Utilizing The Immaculate Conception: Typological Approaches to Zygote Mary and Gamete Jesus

 

Utilizing The Immaculate Conception

Typological Approaches to Zygote Mary and Gamete Jesus

• Introduction

• The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception: Context, Development, and Teaching

• Mechanics of the Dogma

• Augustinian Context and Static Purity

• The Counter-Reformation Context

• An Individual Typological Appropriation of the Immaculate Conception

• Zygote Mary and Gamete Jesus: A Biological Meditation on the Immaculate Conception

• A Personal application of Faith and Hope

• An Ecclesiological Typological Appropriation of the Immaculate Conception

• Mary as the Church

• The Immaculate Conception and Preexistent Collective Grace

• The Immaculate Conception as an Aid to the Great Commission

• Conclusion

Introduction

The Immaculate Conception is one of the solemnities that can cause a little confusion.  Due to the gospel reading being the annunciation, it’s no wonder that unreflective Catholics assume the celebration is of Jesus’ conception.  The opening salvo of homilies often starts with a reminder that this celebration is of the conception of Mary by Saints Anne and Joacim, not Jesus by Mary while overshadowed by the Holy Spirit. The priest often explains what the Immaculate Conception is, either as a dogmatic belief or as a long held belief of the Church.  At this point, we are running out of homily time and losing the parishioners’ attention so it's time to wrap up and put it away till next year when we start over again.  Regarding this dogma of the Catholic Church, the faithful are left with a sense of distant abstraction.

The purpose of this treatise is to steer engagement of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception away from abstract formulas and polemical debate and develop what the dogma reveals into practical spiritual tools for both the individual and the Church.  It is hoped that by the end the reader will understand the Immaculate Conception in a way that inspires their faith and hope on a personal level, and rather than being a tribalizing totem, and see how the dogma leads the Church to humility as we share the gospel with all nations.

In the first section, we will discuss the basic teaching of the Dogma, its teaching about the relationship between Mary and Original Sin, and its lack of teaching concerning the relationship of Mary and personal sin.  We will then discuss three stumbling blocks to active engagement with this dogma in the spiritual life of the Christian.  The first stumbling block is the assumed understanding of the singularity of the Immaculate Conception.  The second is the Augustinian interpretive lens of static purity often applied to the Dogma.  The last stumbling block will be the context of the Counter-Refomation that turned the dogma into a litmus test for Catholicity rather than an expression of truth to be engaged with.

In the second section, we will seek to an offer interpretive lens to the dogma of the Immaculate Conception that will help the reader personally invest in the dogma and apply it to their spiritual lives.  First, we will offer a biological meditation on the nature of the Immaculate Conception that will allow the reader to understand how the dogma presents the truths of both grace and vocational potentiality.  We will then explore how the dogma’s presentation of vocational potentiality gives the contemplative an increased sense of hope in God’s call.  Next, we will explore the dogma as an expression of grace and develop a sense of how this relates to the virtue of Faith in the life of the believer.

In the final section, we will explore how the dogma of the Immaculate Conception can help us better understand the Church as a developing and growing mystical body.  First, we will establish how Mary is a typological signification of the Church by exploring the Second Vatican Council’s teaching on Mary in the document  Lumen Gentium.  Then we will utilize the physical development of human beings to understand the developmental process of cultures.  This will allow us to apply our understanding of the Immaculate Conception beyond the individual to the collective.  Lastly, we will develop an understanding of how to use contemplation of the Immaculate Conception to combat pride in the field of missionary activity and evangelization. 

The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception: Context, Development, and Teaching

In the first section, we will discuss the basic teaching of the Dogma, a teaching about the relationship between Mary and sin.  We will then discuss three stumbling blocks to active engagement with this dogma in the spiritual life of the Christian. 

The Mechanics of the Dogma

The Immaculate Conception is one of the few Ex Cathedra dogmas of the Catholic church. An Ex Cathedra dogma is one declared by the Pope in union with the bishops (from the throne) as opposed to being declared by the bishops in union with the pope (an ecumenical council). As we said in the introduction, the first level of misunderstanding is the common belief that this dogma refers to Jesus’ conception.  Once it is explained that the dogma refers to Mary’s conception, a whole host of other assumptions take hold that the dogma does not assert.

The clearest example of this is the belief that this dogma asserts that Mary is free from all personal sin.  That teaching does seem to be asserted in the Catechism of the Catholic Church in article 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’.  By the grace of God Mary remained free of every personal sin her whole life long.” Being in the Catechism, that teaching is to be respected, and not lightly disregarded.  But as is well known, catechisms are not infallible documents like ex-cathedra statements are. They are doctrinal documents that change and adapt revealed teaching through time and understanding into ways that people can comprehend.  But Catechisms don’t define doctrines or dogmas themselves.

The dogma itself does not assert that Mary is free from the stain of “all” sin. Rather, as defined by Pius IX in Ineffabilis Deus, the dogma states, 

We declare, pronounce, and define the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.   

It is a rather dramatic leap from the “stain of original sin” to the “stain of all sin”.  The dogma at least implies that the grace we receive at baptism is the grace Mary received freely from the moment of her conception.  At baptism, we are freed from the guilt (stain?) of original sin.  We are not freed from its effect.  The Catechism simply states, “[I]n 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. Through the centuries the Church has become ever more aware that Mary, "full of grace" through God, was redeemed from the moment of her conception.”  That isto say, we are redeemed at baptism, Mary is redeemed from conception.  Beyond that, the word “stain” may imply the effect original sin has on the soul as well.  This can be debated by the intelligent and well-studied.  However, if it frees her from the effect, then lacking concupiscence would then be easier for Mary to avoid personal sin as the catechism implies.  But this has not been dogmatically defined and there is little biblical evidence to suggest this authoritatively.  It is even unclear if the above passage from catechism is asserting her freedom from personal sin, or simply using the Eastern position to bolster the Western understanding of the Domga concerning original sin.

One can even now see that the approach to this dogma is often abstract and academic.  Most people seek a devotional application to spiritual teachings, yet thus far we have had no discussion of this. The current grappling when seeking to find meaning in the Immaculate Conception has three major distractions that keep us from an applicable approach to this Dogma.   The first is the common understanding of the singularity of the “singular grace” granted to Mary. The second is the focus on purity as a static fact of Marian's existence.  The third is how our current understanding of the Immaculate Conception, even in its definition, is so impacted by the Trauma of the Protestant Reformation.

