Thoughts on the Immaculate Conception

 I got a question about the Immaculate Conception of Jesus (edited for brevity):

I am strongly considering converting from Baptist to Catholic. However, the only thing really stopping me is my inability to grasp the concept of intercession from the Saints & Mary...

I also just am really really struggling with the idea of Mary being sinless. I have been stuck on this completely. I have read Luke 1:28 multiple times, and just am not understanding how Mary being favored by God translates to her being sinless.

I just really need some clarification Thank you in advance!

My response: 

Now, the second part of your question is a much broader topic that is very easy to get off into the theological weeds. If you are only looking to the Bible for an easy explanation from the Biblical text, you are not going to get really far. The Bible in itself is exhaustive as to every theological issue. While uniquely Divinely inspired revelation, it is not an end all be all encyclopedia that has sections on every conceivable moral, ethical, philosophical, and theological topic.

This is why the Catholic teaches that the Bible and Holy Apostolic Tradition can both be sources of revelation, like vanguards each protecting the other from misinterpretation and misuse through the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

So, back to the issue of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. Part of this stems from the theology of Saint Augustine's teachings on baptism and, more to the point here, Original Sin. While these notions were around before Augustine, Augustine is the one that really summed them up and got them accepted into Magisterial teaching after much prayer and discernment in the Church.

I am simplifying for brevity, but Augustine believed that Original Sin, i.e. the Fall of Adam and Eve, brought about what he terms Original Guilt. After the Original Sin, we are all guilty simply by virtue of following Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve set in motion what we call 'sin.' Sin is not just breaking of God's commandments, etc., but sin is also a sickness.

Augustine looked at the Bible text that says, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" Augustine basically took that and said, "What part of 'all' do you not understand? All means all." Babies, adults, everyone. This is part of why we baptize infants...all means all. If all have fallen short of the glory of God, how then could Jesus when he was conceived not fall into that condemnation if all means all?

To make a modern analogy, Adam and Eve let in the computer virus, as it were, that infects everyone's operating system. The virus may not be activated yet, and may be laying dormant until such time as we at an age of reason knowingly open the file, but it's there. Even if the virus is merely sitting there in cold storage in the hard drive, it's there. As such, very computer is infected to some degree and is guilty of not having an immaculate operating system. As such, every computer in that analogy must be set aside and condemned from use until such time as the virus is removed.

This is what we mean when we are talking about Original Sin and Original Guilt. Someone may not yet have sinned, but the virus is there because the Operating System that's been installed on every computer contains the inherited virus, and every computer with the malware must not be allowed into the Divine office where God runs the universe until such time as the virus is removed and a clean Operating System is installed.

This is why we have the Marian dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. If Jesus was born with the original guilt, the imbedded computer virus in his human operating system, he likewise would have to be set aside and not allowed to operate in God's office network by the guilt of having the embedded virus in His corrupted human nature OS.

To remedy this Operating System error, God in His sovereignty, chose Mary to be the Mother of God. Mary needed salvation and would have otherwise sinned, but God chose to clean Mary's operating system clean of the virus of Original Guilt by making her sinless so that she would not pass on the virus of Original Sin's guilt to her Son, Jesus. Mary was booted up from the beginning with the OEM sealed Operating System, not an Operating System contaminated with the virus. Thus, when Jesus was born, he was free from Original Guilt because he had the correct Operating System from conception. God could use Jesus, because he had the immaculate Operating System inherited from His mother.

This is why we say Mary was the Mother of God, not just the Mother of the human part of Jesus. She was given, as an unmerited gift of God, the correct Operating System that she could pass on to Jesus.