The Immaculate Conception
One is my dove, my perfect one is but
one,
she is the only
one of her mother,
the chosen of her
that bore her…
Who is she that
looketh forth as the morning,
fair as the moon,
clear as the sun,
and terrible as an
army with banners?
Song of Solomon 6,
9-1
Fear not, for I have redeemed you.
I have called you by name, you are mine.
Isaiah 43, 1
And the angel being come in, said unto
her:
Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee:
blessed art thou among women.
Luke 1, 28 {DRB}
καὶ εἰσελθὼν ὁ ἄγγελος πρὸς αὐτὴν εἶπεν
Χαῖρε κεχαριτωμένη ὁ κύριος μετὰ σοῦ
εὐλογημένη σὺ ἐν γυναιξίν
The
female vocative kecharitomene (κεχαριτωμένη),
literally “highly favored
by grace” or “having been graced,” ₁ can be
paraphrased as “enduringly
endowed with grace.” ₂ Because Mary
was to be the mother of our Lord, the perfect past participle does “show completeness with a permanent
result” and denotes “continuance of a completed action.” ₃ Moreover,
since the expression kecharitomene is in the female vocative case, the angel
addresses Mary by identifying her as the embodiment of all this expression
denotes. When Gabriel greets her, he doesn’t call Mary by her given name but by
the complete fullness and endurance of her state of holiness. He names her
perfected in lasting grace.
Here, we have the morphological aspectual (not tense marked) stem of kecharitomene: ke. This is the perfect stem of the root verb charitoo (χαριτόω), which may denote a perpetuation of a completed past action (mene). The root verb is derived from (χάρις), which means “grace” or “favor.” The completed past action itself, therefore, is “having been highly favored and made acceptable by grace,” “lovely or agreeable.” ₄
The perfect stem is distinguished from the aorist stem which we have in Ephesians 1:6, for example, escharitosen (ἐχαρίτωσεν): “He graced” or “has freely bestowed grace.” In this active indicative form, the aorist stem describes a completed action that has come to pass and is finished. It is temporal in aspect and a momentary result. ₅ The aorist stem does not signify a permanent state of grace. On the other hand, the perfect aspect exclusively denotes a state that prevails after an event has occurred and is caused by this event.
Catholics believe this past occurrence to be Mary’s Immaculate Conception – the first instance when God fashioned and sanctified Mary’s soul and redeemed her most perfectly, given the foreseen merits of Christ, because of her election to the Divine Maternity. By His gracious act, God redeemed Mary most entirely by preserving her accessible from contracting the stain of original sin and all personal sins so that she would be the most acceptable and loveliest mother of the Divine Word in his humanity. For no other reason did God favor Mary with this singular grace. ₆
The perfect tense can indicate a finished action or the continuation of the result up to the present time. When Jesus says, “It is written,” (gegrapti/Γέγραπται) it literally means “It has been written,” implying that what has been written remains in force beyond the present time. As in Matthew 4:4, “Man cannot live by bread alone, but by every word coming from the mouth of God.” The perfect tense can also include the future conceptually in its aspectual form. Ephesians 1:6 refers to our predestination to grace, not glory. The active indicative aorist, which modifies the root verb and is temporal in aspect, suggests that not everyone perseveres in grace beyond the present time. Therefore, “escharitosen” does not imply a permanent state of sanctifying grace for all believers. The idea of “Once-saved-always-saved” does not exist in a distributive sense.
In Catholic theology, the endowment of sanctifying grace correlates with our actions and cooperation with God’s actual graces. For this reason, St. Paul exhorts us “not to receive God’s grace in vain” (2 Cor 6:1), for the soul is justified by sanctifying grace. Sanctification is the formal cause of justification. The soul is deprived of sanctifying grace by committing a mortal sin, resulting in spiritual death (1 Jn 5:16-17). So, God’s grace to Mary endured beyond the present. God’s bestowal of grace on Mary was the permanent result of her being chosen as the Mother of God. This presupposes that she could never have committed any personal sins and thus forfeited her being in sanctifying grace at any time.
Here are some scriptural comparisons between verbs’ perfect and aorist aspects to better distinguish them.
“By grace, you have been saved.”