The first roadblock to spiritually applying this dogma to our lives is the promulgation that this grace is singular.  The immediate assumption this word seems to lock the dogma into an inaccesible singularity that we can in no way participate in.  But each person has singular experiences of what turn out to be their shared experiences in life.  As we shall see, Mary’s singularity of the natal grace may be tied to the individuality of the vocation, not the singular of the bestowal of natal grace en toto.  The result of our adamant pro-life activism in the modern West is an ability to perceive of zygotes as persons and we know thst God extends grace to all persons.  The singularity of the grace may be that is it attuned to Mary’s singular call.  But that does not preclude the bestowal of grace on any or even all zygotes at conception.  REalizing this allows us our first step in being able to appreciate this dogma on a personal and aplicable rather than abstract level, because there is a possible point of shared experience.

Augustinian Context and Static Purity

The second obstacle was the issue of static Marian purity, the common justification for the Immaculate Conception in the Roman Catholic Church comes from a very specific understanding of original sin, framed by Saint Augustine.  A common stratagy among Catholics (especially in dialogue with protestants) is to show that any Mariology is done with reference to Christ.  This can be seen in the wording of the dogmatic definition, “ in view of the merits of Jesus Christ”. By beginning with Augustine, the Doctor of Grace, we can begin to understand the standard  Western frame of the Immaculate Conception as it references Jesus.   Augustine’s anthropology asserts our human souls are “disordered” by concupiscence.  His description of concupiscence assumes an order of the human soul where reason rules the passions and appetites in a “top-down” model.  When passions anor appitites rule reason, for example when reason is used to justify inordinate passions or appetites, the soul is disordered.  Augustine himself seemed to believe that this “condition” was particularly passed on during the sexual act because sex itself necessitated passions and appetites ruling over reason.  The state the act happens in effects the product the act generates, and thus children are invested from the beginning with concupiscence. Augustine states in Book 1 Chapter 27 of On Marriage and Concupiscence, 

Whenever it comes to the actual process of generation, the very embrace which is lawful and honourable cannot be effected without the ardour of lust, so as to be able to accomplish that which appertains to the use of reason and not of lust. Now, this ardour, whether following or preceding the will, does somehow, by a power of its own, move the members which cannot be moved simply by the will, and in this manner it shows itself not to be the servant of a will which commands it, but rather to be the punishment of a will which disobeys it. It shows, moreover, that it must be excited, not by a free choice, but by a certain seductive stimulus, and that on this very account it produces shame. This is the carnal concupiscence, which, while it is no longer accounted sin in the regenerate, yet in no case happens to nature except from sin. It is the daughter of sin, as it were; and whenever it yields assent to the commission of shameful deeds, it becomes also the mother of many sins. Now from this concupiscence whatever comes into being by natural birth is bound by original sin …

Augustine sees Original Sin almost in terms of a spiritual venereal disease passed through what he feels are the necessary spiritual conditions of the act.  It is from this point that our Mariology connects to our Christology.  This quality of passing on develops into and is promoted as a reason the virgin birth was necessary.  Originally, “virgin birth” is simply code for “true God true man”.  Humans give birth to humans.  Virgins don’t give birth, implying the divine element. As Augustine develops his understanding of Original Sin the virgin birth develops into a protective maneuver to protect Jesus’ humanity from infection. Because of the virginity of the Mother the Son is not exposed to the acts that mechanically pass the stain of original sin on to her son.  Interpreting the virgin birth according to Augustine’s model seems to frame it as a mechanical protection of Jesus from the elements of this world. Such an interpretation negates the whole beauty of the incarnation, the vulnerability of the act by such exposition and appropriation.  This application to the virgin birth is already an unneeded justificatory explanation. 

To add to that expansion, once Original Sin is established as a situation that is personally passed on from parent to child and not simply social conditions, the fear of contamination seems to become inordinate. “What if” such contamination could simply pass from mother to child?  In this context, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception becomes an extra safety measure of “purity” to protect Jesus’ human nature against this spiritual disease.  Rather than seeing the Immaculate Conception as a relationship of Grace extended from God to Mary, It is seen as a setting of static condition for the incarnation.  This fear in no way fits into Augustine’s perception of how original sin passes on.  But the fear, along with a high Christological focus, begets an obsession with an environment of purity that “protects” the savior and in some ways could even devalue the “one like us” nature of the incarnation.

The standard “Christology through Mariology” assumption about the dogma of the Immaculate Conception involves this environmental setup.  The static purity of Mary is framed as a matrix for the incarnation, an extra added defense mechanism against the impurities of this world.  The secondary effect of that is an exaltation of Mary beyond the reach of relatability for any other human.  A primary example of that exaltation is the objective assertion in the catechism that she is free from all personal sin.  So liberated, it becomes hard to practically distinguish Mary from Jesus, who is “one like us in all things but sin”.  We say “practically distinguish” because the preexistent Christology does add the divine nature to the person of Christ, which is different, but highly abstract.  In the one other unique aspect of Jesus “in all things but sin”, which is contextualized rather than abstract, how would her mode of existence be different?  

The Context of the Counter-Reformation

This exaltation leads us to our last obstacle to the applicability of this dogma, the context of the Reformation. The definition dogma of the Immaculate Conception plays into a Counter-Reformation trope of hyper-emphasis on all the rejections of the Protestant Reformation.  By focusing on scripture alon protestants reject of sacred ecclesiology, andin Catholicism this begets vehement clericalsim. Protestants reject the communion of saints as intercessors and especially the privileged place of Mary.  Thus we have an intense concern in the Church on how to process Mary in a way that communicates our devotion.  It would be pertinent to remind the reader here that the dogma itself was understood and held long before both the formal definitions and the Reformation.  The hyper dulia reserved for Mary springs from the fact that she is closer to Jesus than any other human, not simply as a reaction to the rejection of Mary and the saints by the Reformation. For example, Saints and scholars have related Mary to figures in the Book of Revelations, and because of how she carried baby Jesus inside of her, Mary has been given titles such as The Holy Tabernacle.

