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Question

Dear Father Angelo Bellon,

I hope you are fine. As for me, thanks to your registering me in the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary I have been deepening my vocational discernment and I have been drawing near to a conclusion, after so many years. 

Today, I have had a heated debate with some friends of mine regarding Saint John the Baptist. 

The Catechism of Saint Pius X says that Saint John was born without sin. Can you please elucidate the difference between being born without sin and Immaculate conception? Because it is clear that Saint John the Baptist and the Virgin Mary have not the same role. 

The point is this:

179. Was Saint John the Baptist born in sin like other men?

Saint John the Baptist was not born in sin like other men, because he was sanctified in his mother’s (Saint Elizabeth’s) womb, in the presence of Jesus Christ and of the Most Holy Virgin [t.n.: I was unable to find an official English version of the Catechism of Saint Pius X. This is just my humble translation attempt. I apologize for the inconvenience. Translator Alessandra]

Andrea

Answer

Dear Andrea,

  1. I am glad that your vocational discernment is drawing near to a conclusion. I hope that you will choose the option that many, including myself, have glimpsed. In any case I am happy wherever the Lord takes you.
  2. Coming to your question, what you have read in the Catechism of Saint Pius X is perfectly correct. Saint John the Baptist inherited original sin and the inclination to sin like every other mortal. But in the sixth month after his conception, on the occasion of Our Lady’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth, he was sanctified in his mother’s womb.
  3. This sanctification was so great that, at the same time, the original sin was removed and the inclination to sin, which he had inherited like everyone else, is highly likely to have become inoperative. It might also have been extinguished later. 
  4. In that moment, according to Saint Thomas, John the Baptist was confirmed in grace, namely he received a kind of impossibility to commit sins, at least mortal ones. This impeccability was due to the very high degree of sanctifying grace that Jesus Christ infused in him and also to a particular heavenly protection.

John needed it because he had to be a worthy forerunner of the Lord. And he was an excellent one because his word, although he used to preach in the desert, attracted crowds from everywhere. People were baptized confessing their sins. This way he prepared a people fit for the Lord.

  1. Having been sanctified in his mother’s womb, he had already been liberated from original sin when he  was born. For this reason, the Church celebrates only the feasts of the birth to this world of the Virgin Mary and of Saint John the Baptist. As for all of the other saints, we celebrate their day of birth to eternal life (that is to say the day of their death). 
  2. Even though he was born without sin, his condition is not identical to that of the Virgin Mary. Not only was She liberated from sin, but She was also preserved from it since the very first instant of her existence.

Moreover, Our Lady received such a superabundant degree of grace and sanctification that She is above all saints (therefore the Church honors her with a worship of hyperdulia) and, in addition, she was preserved also from the inclination to sin.

Our Lady was therefore all pure, all saint, all immaculate ever since the first instant of her existence, ever since her conception. For this reason, not only does the Church celebrate the day of her birth, but also the day of her conception on the 8th of December.

  1. The difference between Our Lady and Saint John is therefore clear: the latter contracted original sin and was liberated from it in the sixth month of his existence, namely three months before his birth.

The Virgin Mary, on the other hand, had the singular privilege of being free of  original sin  since the first moment of her existence. 

Moreover, Saint John inherited the inclination to sin (fomes peccati), although we can believe, as stated above, that it was inoperative, maybe even extinguished. 

Whereas the Virgin Mary was exempted from this. 

  1. For this reason, Saint Thomas claims that “The blessed Virgin, who was chosen by God to be His Mother, received a fuller grace of sanctification than John the Baptist and Jeremias, who were chosen to foreshadow in a special way the sanctification effected by Christ. A sign of this is that it was granted to the Blessed Virgin thence-forward never to sin either mortally or venially: whereas to the others who were thus sanctified it was granted thenceforward not to sin mortally, through the protection of God’s grace” (Summa theologiae, III, 27, 6, ad. 1).

Wishing you all the best for your future, I remember you to the Lord in prayer and I bless you.

Father Angelo