Theological Foundations new file

142 Theological Foundations stain of original sin. The Blessed Virgin “came forth from the mouth of the Most High” (Sir 24, 3). God had promised her to our first parents when He announced that the sin which was committed by one woman will be eradicated by another, better woman. For He did say to the ser- pent: “I will put enmity between you and the woman. ... She shall bruise your head.” From the moment when God’s command in the Garden of Eden was disobeyed, mortal man became the friend of the serpent of hell and the enemy of God. Only the Blessed Virgin was the devils’s enemy from the first moment of her life because she was conceived without the stain of original sin. Therefore, she crushed the serpent’s head both by her own conception and when she gave birth to the Savior of the world. 6 Jesus could come into this world because the perfect dwelling in which He was to remain for nine months had already been prepared. Mary was this very sanctuary which was later sanctified even more by the presence of the Son of God. “Today the most precious work of the right hand of the Most High filled the heaven, the abyss and the people awaiting the Messiah with admiration and joy. O my soul! I do not know who you will turn to with your joy — to the future Mother of God, born today? To the future Savior of the world, still to come? (...). Joining the angels, the cradle, and the newly born Virgin, turn [O my soul] your grateful congratulations to her and cry out with these words: I salute you, O Morning Star, the brightest harbinger of the eternal day! I salute you, the brightest Moon, which illuminates the great night. I salute you, O Mary! The greatest ornament of heaven and earth, who are to give birth to the true Savior.” 7 Father Papczynski points to a profound connection that exists between the Immaculate Conception and the Divine Motherhood. In his opinion, the fact that Mary was so richly endowed with graces and nat- ural attributes, with which she surpasses all other creatures, proves that she was being prepared to become the Mother of God. She was created at the very beginning, many ages ago, according to the witness of the Holy Spirit (cf. Prov. 8, 23), and this is why we may call her God’s Only Daughter, although a daughter not by flesh, blood or birth but by the fact