  One can see that there are many appropriate variations in how to emphasize Mary within the realm of spirituality.  Exaltation and emphasis are not the problem.  Augustine himself reminds us in chapter 37 of On Nature and Grace a human who is sinless is still not equivalent to God.  The problem becomes when these specific accentuations to the excoriating over corrections of the reformation become definitive of Catholocism.  The “real catholic” becomes the one who practices and focuses in exactly these ways and no others.  There appears almost a rejection of things we share with in common with protestants in order to tribalize by means of our differences.  The dogma of the Immaculate Conception is especially seseptible manipulation by those who would strike out at fellow Christians as emenies.

The reader will notice that meditation on the Immaculate Conception, in itself, leads to a lot of speculation on realities that cannot be observed, historical in-utero beings, divine plans, and grace.  It is a doctrine that steers the contemplative to a tremendous experience of faith.  But the modern reader often sees “faith” in the context of a response to a lack of empirical validation.  Though not incorrect in is not the only context defining faigth. Such a context pivots the contemplative back to a willful acceptance.  Further, this dogma especially is one that lacks any authoritative backing other than a general historical acceptance and an ex-cathedra statement.  This circumstance makes it one of the most powerful litmus tests for a “Roman Catholic”.  Without technical linguistics and an inordinate amount of eisegesis, there is little appeal to the bible for this dogma.  It does have the backing of the sensus fidelium, but traditional sources and authorities disagree throughout history on whether the Immaculate Conception is worthy of the status of Dogma. When I prepare to write a treatise, I always check two sources first, the Cetechism and Thomas Aquinas’ Summa.  For this paper you will find no quotes from the Summa, becasue Aquinas did not hold that the Immaculate Conception was a viable Christian belife. The lack of backing in scripture and consensus of tradition leaves the dogma out of the realm of necessity for (certainly) protestant Christianity, but even all other ancient rites.  

As such, this dogma is thoroughly Roman in its claim of allegiance.  Since there is no other authoritybeyond the Pope and all evidence and meaning are “hidden” from the senses, the “faith” of the Immaculate Conception becomes propositional.  Do you believe the assertions? If so then you accept the uniquely Catholic ways of wielding authority because there are no other acceptable manners of authoritative validation available, no scriptures, no linear traditional trajectory, not even the backing of Thomas Aquinas.  One has to start with direct papal authority and work backward.  

 This obsessive overcorrection developed out of the excesses of the Counter-Reformation can be seen in the fixation on liturgical rubrics, lofty clericalism, and in some areas of current Maryology. This use of the dogma is exactly the opposite of what the dogma expresses.  Lumen Gentium [VIII. IV (67)] warns against such a hyper-focus when discussing the study and teaching of Mary by theologians, 

But it exhorts theologians and preachers of the divine word to abstain zealously both from all gross exaggerations as well as from petty narrow-mindedness in considering the singular dignity of the Mother of God. Following the study of Sacred Scripture, the Holy Fathers, the doctors and liturgy of the Church, and under the guidance of the Church's magisterium, let them rightly illustrate the duties and privileges of the Blessed Virgin which always look to Christ, the source of all truth, sanctity and piety. Let them assiduously keep away from whatever, either by word or deed, could lead separated brethren or any other into error regarding the true doctrine of the Church. Let the faithful remember moreover that true devotion consists neither in sterile or transitory affection, nor in a certain vain credulity, but proceeds from true faith, by which we are led to know the excellence of the Mother of God, and we are moved to a filial love toward our mother and to the imitation of her virtues.

This passage addresses two ways that Maryology is currently presented. The first is a  polemical Counter-Reformation approach to Mariology, which tends to focus on her personal exaltation.  This approach finds its worst extreme treating Marian apparitions and private revelations as more valuable than any other teaching or expression in the Church.  The council definitely eschews that approach.  The other approach is the more ecumenical apologetics of “Christology through Mariology”, which tries to help protestants understand the relationship between Mary and the Chruch.  This approach is touted by the council, but it too may overreach and reduce Mary to “just a good mom”.   This is the “narrow-mindedness” the document warns of.

What is now required is new approaches to the dogma that allow us to unpack its expression in an appropriately meaningful and applicable way.  We can do this in two modes.  First as an expression of individual grace because Mary is an individual person.  Second, as a communal expression, because Mary signifies the Church.

The obstacle of singularity may be neutralized by understanding that the grace offered is singular because Mary is an individual with a singular call, but so are we all.  We may not participate in the particular grace she received at conception, but we can use the revelation of her initial grace as a recognition that grace is available to all even at conception.  Once one realizes this, the obstacle of static purity becomes less important, being an obsession with Mary’s particular circumstances. Lastly, we have brought to light the intrusive impact of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation in how we frame our commerce with this dogma. In that enlightenment, we have hopefully neutralized its harmful effects, but as we continue to discuss the useful application of the dogma to our lives, understanding the Immaculate Conception simply as a litmus test will doubtless become more and more pathetic.  

With the blinding gravitas of these obstacles deemphasized we can now begin to apply the formerly abstract dogma of the Immaculate Conception to the real world context of our lives.  We will do this in the next two sections, first by exploring applications on the individual level and second on the ecclesial level.  Having discussed the fundamental mechanics of the dogma and some stumbling blocks to useful understanding we can now move on to an interpretive lens to the dogma of the Immaculate Conception that will help the reader personally invest in the dogma and apply it to their spiritual lives. 

An Individual Typological Appropriation of the Immaculate Conception

In the last section, we discussed the basic teaching of the Dogma, its teaching about the relationship between Mary and sin.  We also discussed three stumbling blocks to active engagement with this dogma in the spiritual life of the Christian. The first stumbling block was a broad focus on the singularity of the Grace conferred, the second was a sense of static purity, and the third was the context of the counter-Reformation.

  We can now move on to an interpretive lens to the dogma of the Immaculate Conception that will help the reader personally invest in the dogma and apply it to their spiritual lives.  First, we will offer a biological meditation on the nature of the Immaculate Conception that will allow the reader to understand how the dogma presents the truths of both grace and vocational potentiality.  We will then explore how the dogma’s presentation of vocational potentiality gives the contemplative an increased sense of hope in God’s call.  Next, we will explore the dogma as an expression of grace and develop a sense of how this relates to the virtue of Faith in the life of the believer.  In the final section, we will offer an ecclesiological application, which will employ the dogma of the Immaculate Conception to mitigate the pride of the evangelist who seeks to live the command of the great commission.