– Ephesians 2:5
Christ’s formal redemption of the world continues. The grace of justification and forgiveness our Lord has merited for humanity is the permanent result of his passion and death on the cross. God has reconciled the world to Himself through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (Rom 5:10-11).
“After that, you believed (Aorist), you were sealed (aor.) with the Holy Spirit.”
– Ephesians 1, 13
Believing and sealing are definite and complete acts confined to the present moment. Therefore, Some Ephesians who believed may eventually have lost their faith and fallen from grace. St. Paul is referring to their predestination for grace rather than glory.
In the Catholic Douay Rheims Bible, Acts 6:8 states, “Stephen, full of grace and fortitude, did great wonders and signs among the people.” Most Protestant Bibles also use the phrase “full of grace” (pleres charitos), except for three versions that use “full of faith” (pleres pistin). The King James Bible uses “full of faith and power” in Acts 6:5. It’s important to understand that while most Bible versions use the phrase “full of grace,” they are not describing Stephen in the same way Mary is described. Luke meant that the Holy Spirit granted Stephen the actual graces of faith and fortitude, which enabled him to perform his salutary acts.
These actual graces sanctify the person but are present only with the performance of the acts and disappear at the end. Stephen was full of (“full of”/πλήρης) faith and fortitude while he debated with the religious elders in the synagogue and performed great signs and wonders. Looking at the past tense verb “was performing” (ἐποίει) in Acts, we can see that the noun grace (χάριτος) can be placed within a restricted time reference. The verb tense is imperfect past progressive, indicating that performing great signs and wonders is completed in the past and left there. Actual grace, in the form of faith or fortitude, aids the soul in remaining habitually in sanctifying grace, which is the quality of the soul sharing in the divine life. Stephen partook in the divine life through his apostolic zeal while evangelizing in the Temple.
Whether Stephen remained faithful and resilient after this event is of no significance. The Evangelist isn’t concerned with the time before and after the event, during which Stephen was filled with a sufficient supply of actual graces that rendered him wholly faithful and robust in his present task. But this is not so regarding Mary. Her maternal vocation extended throughout her entire existence from the time she was conceived since she had been predestined to be the mother of the Lord. On the other hand, God didn’t choose Stephen to evangelize his entire life. Moreover, the grace Mary was endowed with relates to her soul’s holy state and quality, not an apostolic action of hers at any moment. The grace that the angel is referring to, therefore, is the habitual grace of sanctification or justification, which is distinguished from actual grace, though the latter does produce sanctification.
As we have seen in Luke 1:28, the original Greek text does not read pleres charitos but kecharitomene, a perfect passive participle, and singular female vocative. A participle is a verb that is used to describe a subject. The perfect tense describes an action (God’s bestowal of grace) in the present with a completed result. And since this term is used as a title, the evangelist does not intend to describe Mary’s state within the restricted time frame of the present moment. He presents the angel as saying: “Hail, “completely, perfectly, and permanently endowed with sanctifying or justifying grace.” Someone completely endowed with grace is obviously “full of grace,” despite the verbal difference. Mary’s complete and perfect endowment of grace is a completed past action with a lasting effect that identifies who she is. Mary embodies what it requires to be the mother of God incarnate in her interior life: completely and perpetually sinless with no place for any stain of sin in her soul whatsoever, grace being the antidote to sin.
When the angel Gabriel addresses Mary with the title Kecharitomene, he is not simply describing her state at a given time in concurrence with her actions, as Stephen is described to be in his state of grace. Nor does the angel mean any of the actual graces, such as faith and fortitude, which help to sanctify the soul. The grace the angel has in mind concerning our Blessed Lady is sanctification itself, which justifies her before God, making her most worthy to be the mother of the Son. The Greek singular female vocative can be paraphrased in Latin as “full of grace” (gratia plena) since Mary has been endowed with a fullness of sanctifying grace, which renders her completely holy and fit to answer her divine call.
It was not enough for Mary to become the mother of the Son of God to possess the spiritual gifts of faith and fortitude, despite how plentiful and well-supplied they were in her soul. Mary had to be perpetually holy in every virtuous aspect, from the moment she was conceived to the time of her passing, to be the most fitting Mother of the Divine Son. Her Divine Maternity was lifelong and required complete justice and holiness in her soul and body throughout her earthly existence.
