In December, we celebrate two of the great gifts and mysteries of God — not only the birth of the Savior of the world, but the Immaculate Conception of His Mother!
Normally, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception is celebrated on December 8th; but this year, because it falls on the Sabbath, it has been “technically” moved to Monday, December 9th. Interestingly, December 9th commemorates the first day that the Aztec convert, Juan Diego, saw Mary as the “Woman Clothed With the Sun.” We know Her better today under Her title as Our Lady of Guadalupe.
We have stated before that this web site is dedicated to the Truth of the Shroud of Turin as the burial cloth of our Lord, and to the defense of His Mother. So many times when we read stories on the Internet or hear protest-ants preach, they usually do not defend Mary, but seem to enjoy and relish in attacking Her. This is especially true in regard to Her Immaculate Conception.
In their attacks, their battle cry is the standard, “Show me where it says that in the Bible!”
So it is our great pleasure to defend the Lord’s Holy Mother and Her Immaculate Conception. We are not going to do it from an “intellectual” theological standpoint, but from a simple-mindedness and a view of the great symbolism found in the Scriptures.
First, let’s make clear what the Immaculate Conception is. In speaking with many protest-ants one usually finds they think it means the virginal birth of Mary. This is completely wrong. It has nothing to do with a virginal birth — that is reserved exclusively for the Son of God.
The Immaculate Conception has to do with Mary being conceived by two normal human beings — if you consider being descended from King David normal. In addition, Mary’s parents, who are traditionally named Anne and Joachim, are like Elizabeth and Zachary, Sarah and Abraham, old and childless unto to this point. Indeed, Joachim, Mary’s father is reportedly rich and well off, but chastised in the community of Israel because he and Anne, who are past the normal child-bearing years, are childless.
This is when the miracle occurs. The Lord, who has set His plan up from the foundation of the world, is now going to answer their prayers and bless this couple with a special daughter, the woman who is going to become the Virgin Mother of the Savior of the world! If, at this point, you are caught up in the question where does this information come from, such as the names of Mary’s parents, who cares? What difference does it make what their names are? Is it not common sense that Mary had two parents? As for the rest of the story, it comes to us from Sacred Tradition, something protest-ants completely dismiss.
But the miracle of Mary’s birth as the Immaculate Conception is not Sacred Tradition. It is biblically based and was taught by outstanding Saints throughout the history of the Church.
What is the miracle? It is the conception of a child between two people who should no longer be able to conceive children. What is the Immaculate Conception? It is an even more incredible miracle. Mary, the special woman who is going to give birth to Jesus, is conceived in Her mother’s womb without the stain of Original Sin.
How do we inherit Original Sin — the sin of Adam and Eve who disobeyed the Lord? We get it through our parents’ DNA! It's in our blood! And Original Sin is nothing more than the disobedient nature of mankind (Romans 5:19). We have been given free will and we can choose to do things we know God does not like or want us to do.
But on the merits of Her Son’s future salvific action on the Cross, God grants this special and great ONE-TIME gift to the woman who will say “Yes” to the Most Holy Trinity. Of Her own free will, Mary will say, “Behold, the handmaid of the Lord: be it done to me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38) when She is asked by the Archangel Gabriel if She will conceive the Savior of the world within Her womb.
Okay, if you are reading this and you are not a believer in the Immaculate Conception, you might be saying, big deal, we all know that Mary said “yes.” How does this prove that “ridiculous” Catholic dogma that claims Mary was conceived without the stain of Original Sin in Her?
The proof, as they say, is in the Scriptures. Let’s take a look at Luke 1:28 when Gabriel, which means “God’s Strength” in Hebrew, first appears to Mary.
The first words out of God’s Strength are, “Hi, 10 percent grace!”
Or did Gabriel say, “Rejoice O highly favored daughter of 85 percent grace!”
No. He did not speak these words.
The Scriptures — the consistent original Scriptures — are very clear as to what God’s Strength said to Mary: “HAIL, FULL OF GRACE, THE LORD IS WITH THEE!”
Now, let’s think about this. If we see you in the street, we say, “Hail, brother, how’s it goin’?”
No, we do not use “hail” as a common greeting. It is reserved for very special people: “Hail, Caesar”; “Hail, King of the Jews”; “heil (which is hail in German) hitler.” (Please remember our editorial policy, lower case letters for those things or people we cannot show respect to.)