Zygote Mary and Gamete Jesus: A Biological Meditation on the Immaculate Conception

Here we are seeking to dissuade framing the Immaculate Conception as simply a teaching on purity and sin, used to learn about the abstract nature of Christ.  We are also seeking to decontextualize it from the standard Couter-Reformation tropes.  Instead, we will look to frame it as literal closeness between Mary and Christ which can be typologically expanded as an understanding of how Christ relates to individuals and to the Church. We are beginning with this section by seeking to offer the individual Christian insight and application of the dogma to their lives and experience as Christians.  But to do that we must further decontextualize the propositional assent model by offering an alternative meditation on the Immaculate Conception.  We will achieve this expansion by means of a biological meditation.  With this meditation we will be able to visually and physically conceive of a deeply spiritual reality, the relationship between Mary and Christ.  Then we must spiritualize this relationship and apply it to our own experience as Christians. This meditation will take our understanding of the Immaculate Conception away from abstract natures and plant it squarely in the camp of theological anthropology, helping us understand and develop virtue in ourselves.

Mary gives birth to the savior and raises him as he is at his most vulnerable.  This alone gives her a privileged place in creation. More importantly, the Annunciation, as presented in Luke’s gospel, shows how God chooses her for this place of trust, and, by the angel’s greeting “Grace to you who, one who is already graced”, shapes her into the type of being who would freely choose this vocation.  Such care and regard imply God’s preconceived plans and graces for her.  As a further meditation on this “preconception”, it is helpful to remember that the in utero female embryo has all of the eggs she will carry for her entire life. This means that “Embryonic  Mary” already has a biological relationship with an individuated manifestation of Jesus. That is to say, Embryonic Mary is already carrying an aspect of the incarnation in the form of Gamete Jesus even while she is in utero.  Once we understand the egg as “Gamete Jesus” we can confidently say  “Embryonic Mary” already has a biological relationship with “individuated” Jesus because we can ontologically conceive of the egg as a unit.  Further, even before that egg individuated the ”material” to create it (that is, Embryonic Mary’s bodily flesh) is present to Mary “as herself”.  To contemplate the material of Mary’s body internally and naturally forming and begetting Gamete Jesus is a beautiful meditation on the closes of Christ to her as a person.  It is important to realize that Mary was the material from which Gamete Jesus manifest, then she carried Gamete Jesus with her all of her life until jettisoning him into the world.  Mary wasn’t the Tabernacle for simply nine months of Jesus’ gestation.  All of the time between Zygote Mary, and Mary at the birth of Christ is when Mary was the tabernacle.

This biological meditation helps mitigate some of the more toxic aspects of the “purity” meditation has for Christian sexuality because out focus is not on the “protective environment” of the incarnation.  Rather we are discussing Mary as a person who relates to the Father and the Son is her own unique and specific ways, just as we all do.  When understanding Mary as receiving grace from the Father and salvation from the Son, the period of her as “tabernacleship” as she carries Gamete Jesus is easily included as post incarnation. If we calculate the individuation of Gamete Jesus from the flesh of Zygote Mary at 20 weeks, then from 5 months on, we could say, Jesus is in some way physically present offering her salvation by the process of his incarnation and the trajectory of his life.  This means the “unique situation” that the grace of the Immaculate Conception covers visa vi Mary absent the incarnation is only about 5 months of Zygote/Embryonic Mary’s life in utero of Saint Anne.  From that point on, Mary has a physically individuated aspect of Jesus with her. Saint Anne would not even be aware that Mary existed, but maybe for the last three of those actively immaculately graced months at best.  

A Personal Application of Faith and Hope

So how does Mary’s fairly hidden in utero life, immaculately conceived, help us in the lives we live as Christians?  The meditation does help us see that Mary is more than simply a “Good mother”.  But an exaltation of Mary to near goddess status does not help either.  Again, one of the most unique aspects of the grace of her immaculate conception has only to do specifically with 5 in utero months of her life, when she is the material of the individuation of Gamete Jesus.  To help apply these mysteries in an active way to our lives here and now, we cannot simply see them as abstract “purity issues”.  We cannot simply use them to comment on the nature of Jesus in philosophical terms.  Lastly, we cannot simply bandy them as exclusive polemics against, or tools of apology toward our protestant brethren.  The dogma means more than how the reformation has developed its frame.  

When focusing on Christology, Mariology generally focuses on concepts of grace, will, and mediation.  It is a personal typological application, where grace is recognized as the personal relationship between the believer and God, and it is responded to by the believer (in this case Mary) with willful cooperation.  In this approach, the Immaculate Conception is seen as the pre-existent grace that allows for the Fiat of the Annunciation, which is the summative point of that cooperation, though it is not the terminal point.  By means of these two things, grace, and cooperation, Christ is manifest in the life of the believer.  

In such individualized piety, Mary is seen as an archetypal “believer”.  It behooves the contemplative to consider Immaculate Conception with the Annunciation and vice versa as mediation on the relationship between grace and free will.  Her fiat at the Annunciation is to be imitated by our own fiat and her petition at the Wedding of Canna is to be imitated by our own petitions which accept Christ's authority. If the Annucuiation is centered on Mary’s willful fiat, the Immaculate Conception is centered on God’s free gift of grace in forming Zygote Mary.  This quality of theocentric extension of grace to an individual human is what is lacking in the traditional focus on purity that the immaculate tends to engender.  The focus on Mary’s purity as an environment for “growing Jesus”  takes the contemplative away from the relationship Mary later is able to have with the Father due to the grace God gave her.  A hyper-focus on purity show Mary as simply a link (all be it a pure one) between God and the incarnate Christ. In the mediatory transfer, Mary herself and how grace is a manifest relationship between God and Mary as a person seems to be lost.  In a certain sense, this is appropriate. We are all to die to self and live in Christ.  But, Mary does have this unique role in salvation history as an individual person.  Once we line the Immaculate Conception up with the Annunciation as demonstrative events in Mary’s life, we can more clearly see what is being communicated by the Dogma.  It is not passive purity, but action on the part of God, which is responded to by action on the part of Mary.   She is the bridge between a grace of developmental salvation history as nascent salvation and salvation history as responsive to the effective salvific grace of the incarnate Logos.  That bridge between two epochs of salvation history is present in Mary cosmologically.  But it is present in us microcosmically as nascent grace excepted and actualized by our will. 