The Greek word for grace in Ephesians 2:5, which we saw above, is charis, from which the root verb charitoo is derived in the expression kecharitomene. For Mary, therefore, the grace she is endowed with is indeed the grace of sanctification or justification. God kindly bestowed this grace on our Blessed Lady when He sanctified her soul at the first instant of her conception, given Christ’s foreseen merits. The perfect stem of the root verb charitoo (ke) indicates that her redemption is complete and permanent, whose effect continues in the present at the time of the Annunciation and extends with her Divine Maternity, which never ends. Christ’s passion and death completed mankind’s redemption, but personal salvation is not guaranteed. Although we receive sanctifying or justifying grace through the Sacrament of Baptism, it is momentary and habitual. Unlike us, who may fall from grace through mortal sin even after baptism, Mary’s salvation was assured. She never committed any mortal or venial sins, having been chosen as the mother of our Lord and Savior.
In Luke’s Gospel, Mary is portrayed as the Daughter Zion who has been restored to grace with God in her mother’s womb. She declares, “My soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his handmaid” (Lk 1:46-48). Mary’s redemption was perfect because God fashioned her soul at conception, preserving her from original sin. This ensured that she did not fall short of His glory by being inclined to commit actual sins (Rom 3:23). Zephaniah’s prophetic words (3:14-15) can be interpreted as referring to Mary’s exemption from all stains of sin, which she would have inherited along with mankind, had it not been for God’s grace.
Sing aloud, O Daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel!
Rejoice and exult with all your heart,
O daughter of Jerusalem!
The Lord has taken away the judgments against you,
he has cast out your enemies.
The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst;
you shall fear evil no more.
According to Catholic doctrine, God saved Mary from the stain of original sin. This meant that suffering and death were no longer punishments for her, as she was free from sin. Suffering and death were introduced into the world due to the sin of Adam and Eve (Rom 5:12). However, Mary, being sinless throughout her life, did not have to fear these evils. She did suffer and choose to die to follow in the footsteps of her son Jesus, but she did not suffer or die as a punishment for her sins.
Mary was freed from mankind’s collective guilt by her Immaculate Conception, as mentioned in Gen 3:15. This is why the angel Gabriel told her not to fear, as she had found grace with God, as recorded in Lk 1:30. Mary had no tendency to sin. Her love for God and her neighbors was impeccable. As a result, she had no reason to fear divine justice, as fear is related to punishment, and love conquers all fear. Mary was made perfect in love by God (1 Jn 4:18), which was necessary for her to become the Mother of God.
Hence, the primary thought of the Greek perfect tense is that the progress of an action has been completed, and the results of the action are continuing in full effect. The progress of the action has reached its culmination, and the finished results are now in existence. Unlike the English perfect tense, which expresses actions that began in the past and continue in the present, the Greek perfect tense indicates a completed past action’s continuation and present state. For instance, Galatians 2:20 should be translated as “I am in a present state of having been crucified with Christ,” indicating that not only was Paul crucified with Christ in the past, but he exists now in that present condition. The apostle continues: “The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” The Greek perfect tense concerns the person’s present condition or state that has resulted in the past.
According to St. Luke, Mary was already in a state of grace before the Annunciation. She likely remained in this state after the angel left, as he departed only after Mary had agreed to become the mother of the Lord (Lk 1:38). Therefore, God bestowed His grace upon her for this reason. The angel also said in Luke 1:30, “Fear not, Mary, for you have found favor (grace) with God.” Mary’s permanent state of grace resulted from a past action completed before the Annunciation. This action probably occurred when God created her soul and predestined her to glory because of her election to the Divine Maternity.
God commissioned the angel to call the Blessed Virgin Mary Kecharitomene upon greeting her because of her singular and most perfect form of redemption (Isa 43:1). By the merits of her divine Son, his mediation was absolutely perfect by exempting his most blessed Mother from incurring the universal debt of sin rather than having her debt remitted. In honor of his Mother, the Lord had done “great things” for her from the first moment of her conception in the womb (Lk 1:49).
