Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady
Homily preached at St Mary the Virgin Church, Traditional Anglican Communion, Melbourne.
By The Most Rev Peter J. Elliott
Auxiliary Bishop, Melbourne: Titular Bishop of Manaccenser
Delegate of the Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference
for the Anglican Rite Ordinariate project
IMMACULATE — sinless, so we describe Jesus Christ, and his human mother, Mary. It is part of the faith of the Catholic Church that God created Mary without original sin so that she would worthily and truly be the mother of his Son.
Tonight I wish to reflect on how this truth has unfolded within a process that the Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman called the "development of Christian doctrine". As Newman insisted, that development, guided by the Spirit of Truth, must be organic, consistent, continuous and vigorous.
A feast of the Conception of Mary by St Anne began to be celebrated in Palestine in the 6th century, indicating belief that there had been divine intervention at the beginning of Mary's life. Legends were current at that time about her parents Joachim and Anne, about her birth and her service in the Temple. In the East the emphasis would be on her sanctification in the womb because there was as yet no systematic belief in original sin. But perfect holiness in Mary implies freedom of sin, inherited or actual sin. In the East the title "panhagia" "the all holy one" has been ascribed to Our Lady since these early Christian centuries and recurs in various liturgies. Because perfect holiness excludes sinfulness, rich Marian poetry of St Ephrem the Syrian praised Mary as perfectly pure, all holy and sinless. Weals find here the deeper understanding of Mary as the Angel greeted here, "full of grace", most favoured by God, kekaritomene.
In the West a more formal doctrine of original sin was developed by St Augustine. He insisted that all human beings are sinners, "except the Holy Virgin Mary, whom I desire, for the sake of the honour of the Lord, to leave entirely out of the question, when the talk is of sin." (De natura et gratia 36.42). Augustine is a key to what many Catholics assumed about Mary in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries. How could the mother of Christ ever come under the dominion of Satan? Satan's dominion is the opposite to the Kingdom of Heaven, another understanding of original sin, which explains why we speak of being "freed from original sin" in Baptism, that is, freed from the kingdom of Satan.
St Jerome's slightly inaccurate translation of the prophecy in Genesis 3:15 also fuelled this conviction. "I will put emnity between you and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. She will crush thy head, and thou will crush his heel." It should read "He will crush thy head" The accurate version we use today it still contrasts the children of the second Eve with those of Satan. The early Fathers saw Mary as the second virtuous Eve who reverses the disobedience of the first Eve.
In the East interest in the perfection of Mary seems to have waned, even as splendid titles like "panhagia" were still used in liturgy. The feast of the conception of the Virgin spread to the West. Here the influence of St Augustine was pervasive, yet theologians favoured the sinlessness of Mary but debated how she could have been freed from original sin before her birth, that is, well before Christ died on the cross for her salvation.
Most scholastic theologians rejected her Immaculate Conception. They thought it diminished the universal redeeming work of Christ. Some of them also were uncomfortable with the sexual dimension of conception, perhaps harbouring Manichaean views that St Augustine himself did not hold. We also need to remember their inadequate understanding of conception and pregnancy, influenced by the ideas of Aristotle. Many therefore took the position of St Bernard, that Mary was purified in the womb like St John the Baptist, perhaps when she "quickened".
St Bernard had a fervent devotion to our Lady, like St Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, who did not accept the doctrine of her Immaculate Conception. But early, in the twelfth Century, Anselm's disciple, Eadmer wrote a simple treatise in favour of Mary being conceived without original sin. However the great champions of the sinless Virgin were Franciscan theologians, William of Ware, an Englishman, and his brilliant pupil Duns Scotus, a Scotsman as we see from his name. The Franciscans promoted the doctrine and its liturgical celebration became popular among the people. Pope Sixtus W raised the local feast to the level of an indulgenced universal celebration.
England was, in a sense, the cradle of belief in the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin. This might explain why December 8th is designated as "the conception of the Virgin Mary" in the calendar in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. I note, however that this is not found in the somewhat leaner calendars of the 1549 and 1552 editions. Now why mark a day nine months before the Birth of Our Lady, September 8, if her conception is not seen as a significant event in salvation history? The only other conception indicated in the Calendar is March 25th, the Annunciation, that is, the conception of Jesus Christ in Mary's womb.
