In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, popes gave us two infallible dogmatic declarations regarding the Blessed Virgin Mary. In 1854 Pope Pius IX defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in a document known by its Latin title Ineffabilis Deus (God Ineffable). In 1950, Pope Pius XII gave his dogmatic declaration on the Assumption of Mary in Munificentissimus Deus (God Most Bountiful). These papal teachings confirmed long-held beliefs of Catholic faith and enriched our appreciation of the grace given to Mary at her conception and at the end of her earthly life.

If these were our only papal teachings on Mary, we would be left with a gap in our understanding and devotion. What is the significance of her life between her conception and her assumption? Pope John Paul II filled that gap with his encyclical Redemptoris Mater (Mother of the Redeemer). John Paul II devoted the bulk of this letter to the life of Mary and her pilgrimage of faith.

These three documents provide a complete reflection that carries us from our Blessed Mother’s conception through her pilgrimage of faith to her glorious assumption.

Before defining the Immaculate Conception, Pope Pius IX consulted cardinals, bishops, and theologians and spent time in prayer and fasting for the illumination of the Holy Spirit. With that illumination promised to the successors of Saint Peter, Pius IX proclaimed that Mary was preserved from all stain of original sin from the first moment of her conception by a special grace from God.

He emphasizes that this special grace flows from the foreseen merits of Jesus Christ, the savior of the human race. The rest of us receive in baptism the remedy to that original sin in which we are born. In Mary alone, the grace of her Son was applied in such a way as to preserve her from original sin from the very first moment of her conception.

As the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains, original sin is called sin by analogy, for it doesn’t describe actual acts of personal sin but rather the wounded condition in which we are born as members of fallen humanity. Mary’s preservation from the wound of original sin provides the superlative testimony to the healing power of grace.

Pope Pius IX finds the origins of this special grace in the eternal plan of God to redeem the human race through the mystery of the Incarnation. Mary fulfills the promise of salvation given in Genesis immediately after the Fall of Adam and Eve. God puts enmity between the serpent and the woman and promises that the seed born of woman will crush the evil serpent.