The Immaculate Conception compared to a vaccine

It is worth mentioning that dogma is defined when it is disputed, not when it comes into existence. For example, the teaching about the Trinity was made dogma in the Council of Ephesus in 431 A.D. (nearly 400 years after Christ walked the earth) during a dispute between Trinitarian Christians and the Arians. There would have been no dispute over the Trinity among the first Apostles because they knew Jesus firsthand. But as the years go by, teaching history and theology can turn into a game of telephone—hence why historic Church councils are held and teachings and beliefs are reiterated and reinforced.

In the midst of a deadly pandemic, doctors and scientists work to develop a cure for the disease so people may live. This can be allegorical to how the grace of Christ, through His death and resurrection, is the ‘cure’ for those already born with the disease of sin. The Immaculate Conception is more akin to how a vaccine is taken before having any exposure to the disease. Some would say, how could God save Mary if she was already sinless? This would be like asking, how could a doctor save you from disease if he already vaccinated you? Thus, it can be reasonably believed that Mary would have had to been cleansed (or spared) from Original Sin in order to bear the Son of God in her womb.

Mary’s sinlessness would not have been by her own doing, but by God’s saving grace alone. To produce a sinless Savior in her womb, there is no necessity involved with the Immaculate Conception, but it is fitting within the means God chose to come down to earth. God, in His omnipotence, could have been incarnated by any means He desired. He could have materialized into human form on the spot if He chose to do so. But in perfect humility, He entrusted Himself into the arms of a seemingly ordinary Jewish woman—but the fact that He chose Mary specifically to be the Ark of the New Covenant hardly makes her ordinary at all.

Adapted from an article by René Albert for Patheos, July 2020