Shea on the Immaculate Conception

Mark Shea doing what he does best:

Mary too is addressed by a title when Gabriel appears to her: Kaire, Kecharitomene. It's a title that is too full of meaning to render accurately in English; "Hail, Full-of-Grace" is part of it. Hail, Favored One" is another part of it. "Hail, Full-of-Divine-Life" touches on it as well. The western tradition, especially in the Rosary, has settled on "gratia plena," or Full-of-Grace, as the preferred rendering. And in this title, the Catholic tradition has always seen the biblical reflection of the Church's ancient apostolic faith in the sinlessness of Mary. Note that I say "reflection" and not "basis." That's because the Church is not "based on the Bible" but rather based on the Word made flesh. The Bible does not come first, like a foundation, and then the Church gets built on top of it, "deriving" various doctrines from tenuous and ambiguous sentence fragments here and there (as though some medieval pope said to his secretary one day, "Oh look! Here's a passage where Gabriel calls Mary "full of grace"! How about we say, on the basis of this passing reference, that . . . oh, I don't know . . . How about, 'Mary is immaculately conceived and preserved from all sin, both original and actual?' Think people will buy that whopper? It's just wild enough that they may go for it!"). Rather, the belief is already implicit in the Faith of the apostles, and the biblical passage is the reflection of the apostolic teaching that goes out to all the churches. That's why, from east to west, across a dozen different cultures, tongues, and rites of the ancient Church, the overwhelming consensus of the Fathers is that Mary is "most pure," "formed without any stain," "all-Holy," "undefiled," "spotless," "immaculate of the immaculate," "inviolate and free from every stain of sin," and created in a condition more sublime and glorious than all other natures.