Our reflections thus far will help us apply the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception contemplatively to increase both Fatih and Hope.  Individual piety can utilize the Immaculate Conception to increase the virtue of hope once one has realized the connection between the dogma and potentiality.  Each of us carries such potential to bring Christ into the world as alter Christ and to unleash Christ into the world because we presence the grace of God has given us.  Though cooperation is typified in the Annunciation, the Immaculate Conception helps us understand the grace that comes from God’s end, that God has a plan for us too.  Our cooperation may not be on the scale, or in the same manner as the Blessed Virgin Mary, but we can hope in what was proclaimed in Chapter 1 of Jeremiah, that God looks at each person and states, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you,”. The Immaculate Conception shows us that even before we can conceive of Christ, we, as persons are the material which he can potentially manifests, individuate, and imminent.  This grace will manifest differently for each individual, but God’s preordained free gift is present for each of us to cooperate with.   The Immaculate Conceptions offer the inspiration and the impetus for discovering how we are to cooperate.  

Meditation on the Immaculate Conception also allows for an increase in Faith.  This Faith is not propositional, but faith in the promise and gift of God, which in turn leads to an intense gratitude for the grace God offers.  The Immaculate Conception is a dogma of the gift of grace absent any knowledge or will.  What is revealed in the dogma is a situation where any semblance of Gnosticism or Pelagianism is destroyed.  Gnosticism is salvation by acquisition of knowledge, and Pelagianism is salvation by exercise of will.  The Immaculate Conception is a gift of grace previous to any possibility of knowledge or will.  If the question of will and grace is likened to the chicken and the egg, grace is always said to be first and will a response.  The dogma of the Immaculate Conception is a definitive assertion of that reality.   In a way, it is even more fundamentally focused on the primary gift of grace than the sacrificial crucifixion of Christ.  Of course, the Pascal mystery is the summative example of God’s active grace as primary.  But the Pascal mystery is also always couched in the awareness and response of the believer.  Since the dogma of the Immaculate Conception is a dogma concerning a believer, Mary, in the individual instance of precognitive, pre-volitional grace she received, there can be no coercion or demands made concerning the dogma on any other believer.  There is only typological appropriation, an awareness that God gives grace even before we can possibly be aware of it.  As they meditate on this the believer cannot help but relinquish control and invest in gratitude for the gifts of God. All that is left is to bask in the goodness God has shown to this person and the effect that this goodness ultimately had on the rest of us.
The stalwart assertion of the Immaculate Conception is free unmerited grace.  Belief in this unmerited grace is the faith offered by the dogma.  It is a singular grace for Mary that allows her to conceive and beget the incarnate Son of God.  It is most beneficial for individual appropriation if we consider that the singularity is not the gift as such, but how the gift is expressed visa vi the individual (Mary).  With that understanding, we open to a recognition of zygote grace gifted to each of us.  It may not be the preservation from the stain of original sin, for you or I, but it is grace to live the call that has been given to each of us such as Jeremiah spoke.  We are each conceived in the matrix of God’s love and God is reaching out to relationship with each of us singularly and uniquely even from our conception.  

As a concluding example, we can see the contrast of differing lots of life in the distinction between the condition of Jabez and his Mother in 1 Chronicles 4:9-10,

Jabez was the most distinguished of his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, “I bore him with pain.” Jabez prayed to the God of Israel: “Oh, that you may truly bless me and extend my boundaries! May your hand be with me and make me free of misfortune, without pain!” And God granted his prayer.

In this passage, we see the mother, who very obviously succumbs to the punishment of the first parents, and the son Jabez, who prays for relief from the punishments of the first parents and is granted that relief seemingly without condition.  

Whichever our lot, it can easily be believed that we all have individuated grace offered us from conception, in whatever way necessary it can preserve us from what is ultimately harmful to us and can help us live our lives in a way of service appropriate to our call.  This grace is even prior to any “baptism by desire” because even though such desire is a gift of the Spirit, it assumes a cognitively mature cooperative psycho-spiritual makeup. The grace of conception, the grace offered to a zygote is a grace of precognitive calling. Developing this view from the Immaculate Conception allows us to use the dogma to its intended effect, to increase our faith and hope in the promises of grace from God.  The faith manifest is faith, not in a proposition, but in the absolutely primary nature of grace over will.  The hope is the hope in the personal potentiality offered by and our ability to willfully cooperate with God’s grace to manifest our vocational potential. This meaning is so much more appropriate and applicable to the revelation of the dogma than any heavy-handed litmus test for correct views on authority.

In the first section, we discussed the basic teaching of the Dogma, its teaching about the relationship between Mary and sin.  We also discussed three stumbling blocks to active engagement with this dogma in the spiritual life of the Christian. The first stumbling block was a broad focus on the singularity of the Grace conferred, the second was a sense of static purity, and the third was the context of the counter-Reformation. 

We have now offered an interpretive lens to the dogma of the Immaculate Conception that will hopefully help the reader personally invest in the dogma and apply it to their spiritual lives. This included a biological meditation on the nature of the Immaculate Conception that offered a framework to understand how the dogma presents the truths of both grace and vocational potentiality.  We also explored how the dogma’s presentation of vocational potentiality gives the contemplative an increased sense of hope in God’s call. Lastly, we explored the dogma as an expression of grace and develop a sense of how this relates to the virtue of Faith in the life of the believer.

In the final section, we will explore how the dogma of the Immaculate Conception can help us better understand the Church as a developing and growing mystical body.  First, we will establish how Mary is a typological signification of the Church by exploring the Second Vatican Council’s teaching on Mary in the document  Lumen Gentium.  Then we will utilize the physical development of human beings to understand the developmental process of cultures.  This will allow us to apply our understanding of the Immaculate Conception beyond the individual to the collective.  Lastly, we will develop an understanding of how to use contemplation of the Immaculate Conception to combat pride in the field of missionary activity and evangelization. 

