Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ, I ask you to pray the Introductory Prayer with great Faith, especially before reading today’s posting. We need the help of the Holy Spirit to grasp the truth in today’s posting. Read it over and over again, if needs be, till it is clear, lucid in your mind. May the Holy Spirit enlighten us all.
Merciful Father, as you have sent the Holy Spirit on Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, to write all that You wished and wanted, we pray You, send the same Holy Spirit on us, so that we may understand, appreciate Your Word, and make it our plan of life. This we ask for the merits of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.”
56 … Blessed John Duns Scotus (1265/66 – 8th November 1308), besides being known as the «Subtle Doctor», is also referred to as the «Marian Doctor». It was he who presented a systematic theology of the Marian privilege of the Immaculate Conception, which the Catholic Church officially proclaimed as a Dogma of Faith in the Apostolic Constitution Ineffabilis Deus of Pope Pius IX (8th December 1854).
Scotus builds a theology centred upon Christ, who is eternally predestined by God the Father to assume human nature in the Incarnation. According to the Subtle Doctor the Incarnation was not primarily intended to be the condition for the redemption of humanity from sin. In God’s provident plan, the Incarnation of the Word in the person of Jesus Christ was, first and foremost, the apex of the act of creation by God the Father. All creation has been fashioned according to the image of the Incarnate Word, and is the result of a pure and free act of love on the part of God.
Creation, in this way, enters in a mysterious but real way into a loving relationship with God as a Trinity of Persons. Each and every creature, being complete in itself and unique in its essence, is a model of God the Son, who became Incarnate in order to glorify His Father for the beauty of creation. This vision is a direct result of Franciscan spirituality at its best. It is true that, in the history Redemption, the Incarnation was then orientated toward the salvation of humankind from sin, but this aspect, important though it may be, could not be the only reason for the Incarnation. Otherwise God would not be seen as the personification of the primacy of the free will, expressed in love which overflows from Him onto His creatures.
It is in this Christological view of the world and of redemption that Scotus speaks about the Virgin Mary as Mother of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word of God. She becomes the embodiment of all perfection in creation, freed from sin and from its effects through the saving power of Jesus Christ, the universal Mediator between God and humankind. It was fitting that God would choose a Mother for His Son, who would be totally free form any stain of original and actual sin, in order to become a channel of grace to us all.
The presentation of the common opinion regarding Mary’s Conception
The Son of Mary was the Redeemer of all, and with his death he merited the salvation of his Mother and of all humankind. However, if his Mother had not been conceived in original sin, since she did not commit any actual sin, she could not possibly have needed a Redeemer, since she would have been without sin. If she would have been conceived without original sin, the doors of heaven would not have been closed to her, and they would not have been opened at the moment of the death of her Son. From this follows that, if she had died before her Son died on the cross, she could immediately have seen God face to face. /57
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