After her Son’s Ascension, Mary ‘aided the beginnings of the Church by her prayers.'[LG 69.] In her association with the apostles and several women, ‘we also see Mary by her prayers imploring the gift of the Spirit, who had already overshadowed her in the Annunciation.'[LG 59.]”
966. “‘Finally the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death.'[LG 59; cf. Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus (1950): DS 3903; cf. Rev 19:16.] The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin is a singular participation in her Son’s Resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians:
In giving birth you kept your virginity; in your Dormition you did not leave the world, O Mother of God, but were joined to the source of Life. You conceived the living God and, by your prayers, will deliver our souls from death.[Byzantine Liturgy, Troparion, Feast of the Dormition, August 15th.]”
967. “By her complete adherence to the Father’s will, to his Son’s redemptive work, and to every prompting of the Holy Spirit, the Virgin Mary is the Church’s model of faith and charity. Thus she is a ‘preeminent and . . . wholly unique member of the Church’; indeed, she is the ‘exemplary realization’ (typus)[LG 53; 63.] of the Church.”
968. “Her role in relation to the Church and to all humanity goes still further. ‘In a wholly singular way she cooperated by her obedience, faith, hope, and burning charity in the Savior’s work of restoring supernatural life to souls. For this reason she is a mother to us in the order of grace.'[LG 61.]”
969. “‘This motherhood of Mary in the order of grace continues uninterruptedly from the consent which she loyally gave at the Annunciation and which she sustained without wavering beneath the cross, until the eternal fulfillment of all the elect. Taken up to heaven she did not lay aside this saving office but by her manifold intercession continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation …. Therefore the Blessed Virgin is invoked in the Church under the titles of Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix.'[LG 62.]”
970. “‘Mary’s function as mother of men in no way obscures or diminishes this unique mediation of Christ, but rather shows its power. But the Blessed Virgin’s salutary influence on men . . . flows forth from the superabundance of the merits of Christ, rests on his mediation, depends entirely on it, and draws all its power from it.'[LG 60.] ‘No creature could ever be counted along with the Incarnate Word and Redeemer; but just as the priesthood of Christ is shared in various ways both by his ministers and the faithful, and as the one goodness of God is radiated in different ways among his creatures, so also the unique mediation of the Redeemer does not exclude but rather gives rise to a manifold cooperation which is but a sharing in this one source.'[LG 62.]”
971. “‘All generations will call me blessed’: ‘The Church’s devotion to the Blessed Virgin is intrinsic to Christian worship.'[Lk 1:48 ; Paul VI, MC 56.] The Church rightly honors ‘the Blessed Virgin with special devotion. From the most ancient times the Blessed Virgin has been honored with the title of ‘Mother of God,’ to whose protection the faithful fly in all their dangers and needs…. This very special devotion … differs essentially from the adoration which is given to the incarnate Word and equally to the Father and the Holy Spirit, and greatly fosters this adoration.'[LG 66.] The liturgical feasts dedicated to the Mother of God and Marian prayer, such as the rosary, an ‘epitome of the whole Gospel,’ express this devotion to the Virgin Mary.[Cf. Paul VI, MC 42; SC 103.]”
972. “After speaking of the Church, her origin, mission, and destiny, we can find no better way to conclude than by looking to Mary. In her we contemplate what the Church already is in her mystery on her own ‘pilgrimage of faith,’ and what she will be in the homeland at the end of her journey. There, ‘in the glory of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity,’ ‘in the communion of all the saints,'[LG 69.] the Church is awaited by the one she venerates as Mother of her Lord and as her own mother.
In the meantime the Mother of Jesus, in the glory, which she possesses in body and soul in heaven, is the image and beginning of the Church as it is to be perfected in the world to come. Likewise she shines forth on earth until the day of the Lord shall come, a sign of certain hope and comfort to the pilgrim People of God.[LG 68; Cf. 2 Pet 3 10 .]”

(Spiritual motherhood)
501. “Jesus is Mary’s only son, but her spiritual motherhood extends to all men whom indeed he came to save: ‘The Son whom she brought forth is he whom God placed as the first-born among many brethren, that is, the faithful in whose generation and formation she co-operates with a mother’s love.'[LG 63; cf. Jn 19:26-27 ; Rom 8:29 ; Rev 12:17.]”

(Mary in the economy of salvation)
Annunciation:
490. “To become the mother of the Saviour, Mary ‘was enriched by God with gifts appropriate to such a role.'[LG 56.] The angel Gabriel at the moment of the annunciation salutes her as ‘full of grace’.[Lk 1:28 .] In fact, in order for Mary to be able to give the free assent of her faith to the announcement of her vocation, it was necessary that she be wholly borne by God’s grace.”
Assent:
148. “The Virgin Mary most perfectly embodies the obedience of faith. By faith Mary welcomes the tidings and promise brought by the angel Gabriel, believing that ‘with God nothing will be impossible’ and so giving her assent: ‘Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be (done) to me according to your word.'[Lk 1:37-38 ; cf. Gen 18:14 .] Elizabeth greeted her: ‘Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.'[Lk 1:45 .] It is for this faith that all generations have called Mary blessed.[Cf. Lk 1:48 .]”
494. “At the announcement that she would give birth to ‘the Son of the Most High’ without knowing man, by the power of the Holy Spirit, Mary responded with the obedience of faith, certain that ‘with God nothing will be impossible’: ‘Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be (done) to me according to your word.'[Lk 1:28-38 ; cf. Rom 1:5 .] Thus, giving her consent to God’s word, Mary becomes the mother of Jesus. Espousing the divine will for salvation wholeheartedly, without a single sin to restrain her, she gave herself entirely to the person and to the work of her Son; she did so in order to serve the mystery of redemption with him and dependent on him, by God’s grace:[Cf. LG 56.]
As St. Irenaeus says, ‘Being obedient she became the cause of salvation for herself and for the whole human race.'[St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 3, 22, 4: PG 7/1, 959A.] Hence not a few of the early Fathers gladly assert. . .: ‘The knot of Eve’s disobedience was untied by Mary’s obedience: what the virgin Eve bound through her disbelief, Mary loosened by her faith.'[St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 3, 22, 4: PG 7/1, 959A.] Comparing her with Eve, they call Mary ‘the Mother of the living’ and frequently claim: ‘Death through Eve, life through Mary.'[LC 56; St. Epiphanius, Panarion 2, 78, 18: PG 42, 728CD-729AB; St. Jerome, Ep. 22, 21: PL 22, 408.]”

Assumption:
966. “‘Finally the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death.'[LG 59; cf. Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus (1950): DS 3903; cf. Rev 19:16.] The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin is a singular participation in her Son’s Resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians:
In giving birth you kept your virginity; in your Dormition you did not leave the world, O Mother of God, but were joined to the source of Life. You conceived the living God and, by your prayers, will deliver our souls from death.[Byzantine Liturgy, Troparion, Feast of the Dormition, August 15th.]”

The Immaculate Conception:
491. “Through the centuries the Church has become ever more aware that Mary, ‘full of grace’ through God,[Lk 1:28 .] was redeemed from the moment of her conception. That is what the dogma of the Immaculate Conception confesses, as Pope Pius IX proclaimed in 1854:
The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Saviour of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin.[Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus (1854): DS 2803.]”
492. “The ‘splendor of an entirely unique holiness’ by which Mary is ‘enriched from the first instant of her conception’ comes wholly from Christ: she is ‘redeemed, in a more exalted fashion, by reason of the merits of her Son’.[LG 53, 56.] The Father blessed Mary more than any other created person ‘in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places’ and chose her ‘in Christ before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless before him in love’.[Cf. Eph 1:3-4 .]”
493. “The Fathers of the Eastern tradition call the Mother of God ‘the All-Holy’ (Panagia), and celebrate her as ‘free from any stain of sin, as though fashioned by the Holy Spirit and formed as a new creature’.[LG 56.] By the grace of God Mary remained free of every personal sin her whole life long.
‘Let it be done to me according to your word. . .'”

