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Would you want the best mother possible if you could choose? Is this not possible for God, to make someone perfect and sinless? Mary was not only born without original sin but she was conceived without original sin and remained sinless throughout her life.

Here is an analogy. There is no perfect analogy for explaining what is supernatural so bear with me. However, this is a very good one for explaining this Church doctrine of Mary being sinless from the instant of conception until death:

You and I are walking in the dessert and I fell into a pit. You had some rope and were able to pull me out. If you had left me in there, I would have died of starvation, dehydration, or heat stroke, which ever came first... therefore, you SAVED me. Now what if we were walking in the dessert and I was not looking where I was going, and I was about to step into the pit. You saw it though, and stopped me from falling into the pit. You still SAVED me. In this scenario as well as the first, you SAVED me. In the 1st, you saved me from death but AFTER I had fallen. In the 2nd, you saved me from death but BEFORE I had fallen.

In the same way, Jesus saved Mary BEFORE she was stained with original sin, which would have been at the moment of conception (the moment she came into existance) like everyone else. Jesus saved all of us AFTER we were stained with original sin. Mary rightly calls God her Savior in her Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55). He IS her Savior but that does not mean she sinned. He saved her BEFORE she "fell".

One example of the fact that Mary was sinless from the Bible, is Luke 1:28. The angel says to her, "Hail, full of grace,". If a glass is full with water, you can't fit anything else in it. It is the same with grace. If Mary is FULL of Grace, then that means there is no blemishes or stains of sin in her soul because you cannot add to "full". He did not say,"Hail, partialy full of grace,". He said "FULL". This is also the only time this title is given to anyone in the entire Bible.

I know most of the Protestant Bibles don't use those words but that is because Luther and all the other heretics changed the Bible to fit their teachings. There are also some Catholic Bibles that have bad translations of the original text that don't use those words. There is nothing in the Catholic Church contrary to the Bible and there is nothing in the Bible contrary to the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church gave the Bible to the world. It is a Catholic Book. God Bless.

2007-11-27 15:52:14 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

There is a great deal of ignorance among modern-day protestants as to the Scriptural and other ancient support for most of the Marian doctrines. It is the fundamentalist move away from Mary that has been the recent aberation. Yet even many Protestant Christians who are not so extreme still believe that Catholic and Orthodox doctrines on the Virgin Mary are unscriptural and are inventions of the Medieval Church, being unknown to the early Christians.

the Virgin Mary was preserved free of Original Sin from the moment of her conception, and so was made sinless.

has to do with the Holiness of God. God cannot tolerate Sin. Mary as the God-bearer in Jesus had to be sinless in order to be in such close proximity to God Himself. The whole Bible teaches that God's presence demands and imparts holiness. (Ex 3:5; Deut 23:14; 1 Cor 3:17; 1 Jn 3:5-6; Rev 21:27). The Jewish high priest entered the Holy of Holies only once a year, under threat of death if God's instructions were violated (Lev 16:2-4,13). The Ark itself was so holy that only a few were allowed to touch it (Num 4:15; 2 Sam 6:2-7). Thus, Mary, due to her physical and spiritual relationship with God, necessarily had to be granted the grace of sinlessness.

In other words, since Jesus took flesh in and from Mary's body, and also obtained His Human Nature from Her, she had to be perfectly sinless. The only question that then arises is when and how Mary was made sinless.

Protestants are quite willing to admit that we are cleansed of our sins at baptism. Yet Mary could not have been baptised at the time of the Annunciation, or even Jesus's birth. For this reason her sinlessness had to come in a special and unique manner. To be pure and free from all sin as God required, she had not only to be free of sin at one point in time, (as one is immediately after baptism,) but to remain sinless throughout her life

Luke 1.46: And Mary said "My soul glorifies the Lord 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,"

She was redeemed by her son - as was all the rest of humanity. She needed God's Grace. And in order to be, and remain, sinless she needed that grace before her own birth.

We can see that in Luke 1.46 Mary speaks of God as her Saviour, but she speaks in the present tense. She does not say "God, who will be my Saviour." She has already been redeemed.

Mary clearly considered that God had already clothed her with the garments of salvation, and covered her with the robe of righteousness. Her sin had already been wiped away.

This is supported by the angel's greeting to Mary:

Luke 1.28: The angel went to her and said, "Hail, you who are full of grace (Literally: you who have been and remain filled with Grace). The Lord is with you."

Grace in the New Testament is seen as the antidote to sin. (Rom 3:24, 5:15-17, 6:14 11:6) So being filled with Grace strongly implies sinlessness. And since Mary required the grace of redemption before her own birth, it is quite fitting that this happened at her conception. Is this a problem for God? No. Jesus is the perfect Redeemer. Therefore he must have redeemed one person perfectly. That person is Mary, having been redeemed by Jesus from Original Sin from the moment of her own conception.

I'm afraid that those who translate the angel's greeting as "highly-favoured" have been guilty, for whatever motive, of making a false and rather misleading distinction. The Greek word used by the angel is Kecharitomene. The root of this word is Charis, meaning Grace. The prefix Ke means that the grace was already perfectly present before the angel appeared. The suffix mene means that Mary was the recipient of this grace.

Now Charis can also be translated simply as favour. So Highly-favoured could be a conceivable translation - but this would only be acceptable if the word "favour" were used as a translation for "Charis" everywhere else in the New Testament. But THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN. Even those bibles which translate "Charis" as Favour" when referring to Mary, translate it as "Grace" everywhere else. This is highly misleading because in the New Testament the word "Grace" has a particular meaning distinct from "Favour". In the New Testament "Grace" is a gift of God that saves from sin and its effects. So translating the word any differently is wrong. The correct translation is rightfully "Full of Grace".

2007-11-27 22:16:02 · answer #2 · answered by SpiritRoaming 7 · 1 0

she wasn't sinless

2007-11-27 22:01:10 · answer #3 · answered by 777 6 · 1 3

BECAUSE SHE WAS THE CHOSEN ONE!

2007-11-27 22:12:13 · answer #4 · answered by 1960s 1 · 2 0

she didn't exist and neither did jesus.

2007-11-27 22:01:27 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0 5

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