So we can see with our common sense that Hail is reserved as a title of royalty, for a leader and not just anyone. And when the Archangel Gabriel greets the humble Virgin of Nazareth, he knows who She is. She may not know it yet, but Gabriel understands that as the Mother of God, Mary is destined to be the Queen of Angels. And as an Angel, Gabriel greets Her with the respect and royal salutation She deserves: Hail!
And then this angel told Mary that She was FULL OF GRACE!
We don’t know about you, but we are positive we ARE NOT full of God’s grace. We are sinners. But if you were full of God’s grace, what does that mean? Does that mean you have sin in you? To be full of God’s grace, is it even possible for you to have sin in you?
If we were all full of God’s grace, would the world be in the shape its in? In fact, we don’t have all of God’s grace specifically because of ORIGINAL SIN. It is impossible for us to be full of grace, because we carry the stain of Adam’s rebellion in us.
But Mary is different. She is full of God’s grace and the LORD is with Her!
We can view this principle in its reverse. The less of God’s grace in you, the less the Lord is with you! We believe most of the sane people in the world would agree that someone like saddam insein has none of God’s grace and the Lord is not with him! So there is the scale. The more rebellious or disobedient an individual, the less the Lord is with them and the less God grants graces.
With Mary, God granted — out of His own good pleasure — all of His grace to Mary.
Now why would He do this? In fact, who else in the Bible, besides Mary, was ever declared to be full of God’s grace? The answer: no one! Only Mary was declared “full of grace.”
So we need to look at the Old Covenant to understand why the Lord HAD to do this to Mary!
Do you remember the Ark of the Covenant? What was in the Ark? The 10 Commandments. Are not the 10 Commandments the Word of the Lord? What happened to people who in sinfulness touched the Ark of the Covenant with the Word of God in it? They died!
Now it is impossible to be anything but reasonable in reviewing this fact and applying it to the New Covenant. Is Jesus the Word of God? Is Jesus sinless and holy? Who is going to carry Jesus in Her womb?
If Mary has sin in Her, what will happen when God infuses His Holy Spirit in Her and the Word of God takes residence in Her womb? Wouldn’t She be consumed like those who touched the Ark of the Covenant?
Since Mary is going to carry the Word of God within Her for nine months as the New Ark of the Covenant, She CANNOT have sin within Her or She will be consumed by the Holy Spirit!
In addition, in order for Jesus NOT to inherit Original Sin, God stopped this generational process in Mary so that the Blood Jesus receives from Her is PURE and untainted with sin.
To continue this symbolic thought, let’s look at the Scriptures again. Mary, who is now with Child, goes to visit Her cousin Elizabeth, who has also conceived miraculously. But Elizabeth did not conceive her son, John the Baptist, without an earthly father. The miracle was, again, that Elizabeth and her husband, Zachary, were beyond their child-bearing years.
Now what happens when Mary gets to her cousin Elizabeth’s home?
Let’s turn to the Scriptures again, this time Luke 1:40-44: “And She [Mary] entered the house of Zachary and Elizabeth. And it came to pass, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the babe in her womb leapt. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the Fruit of Thy womb! And how have I deserved that the Mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, the moment that the sound of thy greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leapt for joy!’ ”
Now let’s get this straight. According to the Bible, when did John the Baptist, the greatest prophet, as the Lord Jesus Himself declared his cousin to be, leap in the womb of his mother? St. John the Baptist jumps at the SOUND OF MARY’S VOICE! Don’t believe it? Elizabeth herself, filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, confirms it in verse 44!
How fascinating! Is this just an insignificant passage in the Scriptures? Are any verses insignificant in the Bible? Why does the Lord make a point of telling us Elizabeth “was filled with the Holy Spirit, and cried out in a LOUD voice”? Is God trying to tell us something significant? After all, God had it recorded twice within two sentences of each other!
Therefore, of course it must be significant! And why is that so? Because St. John the Baptist is the reason today we, as believers in the Lord Jesus, GET BAPTIZED. Why? To take away the stain of Original Sin! Wow! So the greatest prophet in the history of the world leaps at the sound of the first person he instinctively knows DOES NOT HAVE THE STAIN OF ORIGINAL SIN IN HER!