Mediatrix of Grace:
969. “‘This motherhood of Mary in the order of grace continues uninterruptedly from the consent which she loyally gave at the Annunciation and which she sustained without wavering beneath the cross, until the eternal fulfillment of all the elect. Taken up to heaven she did not lay aside this saving office but by her manifold intercession continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation …. Therefore, the Blessed Virgin is invoked in the Church under the titles of Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix.'[LG 62.]”
Predestination:
488. “‘God sent forth his Son’, but to prepare a body for him,[Gal 4:4 ; Heb 10:5 .] he wanted the free co-operation of a creature. For this, from all eternity God chose for the mother of his Son a daughter of Israel, a young Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee, ‘a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary’:[Lk 1:26-27 .]
The Father of mercies willed that the Incarnation should be preceded by assent on the part of the predestined mother, so that just as a woman had a share in the coming of death, so also should a woman contribute to the coming of life.[LG 56; cf. LG 61.]”
489. “Throughout the Old Covenant the mission of many holy women prepared for that of Mary. At the very beginning there was Eve; despite her disobedience, she receives the promise of a posterity that will be victorious over the evil one, as well as the promise that she will be the mother of all the living.[Cf. Gen 3:15, 20 .] By virtue of this promise, Sarah conceives a son in spite of her old age.[Cf. Gen 18:10-14 ; Gen 21:1-2 .] Against all human expectation God chooses those who were considered powerless and weak to show forth his faithfulness to his promises: Hannah, the mother of Samuel; Deborah; Ruth; Judith and Esther; and many other women.[Cf. 1 Cor 1:17 ; 1 Sam 1 .] Mary ‘stands out among the poor and humble of the Lord, who confidently hope for and receive salvation from him. After a long period of waiting the times are fulfilled in her, the exalted Daughter of Sion, and the new plan of salvation is established.'[LG 55.]”
508. “From among the descendants of Eve, God chose the Virgin Mary to be the mother of his Son. ‘Full of grace’, Mary is ‘the most excellent fruit of redemption’ (SC 103): from the first instant of her conception, she was totally preserved from the stain of original sin and she remained pure from all personal sin throughout her life.”
Preserved from sin:
411. “The Christian tradition sees in this passage an announcement of the ‘New Adam’ who, because he ‘became obedient unto death, even death on a cross’, makes amends superabundantly for the disobedience, of Adam.[Cf. 1 Cor 15:21-22, 45 ; Phil 2:8 ; Rom 5:19-20 .] Furthermore many Fathers and Doctors of the Church have seen the woman announced in the ‘Proto-evangelium’ as Mary, the mother of Christ, the ‘new Eve’. Mary benefited first of all and uniquely from Christ’s victory over sin: she was preserved from all stain of original sin and by a special grace of God committed no sin of any kind during her whole earthly life.[Cf. Pius IXs Ineffabilis Deus: DS 2803; Council of Trent: DS 1573.]”
Virginity:
496. “From the first formulations of her faith, the Church has confessed that Jesus was conceived solely by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, affirming also the corporeal aspect of this event: Jesus was conceived ‘by the Holy Spirit without human seed’.[Council of the Lateran (649): DS 503; cf. DS 10-64.] The Fathers see in the virginal conception the sign that it truly was the Son of God who came in a humanity like our own. Thus St. Ignatius of Antioch at the beginning of the second century says:
You are firmly convinced about our Lord, who is truly of the race of David according to the flesh, Son of God according to the will and power of God, truly born of a virgin,. . . he was truly nailed to a tree for us in his flesh under Pontius Pilate. . . he truly suffered, as he is also truly risen.[St. Ignatius of Antioch, Ad Smyrn 1-2: Apostolic Fathers, ed. J. B.Lightfoot (London: Macmillan, 1889), 11/2, 289-293; SCh 10, 154-156; cf. Rom 1:3; Jn 1:13.]”
497. “The Gospel accounts understand the virginal conception of Jesus as a divine work that surpasses all human understanding and possibility:[Mt 1 18-25 ; Lk 1:26-38 .] ‘That which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit’, said the angel to Joseph about Mary his fiancée.[Mt 1:20 .] The Church sees here the fulfillment of the divine promise given through the prophet Isaiah: ‘Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son.'[Is 7:14 vLXX; quoted in Mt 1:23 vGreek.]”