 

An Ecclesiological Typological Appropriation of the Immaculate Conception

Having discussed the fundamental assertion of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception and how the contemplative can draw out a sense of vocational potentiality from the dogma to foster the virtues of faith and hope we will now proceede to how the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception can inform our understanding of Grace in the Church.

Mary as the Church

After exploring an individual application for the Immaculate Conception, our final task is to seek a framework for the dogma by the lens of Christology through Mariology as Ecclesiology. These three “-ologies” each deal with the interconnectedness of God in God’s self, God with us, and us with ourselves. Just as each deals with such relational interconnectedness, so to do they interconnect with each other.  Most conservatively interpreted, the immaculate grace Mary received at her conception is the grace of freedom from the guilt of Original Sin.  This follows since it is only the first 5 months absent individuated gamete Jesus that Mary uniquely needs this grace. She does not need cleansing of any personal sin as a zygote.  The only protection she would need is this same grace that we receive at our baptism.  This parallel in the dogma hints at a wider parallel of Mariology as ecclesiology.

Generally, Mariology as “referencing Christ” is ascending in nature.  Theology most often uses Mary to discuss Jesus in his dual nature. However Lumen Gentium VIII.III notes the dual nature of Mariology itself, “Wherefore this Holy Synod, in expounding the doctrine on the Church, in which the divine Redeemer works salvation, intends to describe with diligence both the role of the Blessed Virgin in the mystery of the Incarnate Word and the Mystical Body and the duties of redeemed mankind toward the Mother of God, who is the mother of Christ and mother of men, particularly of the faithful.”  The two approaches are ascending in terms of studying Mary to study Christ and the economy of salvation and extensive by studying Mary in order to understand Christ’s Mystical Body, the Church.

Since our aim is to understand how the Immaculate Conception can be applicably useful for the Church it helps to understand how the Church sees Mary as a Typology and signification of the Church.  This approach will not take an individual application but will have to do with nations, cultures, and peoples and how they develop as Christians.  We will look to an expansive as opposed to ascending approach, and seek application in the realm of the sociological/ecclesial rather than individual/soteriological.  Again we can turn to Lumen Gentium VIII.III

By reason of the gift and role of divine maternity, by which she is united with her Son, the Redeemer, and with His singular graces and functions, the Blessed Virgin is also intimately united with the Church. … For in the mystery of the Church, which is itself rightly called mother and virgin, the Blessed Virgin stands out in eminent and singular fashion as exemplar both of virgin and mother….

[S]ince her entry into salvation history unites in herself and re-echoes the greatest teachings of the faith as she is proclaimed and venerated, calls the faithful to her Son and His sacrifice and to the love of the Father. Seeking after the glory of Christ, the Church becomes more like her exalted Type, and continually progresses in faith, hope and charity, seeking and doing the will of God in all things. Hence the Church, in her apostolic work also, justly looks to her, who, conceived of the Holy Spirit, brought forth Christ, who was born of the Virgin that through the Church He may be born and may increase in the hearts of the faithful also. The Virgin in her own life lived an example of that maternal love, by which it behooves that all should be animated who cooperate in the apostolic mission of the Church for the regeneration of men.

In this passage, one can see a typological relationship between Mary and the Church.  As we noted above, Mary was the totality of the Church before Jesus’ public ministry.  But the council sees more than this.  In the person of Mary as the New Eve, she is a prototypical perfection which from that point on becomes a calibrating factor for what the Church is.

 According to  Lumen Gentium, the ecclesiological approach can begin “with the consent which she gave in faith at the Annunciation and which she sustained without wavering beneath the cross, and lasts until the eternal fulfillment of all the elect.”  She “is the Church” the way that Adam and Eve “are humanity” being the only representative at the time they are the individual and the collective simultaneously.  Thus the lessons of the first three chapters of Genesis are about individual human relationships and the dynamics of humanity simultaneously.  With Mary, the way that she relates to Christ is the way both the individual and the collective should relate to Christ, because before his public ministry, Jesus and Mary comprised the primal ecclesia. Lumen Gentium goes on to say, “The Church indeed, contemplating her hidden sanctity, imitating her charity and faithfully fulfilling the Father's will, by receiving the word of God in faith becomes herself a mother.”  The sacred council directly relates Mary to the Church and applies a methodology of imitation not just for the individual, but also for the entire community.

But while in the most holy Virgin the Church has already reached that perfection whereby she is without spot or wrinkle, the followers of Christ still strive to increase in holiness by conquering sin. And so they turn their eyes to Mary who shines forth to the whole community of the elect as the model of virtues. Piously meditating on her and contemplating her in the light of the Word made man, the Church with reverence enters more intimately into the great mystery of the Incarnation and becomes more and more like her Spouse.

Whether the application of Mariology be for the individual or the collective Church, the end result is the same.  From Mariology we get an angle on how humans and humanity relate to Christ, that we beget him into this world as alter Christus individually and as the mystical body as a church.  We are a follower of his, as Mary was with the apostles during his public ministry and God has had a plan for us from the beginning. Lumen Gentium reminds us, 

In the interim just as the Mother of Jesus, glorified in body and soul in heaven, is the image and beginning of the Church as it is to be perfected is the world to come, so too does she shine forth on earth, until the day of the Lord shall come, as a sign of sure hope and solace to the people of God during its sojourn on earth.

The council explores this calibration as an operating in the spheres of moral act and “begetting” Christ into the world. Again, both of these typological calibrations strike to the heart of the Annunciation as an act of will and an acceptance of begetting.  But the Immaculate Conception is also ripe for typological appropriation. 

