Full of Grace: The Four Privileges of the Blessed Mother
By Br. Karel Soukup, O.S.B.
All that we believe about Mary points to her relationship with her son, Jesus Christ, and the salvation he worked in her soul through her special graces reflect the redemption he promises to us all.
This article was originally published in our December 2024 Kansas Monks newsletter. Read the whole newsletter at www.kansasmonks.org/newsletter/december2024
God blessed the Blessed Virgin Mary with four unique gifts by which she played a singular role in the economy of salvation. The Church teaches: 1) that Mary is the Theotokos, the Mother of God; 2) that she was conceived without sin; 3) that she maintained perpetual virginity; and 4) that, at the end of her earthly life, Mary was assumed, body and soul, into heaven. These Four Privileges of Mary, while particular to her role in God’s plan of salvation, are not merely admirable peculiarities, but a promise of the marvels God wants to work in the soul of each Christian. For, “what the Catholic faith believes about Mary is based on what it believes about Christ” (Catechism of the Catholic Church #487), and what is true about Christ is true about his Body, the Church and her members.
Mother of God
The most sublime and ancient of the Church’s Marian dogmas is that she is the Theotokos, the God-bearer, the Mother of God. This teaching was formally declared at the Council of Ephesus in AD 431, and it is from this dogma that all other teachings about Mary follow. This is not only a Mariological doctrine, but a central Christological doctrine arising from controversies within the early Church regarding the nature of the person Jesus Christ. By affirming that Mary was the Mother of God, the Church affirmed that Jesus was both man and God.
Each Christian shares in the vocation of Mary to receive the Word of God and bear it forth into the world. Jesus himself exhorts us: “Who is my mother? […] Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my […] mother” (Matthew 15:48–50). When we meditate and the Scriptures and the truths of our faith, we imitate Mary, who kept and pondered everything in her heart, and we receive God’s Word. And when we give our Fiat, our Yes to the Father and do his will and we make Christ flesh in the world
The Immaculate Conception
On December 8, 1854, Pope Pius IX formally decreed the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in his Apostolic Constitution Ineffabilis Deus. Mary, he proclaimed, was “ever absolutely free of all stain of sin” in order to be prepared as a fitting mother for God’s only son. Pius IX’s decree is not an innovation in the faith of the Church, but an articulation of what the Church has always believed about Mary: the liturgical celebration of Mary’s Immaculate Conception dates back as far as the 5th century in the Eastern Church and was adopted by the Western Church by the 8th century. The scriptures testify to Mary’s unique sinlessness when the Archangel Gabriel greets her: “Hail, Full of Grace” (Luke 1:28).
Of course, Mary did not merit her immaculate conception. Her preservation from the stain of original sin was a singular act of God’s mercy, through the merits of his Son, Jesus Christ. St. Thérèse of Lisieux, meditating on the Gospel story of the woman who loved much, because she was forgiven much, pondered how she could love God very much at all, since her sins were so few.
She realized, however, that the Father’s mercy went before her and forgave her even before she sinned. “He has forgiven me,” she wrote, “much MORE than he forgave [Mary Magdalene].” The Dogma of Immaculate Conception is the Church’s unwavering proclamation of God’s great mercy and his unending desire to give us more than we deserve.
Ever-Virgin
The Church has since her very beginning, believed that Jesus Christ’s birth was a divine act surpassing natural biological reproduction. Around the year AD 110, St. Ignatius of Antioch affirmed in his letter to the Smyrnæans that we believe that Jesus Christ is the “Son of God according to the will and power of God, truly born of a virgin.” This is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son” (Isaiah 7:14). The Council of Constantinople decreed in AD 553 that Mary’s virginity was perpetual: before, during and after Jesus’ birth. Because Mary’s conception of the Christ Child was entirely virginal, we see that the Incarnation was wholly a work of God’s initiative. God comes to meet us in our lives solely because he desires to be with us, and we are made his children “not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13). Mary’s perfect receptivity is the instrument he used to bring that about.
We imitate Mary’s virginity by emptying ourselves of everything that is not God to be ready to receive God. It is an imitation and following, too, of Christ who emptied himself, and was exalted (Philippians 2:6–9).
The Assumption
Pope Pius XII solemnly decreed the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary of November 1, 1950. In his apostolic constitution Munificentissimus Deus, he defined the Church’s belief that “the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever-Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church calls Mary’s Assumption “singular participation in her Son’s Resurrection” (#966). Jesus said: “I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again” (John 10:18). That power is a divine power, something no mere human can claim, and our belief in Mary’s Assumption again underscores God’s initiative in the plan of salvation. We cannot manufacture our own salvation; we can only participate and cooperate with the work God wants to do in us.