In his Apostolic Constitution, Ineffabilis Deus, 8 December 1854, Pope Pius lX cites the Divine Maternity as the “Supreme reason for the privilege” of the Immaculate Conception. We should remember that when God predestined Mary to be the mother of Christ our Lord (Lk 1:43), He knew that she would pronounce her Fiat that instant He fashioned and sanctified her soul. Now, the perfect tense does not function to indicate that this state of grace will necessarily continue to exist after the present time. Paul continues to be in the state of being crucified with Christ on the condition that Christ lives in him, and while he lives his life “by faith in the Son of God,” just as Mary continues to be in the state of sanctifying grace and justified before God provided she is the mother of our Divine Lord. God clothed the Mother of the Son with “garments of salvation” and arrayed her in a “robe of righteousness” so that she would be worthy of being the Mother of God (Isa 61:10).
We should remember that the expression kecharitomene is in the vocative case. Kecharitomene is the name the angel gives Mary when he first greets her. The name defines who she is in her standing before God as our Lord’s mother. So, the state of grace in which Mary continues to exist during the Annunciation can be of enduring and permanent quality. In Scripture, the names God gives his servants (Abram-Abraham, Sarai-Sarah, Jacob-Israel, Simon-Peter, and Saul-Paul) refer to their defining characteristics as God’s servants. The name Sarah (“exalted princess” in ancient Hebrew), for example, points to her status of being the Matriarch of the Covenant, who prefigures the Davidic Queen Mother (Gebirah) and ultimately the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven.
The epithet Kecharitomene points to something essential about Mary’s interior being and position with God. She isn’t simply described as being full of grace but is called “full of grace;” she embodies in her person what it means to be completely, perfectly, and perpetually endowed with sanctifying or justifying grace. The names God gives His servants are permanent and originate from all eternity in accord with His design. Grammatically and linguistically, therefore, we must keep the verb tense and the form of the case in mind to fully understand what God is revealing to us by the designation Kecharitomene. The perfect tense is being used here in an extraordinary way that never is for any person in the Scriptures, save the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God.
The woman was given the two wings of a
great eagle,
so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness,
where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time,
out of the serpent’s reach.
Revelation 12, 14
Early Sacred Tradition
for there is no blemish in you nor any stains upon your Mother.
Who of my children can compare in beauty to these?”
St. Ephraem of Syria
Nisibene Hymns 27:8
(A.D. 361)
has made inviolate, free of every stain of sin.”
St. Ambrose, Sermon 22:30
(A.D. 388)
untouched, unsullied, holy in soul and body,
like a lily sprouting among thorns.”
St. Theodotus of Ancyra, Homily VI:11
(ante A.D. 446)
but gave her to Christ, to whom she was pledged
in the womb, when she was made.”
St. Peter Chrysologus, Sermon 140
(A.D. 449)
she who is of a pure, immaculate clay.”
St. Theoteknos of Livias
Panegyric for the Assumption, 5:6
(A.D. 650)
The shame of sin had darkened the splendour and attraction of human nature; but when the
Mother of the Fair One par excellence is born, this nature regains in her person its ancient
privileges and is fashioned according to a perfect model truly worthy of God…. The reform
of our nature begins today and the aged world, subjected to a wholly divine transformation,
receives the first fruits of the second creation.”
St. Andrew of Crete
Sermon I, Birth of Mary
(A.D. 733)
[1] Fred P Miller, Zechariah & Jewish Renewal: From Gloom to Glory (Lithonia: Moellerhaus Publishing, 1992). See the author’s commentary on Zechariah 20 in Chapter 31 in the context of Luke 1:42. Elizabeth blesses or praises Mary for “having been [already] blessed” (eulogemenos). The perfect passive participle of the verb eulogeo functions as it does in Luke 1:28 in which the angel Gabriel names Mary “having been graced.”
[2] Friedrich Blass & Albert Debrunner, Greek Grammar of the New Testament (Chicago University Press, 1961),175.
[3] Herbert Weir Smyth, Greek Grammar (Harvard University Press, 1968), 108-109.
[4] James H Strong, Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (UK: Hendrickson Publishers, 2009). [5487. Charitoo]
[5] Blass & Debrunner, 166.
[6] Fritz Rienecker & Cleon Rogers, A Linguistic Key to the Greek New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Christian Publishing, 1976). The authors state that the term Kecharitomene denotes “grace having been bestowed on” someone as “a divine favor for a special vocation.”