The Immaculate Conception and Preexistent Collective Grace

A helpful application for the Immaculate Conception which moves beyond simply the individual will is to work the typology as a communal narrative of the Church but applying it to the conception of the Church.  But wasn’t the Church conceived two thousand years ago? How does that help us now? Is this application a dead end given that the Church has been established?  To make the application work, our ecclesiology needs to be a little more expansive.  We need to understand that the “Catholic Church” is the universal church, but that “universality” is not a crystallizable category of hierarchy and rubric.  It is universal in that the gospel applies universally, that we are freed by Christ from sin and given grace to love God and our neighbor.  But exactly how these universal truths are expressed in each culture can easily be quite varied.  If we conceive of the birth of the Church traditionally, that is taking place on a particular date during Pentecost, then there seems to be no application.  But by understanding that the Pentecost story, expressing unity and diversity as it does (linguistically), represents an evangelical agenda, we can understand that the Church is constantly being conceived in culture after culture as the Great Commission in exercised.  Even in each culture is conceived and reconviced as it develops and its practices and express change over centuries.  In as much as missions are successful and cultures adapt, there is room for a useful typological application for the Immaculate Conception to the ecclesia. 

The Great Commission seeks to spread the Church, but that evangelization is a give and take between what is brought to a new culture and what is found.  This give and take is the process of inculturation.  The religious seeds of what Christian inculturation means can be found in Judaism, which does not proselytize but sees each Nation coming into particular  covenant with God under the umbrella of the Noadic covenant, by means of a particular legal status appropriate to their relationship with him.  This idea that each culture relates to God particularly developes into the Eastern idea of Autocephaly and the Catholic idea of inculturation.  If the religious seeds of this go back to Judaism, much like the teacing of the Immaculate Conception, the plan of God goes back to the conception itself.  

God is always acting on multiple levels in such a way as to bring us to Himself.  The very fact of creation is God’s first action regarding humanity to share his life with us. The creation story is the first miracle and the first communication of grace to humanity.  The covenants of Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David are each narrowing contexts of participatory grace offered via an environment. The first context, through Noah, is Humanity.  The second context is the descendants of Abraham (which Include Ishmael’s descendants achieving covent through Hagar). The third context narrows to the people of Israel specifically through Moses.  The fourth context is the promise of justification made to David. Finally, there is the perfect person, Jesus, who brings justification and expands it back to all of humanity.  

Each person along the way has the ability to cooperate individually with the grace God may have bestowed on them within any of those communities along the way, as is attested to in the Hebrew Scriptures.  The perfection of these communities comes with the “New Covenant”, the Church.  The Church itself being the mystical body is the conveyer of grace through the sacraments.  But to conceive of this system statically established makes it is easy to be fooled into a primacy of will over grace.  If the sacraments are viewed as “mechanisms” that dispense grace then our personal motivations to get there and do them emphasize our personal action and will.  The clever Christian must always remember that grace is not a causal result or a prize, but a continual relationship, both operative and cooperative simultaneously.  The meaning of the Immaculate Conception is operative in the Annunciation.  This dynamic presents the same way in both individuals and cultures.

The dogma of the Immaculate Conception recognizes the planning and process 

God establishes in order to bring salvation to humanity.  Yet while that preliminary work unfolds, salvation is simultaneously being offered (to be realized in the Harrowing of Hell).  The incarnation is not a moment of “divine fertilization”.  Rather it is a biological process that runs from Zygote Marian bio-flesh developing Gamete Jesus to the conception/incarnation, to the nativity, to the proclamation of the kingdom and the passion.  The Immaculate flesh of Zygote Mary, before Gamete Jesus appeared is what produces Gamete Jesus (biologically), so in a way, it is also part of the process of the dogmatic and biological incarnation.  The incarnation as a continual developmental process queues us inot understanding that in a way the Immaculate Conception, the Annunciation, and the Nativity are all the same acts of salvation history.  

This journey of the incarnation, preexistent both to time and to the “differentiation of Gamete Jesus”, is a microcosm of the developmental process of the entirety of the salvation history of humanity. Much like covenant begets covenant in a flow of development, body produces body.  The Logos makes creation and out of that material pulls the nation of Israel in order to grow the environment for the incarnation in Mary’s own body.  The scope of salvation history is the macrocosmic example finding its expression in the mystical body of Christ.  The individual is the microcosmic example finding its expression in the historical body of Christ and typologically applied to the individual's life by balancing the Immaculate Conception and the Annunciation as one balances acceptance of grace and exercise of will.  Each culture is the middle ground between the macro and the micro.

To maneuver from the individual application of the dogma to the collective, it may be helpful to take the idea of unity in the presence of unique expression found in Paul’s analogy of the Church as the Body, for individuals and apply it to Mark 9.  In that passage, “John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us.’ Jesus replied, ‘Do not prevent him. There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me. For whoever is not against us is for us.” Christianity manifests in different communities and in differing ways.  But the spirit manifests in communities of its own accord, not at the behest of hierarchy or rubric.  Christians bring the Gospel to new cultures but at the same time, that these cultures manifest in various ways, shows us there is something preexistantly (at least) compatible with the gospel.  Here we can see the development process of salvation history now being applied to the development of the Church through the Great Commission.  There seems to be a clear teaching on nascent working of the spirit in cultures that allows for receptivity and even cooperation with the spirit prior to baptism.  This can easily be deduced from the story of Cornelius in Acts 10.  The centurion had received a message from an angel and when Peter arrived.

While Peter was still speaking these things, the holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to the word. The circumcised believers who had accompanied Peter were astounded that the gift of the holy Spirit should have been poured out on the Gentiles also, for they could hear them speaking in tongues and glorifying God. Then Peter responded, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people, who have received the holy Spirit even as we have?”  

Much like how the Immaculate Conception shows active grace active prior to will and cognition, this passage, clearly shows that the spirit is active prior to baptism.  This demonstrates a dormant attunement to truth present in the communities themselves which develops as Christ is introduced.  This can be compared analogically to the distinction between Zygote Mary as the material of Gamete Jesus and the actual individuation of Gamete Jesus, applying soteriological development to both the individual and the collective. The presence of the Spirit can be likened to the zygote grace calling the individual to a vocation, yet it is cultural context calling the culture to the gospel. 

The idea that the action of the Spirit allows for receptivity is further developed by Justin Martyr in his application of the Stoic concept of the Logos spermatikos, into a Christian concept.  The Stoic idea of the Logos spermatikos basically seeks to solve the problem or order objectively invested in the universe and how the human soul comprehends this order and makes sense of it.  The Logos spermatikos is an element in the soul (usually reason) that is there to receive the reality of the cosmic order.  Justin Martyr uses this same concept to vaguely talk about a receptivity built in the human condition to the working of God and the spirit.  Either end of the concept of the Logos spermatikos illustrates how cultures can be receptive to Christ and reflect gospel values previous to evangelization.