But we guess there are people out there who are going to say, “You're nuts, that’s not what it means!”
So let’s see if God has given us any other way we can confirm from a reasoning mind that Mary is the Immaculate Conception.
Thankfully, today, many protest-ants have come to the conclusion that the science surrounding an enigmatic cloth known as the Shroud of Turin proves that, indeed, this is the irrefutable burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth. So far, so good.
But here is the problem for the protest-ants. Since the Shroud proves beyond a doubt the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, what has the Son of God done with His cloth? If you are God, that means your Power is Infinite and you can do anything you want! It means you do not make mistakes. It means everything you do has a purpose. It means you are the Wisdom of the world. It means your actions are signs to people!
And so what has Jesus done with His Shroud in 2,000 years? He has ensured that it resides and has always resided with the Universal [read the Greek word, Catholic] Church! In the 1st Millennium, when the Church was one, the Shroud was in the Eastern Empire. When the East split with the West in the 2nd Millennium, the cloth mysteriously wound up in Europe.
And in the 3rd Millennium, who owns the cloth? A man by the name of John Paul II! A man who would tell you emphatically that Mary IS the Immaculate Conception.
And he is not the only one. In the long list of those who honored and venerated the Shroud as the burial cloth of Jesus long before science came into the picture, these people now have the title of Saint in front of their names. And what did these Saints of the Universal Church preach? That Mary IS the Immaculate Conception! That Mary IS, as the Archangel Gabriel knew, the Queen of Heaven and Earth!
Is this, then, an accident? Does God say, “Oh, who cares, whatever happens to My burial cloth doesn’t matter.” Or is it another powerful sign from God?
If Mary is NOT the Immaculate Conception, then why doesn’t Jesus, the Son of God, who is infinitely powerful, almighty and all-knowing, put His burial cloth with a church that contains the fullness of His Truth? Why has He kept it consistently through the centuries with a Church that honors His Mother with incredible dogmas?
If we are wrong about the symbolism of Mary and John the Baptist, then why doesn’t Jesus ensure His burial cloth is with the Baptist congregation? If Calvary Chapel has the Truth, then why doesn’t Jesus ensure His cloth is with them? Don’t you think that if there is such powerful evidence for Jesus’ accomplishments that He wouldn’t just let the evidence be with anyone? Why, especially at this time, has Jesus ensured that the cloth has been entrusted to a man and a Church that preaches the Immaculate Conception of His Mother? If the Immaculate Conception is annoying to the Lord, why give such a precious gift such as His burial cloth to the Church that proclaims this dogma?
Or is it because this Church contains the FULLNESS of God’s Truths? Remember the old Hebrew proverb for those who say there is no meaning in the Shroud as part of Catholic history: there are NO coincidences in God’s universe!
While the Church may NOT be perfect and many priests are in trouble, it does not mean that the doctrines and dogmas of Catholicism are wrong! It does not mean Mary is NOT the Immaculate Conception. What it means is that those elements of the Catholic Church that are wrong will be judged, not by us, but by Him! And we do not want, because of the sinfulness of others, be they priests, popes, nuns, or protest-ants, to be on the wrong side of His Mother!
To be on the wrong side of His Mother is to be on the wrong side of Him.
Let Jesus do what God does: be the Just Judge and let Him Judge the Church accordingly!
Remember, never in the history of the Church did bad popes or priests, of which there are many, formulate or promulgate dogma about Mary!
And this brings us to our final point.
Do not fall into this trap as so many protest-ants do. It is the battle cry we mentioned at the beginning of this article, “Where does it say that in Scripture?”
For those who believe that battle cry, do you really think God has to reveal and tell you everything about Him and His Mother in a book? Do you really think you can tell God what to do?
When you die, are you willing to say to the Lord, “Wait a minute, God, how could you make Mary the Immaculate Conception? By what right do You think You have to keep Her from being tainted with Original Sin? What didn’t you tell me about this in the Bible? Who do You think You are? You didn’t check with me!”
The point is, it’s kind of like talking to Leonardo da Vinci about his masterpiece, the Mona Lisa: “Hey, Leonardo, I really don’t like that smile on her. What do you think you’re doin’?” That would be an insult to the master, wouldn’t it? Whether you like the Mona Lisa or not, you really aren’t going to berate the artist, are you?