498. “People are sometimes troubled by the silence of St. Mark’s Gospel and the New Testament Epistles about Jesus’ virginal conception. Some might wonder if we were merely dealing with legends or theological constructs not claiming to be history. To this we must respond: Faith in the virginal conception of Jesus met with the lively opposition, mockery or incomprehension of non-believers, Jews and pagans alike;[Cf. St. Justin, Dial. 99, 7: PG 6, 708-709; Origen, Contra Celsum 1, 32, 69: PG 11, 720-721; et al.] so it could hardly have been motivated by pagan mythology or by some adaptation to the ideas of the age. The meaning of this event is accessible only to faith, which understands in it the ‘connection of these mysteries with one another'[Dei Filius 4: DS 3016.] in the totality of Christ’s mysteries, from his Incarnation to his Passover. St. Ignatius of Antioch already bears witness to this connection: ‘Mary’s virginity and giving birth, and even the Lord’s death escaped the notice of the prince of this world: these three mysteries worthy of proclamation were accomplished in God’s silence.'[St. Ignatius of Antioch, Ad Eph. 19, 1: AF 11/2 76-80: cf. 1 Cor 2:8 .]”
502. “The eyes of faith can discover in the context of the whole of Revelation the mysterious reasons why God in his saving plan wanted his Son to be born of a virgin. These reasons touch both on the person of Christ and his redemptive mission, and on the welcome Mary gave that mission on behalf of all men. ”
503. “Mary’s virginity manifests God’s absolute initiative in the Incarnation. Jesus has only God as Father. ‘He was never estranged from the Father because of the human nature which he assumed. . . He is naturally Son of the Father as to his divinity and naturally son of his mother as to his humanity, but properly Son of the Father in both natures.'[Council of Friuli (796): DS 619; cf. Lk 2:48-49.]”
504. “Jesus is conceived by the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mary’s womb because he is the New Adam, who inaugurates the new creation: ‘The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven.'[1 Cor 15:45,47 .] From his conception, Christ’s humanity is filled with the Holy Spirit, for God ‘gives him the Spirit without measure.'[Jn 3:34 .] From ‘his fullness’ as the head of redeemed humanity ‘we have all received, grace upon grace.'[Jn 1:16 ; cf. Col 1:18 .]”
505. “By his virginal conception, Jesus, the New Adam, ushers in the new birth of children adopted in the Holy Spirit through faith. ‘How can this be?'[Lk 1:34 ; cf. Jn 3:9 .] Participation in the divine life arises ‘not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God’.[Jn 1:13 .] The acceptance of this life is virginal because it is entirely the Spirit’s gift to man. The spousal character of the human vocation in relation to God[Cf. 2 Cor 11:2 .] is fulfilled perfectly in Mary’s virginal motherhood.”
506. “Mary is a virgin because her virginity is the sign of her faith ‘unadulterated by any doubt’, and of her undivided gift of herself to God’s will.[LG 63; cf. l Cor 7:34-35.] It is her faith that enables her to become the mother of the Savior: ‘Mary is more blessed because she embraces faith in Christ than because she conceives the flesh of Christ.'[St. Augustine, De virg. 3: PL 40, 398.]”
507. “At once virgin and mother, Mary is the symbol and the most perfect realization of the Church: ‘the Church indeed. . . by receiving the word of God in faith becomes herself a mother. By preaching and Baptism she brings forth sons, who are conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of God, to a new and immortal life. She herself is a virgin, who keeps in its entirety and purity the faith she pledged to her spouse.'[LG 64; cf. 63.]”

Veneration of Mary – faith concerning the veneration of Mary based on faith concerning Christ:
487. “What the Catholic faith believes about Mary is based on what it believes about Christ, and what it teaches about Mary illumines in turn its faith in Christ. ”
Respect for the name of Mary:
2146. “The second commandment forbids the abuse of God’s name, i.e., every improper use of the names of God, Jesus Christ, but also of the Virgin Mary and all the saints. “