[RockBassCreek]

You seem to agree that the seed of Mary resulted in the sinless Jesus. You say that a miracle was performed on that seed so that Jesus did not inherit Mary's inherent sinfulness.

It sounds like we are simply debating WHEN the miracle occurred. Catholics say it occurred at Mary's birth. You say that it happened at the time the particular egg in question was donated.

A miracle is the answer in any case.

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

If you believe a miracle took place on the seed that became Mary, why couldn't that miracle have taken place on the seed that became Jesus instead? Why for Jesus to have been sinless did He need to come from a sinless person? I believe you may be forgetting that in God's eyes, Mary was sinless because she had accepted the Lord as her savior. She just looked forward to the event, where as Christians today look back to it.

Becky

[NYer]

Catholics say it occurred at Mary's birth.

The basis for the belief in the Immaculate Conception of Mary can be found in the Biblical revelation of holiness and the opposite of that state, sinfulness.

God is revealed as perfect interior holiness.

Is 6:3

"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts!" they (the Seraphim) cried one to the other.

No sin or anything tainted with sin can stand in the face of the holiness of God. "Enmity" is that mutual hatred between Mary and sin, between Christ and sin.

Gen 3:15

I will put enmity between you (the serpent, Satan) and the woman (Mary), and between your offspring (minions of Satan) and hers (Jesus); He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel.

The salutation of the Angel Gabriel indicates that Mary was exceptionally "highly favored with grace" (Gk.: charitoo, used twice in the New Testament, in Lk 1:28 for Mary - before Christ's redemption; and Eph 1:6 for Christ's grace to us - after Christ's redemption).

Lk 1:28

And coming to her (Mary), he (the angel Gabriel) said, "Hail, favored one (kecharitomene)"

Eph 1:4-6

(God) chose us in him (Jesus), before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him. In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with the favor of his will, for the praise of the glory of his grace (echaritosen) that he granted us in the beloved.

The constant faith (paradosis) of the Church attests to the belief in the special preparation of the holiness of the person of Mary to bear in her body the most holy person of the Son of God.

Post-Apostolic:

Implicitly found in the Fathers of the Church in the parallelism between Eve and Mary (Irenaeus, Lyons, 140? - 202?); Found in the more general terms about Mary: "holy", "innocent", "most pure", "intact", "immaculate" (Irenaeus, Lyons, 140?-202?; Ephraem, Syria, 306-373; Ambrose, Milan, 373-397); Explicit language: Mary - free from original sin (Augustine, Hippo, 395-430 to Anselm, Normandy, 1033-1109).