The Immaculate Conception of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, is the belief that God preserved Mary from any inclination to sin, the inheritance of original sin passed on to all mankind from our first parents, Adam and Eve. The belief of the Immaculate Conception of Mary says nothing about Mary and personal sin (Romans 3:23).

      Christian belief holds that every human being through faith and through baptism is freed from sin – original sin and personal sin – through the grace of Jesus Christ. Roman Catholic Christians simply claim that Mary was the first one to whom this was done. 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.

      Isiah 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.

      Genesis 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 Luke 1:28 for Mary - before Christ's redemption; and Ephesians 1:6 for Christ's grace to us - after Christ's redemption).

      Luke 1:28 – And coming to her (Mary), he (the angel Gabriel) said, Hail, favored one (kecharitomene).

      Ephesians 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.

      15th Century – The Feast was universally celebrated; and Christian piety introduced an oath to defend the belief in the Immaculate Conception to be taken not only by Religious, but also by non-Religious and at the Universities (e.g., Paris, 1497; Cologne, 1499; Vienna, 1501)

      1854 – Pope Pius IX, infallibly defined, ex cathedra: "The Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, and in view of the foreseen merits of Jesus Christ, the savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin."