Fr. Scott Haynes
God has clothed Mary with the garment of salvation. This is the reason of her unspeakable joy. She proclaims: “My soul magnifies the Lord.” In contrast to Mary, who is clothed in garments of grace, we have Adam and Eve. After original sin, Adam and Eve were ashamed of their nudity. Their eyes were opened, as the book of Genesis reports it.
Their hearts became morally weak and susceptible to sin, and they realized that they were deprived of the grace of God. Their bodies became subject to death, sickness and other infirmities. They became object of sins – what Saint Paul would call later the works of the flesh.
Once you have abandoned your reason in order to sin and that the grace of God covers you no longer, you are like an animal. Man has been defined as a rational animal. But is he still rational he who sins? He might be still rational as he can still use his reason to understand his condition and be ashamed of it. He is certainly no longer reasonable.
The order of the Divine grace is different than the order of nature, but one cannot separate them. By trespassing against the first one, men corrupt the other one. Original sin is truly a sin of nature – not only because it has affected the whole human nature and in a certain way all the whole nature, but also because it is a revolt of the nature and a sin against nature. Therefore, the punishment would fall on the nature and would strike anyone who shares in it by virtue of descent from Adam.
How deep are the mysteries of God and of our salvation! But how beautiful they are! Mary, the Immaculate Conception is the response of God to original sin. It is His most beautiful work after the humanity of Our Savior; and precisely the Immaculate Conception of Mary is the jewel case that receives the humanity of the Redeemer.
The first Eve, by her own work stripped herself of the grace of God. The new Eve, the Virgin Mary, has been clothed in the most splendid garments of grace. She is free of all sin. Without any merits from her part, she has been raised above all the creatures, and for this she is the humblest of all. This is the grace of the Immaculate Conception. Our Lady had never belonged to the enemy. Nor did she belong to herself. Her Immaculate Heart beats entirely for God: Totus Tuus! [1]
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[1] St. Louis de Montfort says to Mary: “Totus tuus ego sum et omnia mea tua sunt”—“I am totally yours and all that I have is yours.”
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