[Mrs. Don-o]

"God had two choices. Impregnate a single woman or impregnate a married woman. IN EITHER CASE, then, God, by Catholic reasoning, could be charged with sexual sin."

I *do* wish you wouldn't make stuff up and call it "Catholic reasoning". You'd do better to put that in the form of a question, e.g. "Wouldn't it follow from Catholic doctrine that...?"

Why say God had just two choices? There's a third.

1. Mary was single (nothing special, just like any other single gal in Galilee), or
2. Mary was married (just like any other married gal, vowed to have exclusive sexual relations with Joseph, and they justly owed each other such exclusivity), OR,
3. Mary was consecrated, set aside somehow for her unique role as Mother of the Divine Son.

St. Paul says of us all that we were "chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world" (Eph. 1: 4). If this has a general application to every one of us, does it not have an especially striking application to her from whom Christ Himself was to receive that flesh and blood which was to redeem mankind?

Open your Bible and see how the predestination and consecration of Mary are repeatedly foreshadowed in an unbroken chain of types, figures, and prophecies concerning the Incarnation, which necessarily involves Mary, the Mother of the Incarnation.

Right from the beginning (Genesis) God says to Satan , "I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed; "that" (ipse) shall crush thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel" (Gen. 3: 15). So right from the beginning, war is declared between the Seed of the Serpent and the Seed of the Woman: a seed is being prepared which will defeat the ancient Adversary.

What was God doing in the OT? Here's a succinct and summary answer: preparing the seed.

In this Genesis protoevangelium, the Redeemer Himself is mentioned only in relation to "the woman"; He is "the woman's" seed; a very peculiar expression, showing one born in some wonderful manner, not according to the ordinary laws of generation. It points unmistakably to the Blessed Mother and her Child. Thus the two adversaries, whose combats make up the history of the world, are, on one side, the devil, on the other, the woman; and again, the seed of the devil and the seed of the woman.

I could go through the rest of the Bible book by book identifying the prophecies and types (and there is more about Mary in the OT than in the NT) but for now, let me just conclude that Mary's existence was being planned out by God from the dawn of the human race. She was neither an ordinary single gal nor an ordinary married woman, but "chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world," a Woman Predestined.

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[metmom]

Mary was consecrated, set aside somehow for her unique role as Mother of the Divine Son.

Nevertheless, she would either be married or single.

We are ALL chosen in Christ. Read Ephesians 1 where the word for grace there is the same one used by the angel to Mary.

Mary and Grace

The word grace used in this passage in Luke is used in one other place in the Bible and that is Ephesians 1 where Paul tells us that with this same grace, God has blessed us (believers) in the Beloved. IOW, we all have access to that grace and it has been bestowed on us all.

http://biblehub.com/greek/5487.htm

Luke 1:28 And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!”

Ephesians 1:4-6 In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

Greek word “grace”

charitoó: to make graceful, endow with grace

Original Word: χαριτόω

Part of Speech: Verb

Transliteration: charitoó

Phonetic Spelling: (khar-ee-to'-o)

Short Definition: I favor, bestow freely on

Definition: I favor, bestow freely on.

HELPS Word-studies

Cognate: 5487 xaritóō (from 5486 /xárisma, "grace," see there) – properly, highly-favored because receptive to God's grace. 5487 (xaritóō) is used twice in the NT (Lk 1:28 and Eph 1:6), both times of God extending Himself to freely bestow grace (favor).

Word Origin: from charis

Definition: to make graceful, endow with grace

NASB Translation: favored (1), freely bestowed (1).

[Elsie]

Open your Bible CCC and see home Rome has tried to inject it's teachings into it; claiming all kinds of predestination and consecration of Mary are repeatedly foreshadowed in an unbroken chain of types, figures, and prophecies concerning the Incarnation, which necessarily involves Mary, the Mother of the Incarnation.