The Immaculate Conception: Dogma, Defense, and Devotion

In this sermon Father discusses the Immaculate Conception, explaining how Blessed Duns Scotus resolved theological difficulties by arguing that it was fitting for God to preserve His mother from original sin, a doctrine later defined as dogma by Pope Pius 9th. Mary is the "woman" of Genesis who crushes the serpent's head, and as the "mold of God," she serves as the perfect mediator to help the faithful be transformed into Christ. We need to practice total consecration to the Immaculate, imitating her virtues and relying on her intercession as it is the surest path to salvation and victory in spiritual warfare.

Key quotes from Saints in this sermon:
- St. Augustine: “Mary was the only one who merited to be called the mother and spouse of God.”
- St. Augustine: “For sin never had any entry into the soul of the Blessed Virgin.”
- St. Bernard of Clairvaux: “Thou alone was found worthy to be chosen as the one in whose virginal womb the king of kings should have his first abode.”
- St. Bernard of Clairvaux: “Noah’s ark was a type of Mary, for as by its means men were preserved from the deluge, so are we all preserved by Mary from the shipwreck of sin.”
- St. Bonaventure: “It was becoming that the Blessed Virgin Mary by whom our shame was to be blotted out and by whom the devil was to be conquered should never even for a moment have been under her dominion.”
- St. Thomas Aquinas: “It was necessary that he, Christ, who was to take away sin, should be separated from sin as to the fault under which Adam lay.”
- St. Ambrose: “Christ chose this vessel unto which he was about to descend not avert but from heaven and he consecrated it a temple of purity.”
- St. Louis de Montfort: “I still would choose the immaculate way of Mary. It is a way a road without stain or spot without original sin or actual sin without shadow or darkness.”
- St. Louis de Montfort: “Mary is the great mold of God fashioned by the Holy Ghost to give human nature to a man who is God… and to fashion through the grace men who are like to God.”
- St. John Damascene: “O Blessed Virgin, thou was born and thou mightiest minister to the salvation of the whole world.”

Links, Reading Material, and Books:

- The Secret of Mary (With Preparation for Total Consecration) by St. Louis de Montfort: https://amzn.to/3KIsNJT)
- [True Devotion to Mary by St. Louis de Montfort]: https://amzn.to/3MxFVC5
- [Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis]: https://amzn.to/4iJ2rnD
- [Consecration to Mary (Angelus Press)]: https://angeluspress.org/products/consecration-mary

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