One also wonders why this liturgical day appears in an Anglican calendar in the late Seventeenth Century. Were some Caroline Divines sympathetic to a doctrine that they knew was held universally in Catholic Europe? By the time of the Council of Trent, in the previous century, the Immaculate Conception was a well established belief even if it was not a defined dogma. The Council Fathers of Trent, in their teaching on Original Sin, cited St Augustine's words exempting Mary from sin, but they did not define the dogma, having much else to do at that time.
The definition of the dogma was inevitable, carried forward on a wave of popular devotion. Prayers, litanies, hymns, images of the immaculate Virgin appeared in the late Middle Ages and the Counter Reformation era, then multiplying in the baroque age. St John Eudes' devotion to the immaculate heart of Mary and the Marian spirituality of St Louis Grignon de Montfort reinforced belief in the Immaculate Conception. Private revelations played a significant part in these developments, particularly the Miraculous Medal revealed to St Catherine Laboure in 1830 with its inscription "0 Mary, conceived without original sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee."
In 1854, after consulting the Bishops and theologians, Blessed Pius IX solemnly defined the dogma in the Bull Ineffabilis. Throughout the Church there was universal jubilation. Beyond communion with Rome negative reactions focused on the way the dogma was defined and its content was dismissed as novel. Nevertheless, the intense Nineteenth Century devotion to the Immaculate Conception was echoed in the oft quoted poetic description of Mary by Wordsworth: "our tainted nature's solitary boast". The apparitions at Lourdes in 1858 set a seal on the dogma. The mysterious lady appearing to St Bernadette simply identified herself with the words, "I am the Immaculate Conception".
As we contemplate this truth of salvation history, let us never forget that the Immaculate Conception centres more around Jesus rather than Mary. She is conceived immaculate for one purpose, to be his worthy human, the Mother of God, and to be truly his mother in every sense. The human nature he takes from her in the Incarnation is that of the Second Eve, innocent, faithful and unfallen, just as he is the second Adam whose atoning work reverses our disobedience and settles the aching moral and spiritual debt fallen humanity owes to the just God. The Immaculate Virgin brings forth the Immaculate Lamb of God.
Jesus Christ is Mary's Saviour just as much as he is ours, and that was the concern of those scholastic theologians who rejected the Immaculate Conception. In no way is Mary exempted from the need to be redeemed, but as Blessed Pope Pius IX taught when defining the dogma, she is redeemed in anticipation of the saving work Christ accomplished for us on the cross. His work is timeless, cosmic. The saving power of his merits can reach backwards as well as forwards, as we see in the eternal sacrifice of the altar.
Devotion to Mary Immaculate has brought us together in this solemn act of worship at a very significant time. Many months ago, Fr. Graeme Mitchell invited me to preach tonight. Little did he, or I, imagine what has transpired over the past month, the publication of Pope Benedict's Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus. The Constitution and the accompanying note from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith define and set out the structure of Anglican Use Ordinariates for those Anglicans who accept the whole Faith and seek full unity with the Catholic Church. Within the Roman Rite they will enjoy a certain autonomy and special privileges. At their November Meeting at the shrine of Blessed Mary Mc Killop in North Sydney, the Australian Catholic Bishops appointed me their Delegate for the project of setting up Ordinariates in Australia.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, we can now look forward to a glorious day when we will be able to share the one Bread of Life and drink from the same Chalice of Salvation. We will be one in the full communion of Catholic Unity, but in a way that honours the diversity of Anglican traditions of culture, spirituality and worship. The Holy Father has made this possible with his generous and concrete initiative. But I must state honestly that his offer is a challenge for every Anglo Catholic to confront reality, to surrender daydreams and nostalgic illusions. At the same time, his offer is a challenge to Catholics of the Roman Rite and the Eastern Rites to be welcoming, helpful and open.
The task ahead is great. But all of us can work together towards establishing this project, gradually resolving details, difficulties and personal questions. We confidently entrust our work to the Immaculate Mother of God, under her title Our Lady of Walsingham. May she gently guide and inspire us as a great venture unfolds in accord with the unity which her Son Christ wills.