The Logos spermatikos as a philosophical concept is a transcendent and abstract meditation.  It involves the plan of redemption and God’s craftmanship of creation, building into the system a way for us to accept his redemption.  From the Stoic point of view, it is reason. From Justin Martyr’s view, it is hard to tell whether he conceived of Logos spermatikos as natural reason or supernatural grace.  Our meditation has taken the transcendent abstract Logos spermatikos and force upon is an imminent color by means of typological application of the Immaculate Conception.  The Logos  spermatikos is a spiritual/rational gift to perceive the order of the cosmos.  The Immaculate Conception is a concept of self where the physical is emphasized.  The physical is seen as so important it is a receptor of grace and the matrix for the incarnation of the Logos itself absent any semblance of reason or will.  Our next maneuver is apply these preexistant divine actions to the Church.

Our ecclesial meditation on the typological application of the Immaculate Conception does not take place two thousand years ago when the Church was conceived.  Though we can recognize that the Church was conceived two thousand years ago, our understanding of the developmental nature of history, grace, will, and salvation does not lead us to believe it was conceived in toto.  Each culture and each community must be conceived and developed as a church, just as each person must undergo a process of conversion.  The conception of each is a mysterious interface of prior and product.  What happens in Saint Anne’s Body because of her and Joachim’s action is much like how a unique culture can develop by the synthesis of two cultures.  Even though Mary’s grace at the Immaculate Conception was unique to her mission, anthropologically the dogma allows us to understand that we all have a call and all have the grace to fulfill it.  This is true of cultures as well.  Each has the receptivity to the gospel built in, a pre-given grace of vocation and acceptance.  It is only with the first missionary boots in the ground that Gamete Jesus can even begin to develop in the culture.  The typology reaches a crescendo when the culture collectively accepts who they are as Christians, this is the annunciation.  Full maturity comes as the culture births Christ according to its means and accompanies Christ in his public ministry and sacrificial death.

The Immaculate Conception as an aid to the Great Commission

The Immaculate Conception as a meditation on inculturation becomes a powerful tool for the evangelist to mitigate the pride of “bringing the gospel”.  The Immaculate Conception is a meditation on God's plan not our effort in response.  Each Missionary must remember that, just as they have a vocation to missionize, the culture they enter equally has a vocation to receive the gospel, and they have at least already been given the grace to accept the gospel.  As we noted above, even before that egg of Gamete Jesus individuated the ”material” to create Gamete Jesus (that is, Embryonic Mary’s bodily flesh) is present to Mary “as herself”. Further, the culture has been graced a manner in which they have been called to express the gospel.  Humble meditation on Zygote Mary and the grace she received helps us respect that hidden individuated grace is active in all corners of human existence. 

The surprise of Peter and his company at the reception of the Spirit by Cornelius and his house is a surprise built on pride.  They thought baptism was the only means of conferring the Spirit and since they controlled baptism, they controlled conference.  The Immaculate Conception is a stark reminder that God is not bound in the same way we are bound.  Peter’s subsequent response to the spirit with ritual baptism shows that these rituals are important for us.  They bind us, but they do not bind God.  Any missionary activity must bring with it the humble realization of the Immaculate Conception, that our work, even at the most fundamental level, is always the work of cooperation.  We must approach non-Christians as Zygote Mary, without Gamete Jesus, but there, dormant and receptive to the possibility of Gamete Jesus, we recognize that grace present from the creation by the word, and the call of the Father.

In the end, the most useful application of the Immaculate Conception on an ecclesial scale is one that directly combats the current popular saying, “Tolerance is not a Christian virtue.”  The Immaculate Conception shows us that we are to meet those who do not know Christ, with the Angels greeting to Mary at the Annunciation, “Grace to you, one who is already graced.”  That preexistent grace is operative even before Gamete Jesus manifests out of Mary’s flesh.  That preexistent grace is operative even before Mary knows not only Christ but anything at all. The grace that each culture needs to manifest the gospel is already there.  Missionaries are not only bringing the gospel, they are equally discovering and activating the will toward grace that is present.  This dynamic is true on both the individual and the communal scale.  In the end, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception reveals the patience we must have for those individuals and cultures who seem to not have Christ in their life.  The dogma reveals that God has a plan.  That even beyond all perception, Christ is there dormant and ready to be brought out of the very material that seems to be absolutely bereft of him.

Conclusion

In the first section, we discussed the basic teaching of the Dogma, its teaching about the relationship between Mary and sin.  We also discussed three stumbling blocks to active engagement with this dogma in the spiritual life of the Christian. The first stumbling block was a broad focus on the singularity of the Grace conferred, the second was a sense of static purity, and the third was the context of the counter-Reformation. 

In the second section, we offered an interpretive lens to the dogma of the Immaculate Conception that will hopefully help the reader personally invest in the dogma and apply it to their spiritual lives. This included a biological meditation on the nature of the Immaculate Conception that offered a framework to understand how the dogma presents the truths of both grace and vocational potentiality.  We also explored how the dogma’s presentation of vocational potentiality gives the contemplative an increased sense of hope in God’s call. Lastly, we explored the dogma as an expression of grace and develop a sense of how this relates to the virtue of Faith in the life of the believer.  

In the final section, we explored how the dogma of the Immaculate Conception can help us better understand the Church as a developing and growing mystical body.  First, we established how Mary is a typological signification of the Church by exploring the Second Vatican Council’s teaching on Mary in the document  Lumen Gentium.  Then we utilized the physical development of human beings to understand the developmental process of cultures.  This allowed us to apply our understanding of the Immaculate Conception beyond the individual to the collective.  Lastly, we developed an understanding of how to use contemplation of the Immaculate Conception to combat pride in the field of missionary activity and evangelization. 

My hope is that this treatise was able to steer the reader away from simply seeing the Immaculate Conception as abstract formulas or fodder for polemical debate with our protestant brethren.  Rather I hope the reader can see that the dogma reveals true inspiration that develops our virtues of faith and hope on a personal level.  As a Church, we should no longer understand this dogma as a tribalizing totem, but allow what it reveals to us to help the Church humbly share the gospel with all nations.