Mary, is like that to God. She is HIS masterpiece!
Do you really want to question Him about it? Do you really want to challenge His rights?
Are you really sure that you know the EXACT and FULL meaning of Elizabeth’s words in the Bible when she says, “And blessed is She who has believed, because the things promised Her by the Lord shall be accomplished” (Luke 1:45)? Do you know ALL the things promised to Mary by the Lord?
Were you privy to their conversations? Since Jesus lived with Her for 30 years in secrecy, are you sure the Bible has recorded all of His statements and promises to Her?
Are you especially privy to the Lord’s promises to His Mother in regard to Mary’s statement when She says in the Scriptures, “… for behold, henceforth all generations shall call me blessed; because He who is mighty has done great things for Me” (Luke 1:48-49). Are you sure you know all the “GREAT THINGS” God has done for the Woman who bore His Son? Could one of those “great things” be Her Immaculate Conception?
Should you bet against Mary’s Immaculate Conception as something unimportant to God and a trivial argument?
Or does it really hurt you to believe Mary was conceived without sin? Will it make you go to hell if you believe it and you are wrong?
Or is there a chance for you to go to hell if you are wrong and She IS the Immaculate Conception?
One last thought. It is interesting that as we approach the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe to take note that it was the followers of St. Francis of Assisi who preached the Immaculate Conception of Mary. One must again question what God thought of this and whether or not He gave us a sign that this is true. For as the protest-ants say, we must “test” the spirits.
The question can be answered by, again, looking at what happened in history and “connecting the dots,” so to speak. The Franciscans were not terribly successful in converting the pagan Aztecs to Christianity until a very special event occurred. A Woman Clothed With the Sun appeared to a man now known as St. Juan Diego. His feast day is December 9, the original day the Feast of the Immaculate Conception was celebrated in the Church in the 8th century. Today, December 9th commemorates the first day the Virgin appeared to him. And the Spanish name he selected for his Baptism when he converted is the same first name as John the Baptist!
At the same time, Guadalupe is really a phonetic mistranslation of an Aztec expression that means, “the One who crushes the serpent!” The Franciscans used it because they did not understand the Aztec language, and the expression used to identify Mary in Her apparition sounded very much like the name Guadalupe to them. In Guadalupe, Spain, the Franciscans had a shrine honoring Mary as the Immaculate Conception. It was the same shrine Christopher Columbus prayed at before he set sail to discover the New World.
When Mary appeared as Our Lady of Guadalupe to the Aztecs, 9 million will eventually convert to the true faith! How can we prove this? Look around you today and compare it to what was happening half a millennium ago. What were the Aztecs doing before Mary’s appearance? Taking sacrificial victims up the pyramids they built to cut their beating hearts out to honor the Aztecs’ serpent and sun gods! The Aztec priest was required, during the ceremony, to eat some of the flesh and drink some of the blood of the victims!
What do the Aztecs do today? Most people believe that the Aztec Indians have disappeared. No, they haven’t. They have become assimilated into a new culture we call “Hispanic.” And what do the Hispanics of Mexico and the Americas do today?
They go to the Sacrifice of the Mass where the eat the Flesh and drink the Blood of the Son of God in the Eucharist!
Mary has conquered!
She has crushed the head of the Aztec serpent god who now receives no sacrifices and took the native Indians away from worshipping the wrong sun.
And She will continue to conquer as the Immaculate Conception, the Woman Clothed With the Sun, the Sun of Justice, as the Son of God is known. She will conquer not because it is our promise, but God’s: “She shall crush thy [the serpent’s] head” Genesis 3-15.
How fascinating that God, with great miracles, will confirm Mary as the Woman Clothed With the Sun, not only through Her apparition as Our Lady of Guadalupe, but again as Our Lady of Fatima.
One must ask the question if there is any significance that Our Lady of Fatima’s first appearance in 1917 as the Woman Clothed With the Sun took place on May 13th.
Why? It just must be a “coincidence” that May 13th is the same date on which Pope Pius IX was born in 1792 — the very man whose greatest achievement in life will be to declare as dogma that Mary is the Immaculate Conception.
But it's all just a coincidence.
Copyright 2002 Agnus Dei Presents!
A Prayer to Honor the Immaculate Conception!