Holy Maculate: What It Means and How It Differs from the Immaculate

What does “Maculate” mean?

The word “maculate” comes from the Latin maculata, the feminine of maculatus, which means “stained, marked, soiled.” In theology, “macula” designates sin or its consequence: the original macula is the stain of original sin which, according to Catholic doctrine, affects all human beings from conception, except Jesus Christ and, by a singular privilege, Mary. Therefore, “holy maculate” would be a contradiction in terms: a saint who bears the stain of original sin. The correct expression for Mary is its opposite: Immaculate.

Immaculate vs. maculate: the distinction

The Latin prefix in- (or im- before m and p) is negative: immaculate = “without macula,” “without stain.” The Immaculate Conception is the dogma defined by Pius IX in the Bull Ineffabilis Deus (December 8, 1854): “The most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved immune from all stain of original sin.” The key term is immune: Mary was not contaminated by original sin, unlike all the rest of humanity.

Why do people search for “Holy maculate”?

The confusion frequently arises from: (1) not knowing the negative prefix im-; (2) linguistic misunderstandings when hearing the expression; (3) searching for the meaning of the term “immaculate,” which, because it sounds similar, leads to searches for “maculate.” In fact, what most people are looking for is the meaning of “Immaculate Conception.” In that case the answer is clear: Mary was conceived without the stain of original sin, by a singular grace of God in anticipation of the redemptive merits of Christ.

The biblical foundation of the Immaculate Conception

The scriptural foundation of the Immaculate Conception lies in Lk 1:28: the angel’s greeting kecharitôménē (κεχαριτωμένη), “fully graced in a permanent state.” The perfect passive participle indicates that Mary is in the state resulting from having been graced fully and continuously from her origin: there was no moment when God’s grace did not envelop her. In addition, Gen 3:15 places the “Woman” in total enmity with the serpent, an enmity incompatible with the stain of sin. The patristic tradition, from Augustine to John Damascene, prepares the dogmatic definition of the nineteenth century.

The word “macula” in the texts of the Church

“Tota pulchra es”: the stain that the Bible denies

Among the biblical texts that the liturgy applies to Mary, the classic locus of the word “macula” is the Song of Songs, where the bridegroom says to the bride:

“Tota pulchra es, amica mea, et macula non est in te.” “You are all fair, my love, and there is no stain in you” (Song 4:7, Vulgate).

In Greek, as Saint Gregory of Nyssa quotes it, the word is μῶμος, “blemish,” “stain.” Gregory, commenting on the verse, reads it as referring to the Bride, that is, to the soul and to the Church, and recalls that human nature cannot be cleansed of the stain except by the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world (In Canticum hom. VII, PG 44, 939-940). The Latin liturgy then took a further step: it applied the verse to the Virgin and added a word to it. The tract of the Mass of Our Lady of Lourdes, in the 1962 Missal, sings:

“Tota pulchra es, Maria: et macula originalis non est in te.” “You are all fair, Mary, and the original stain is not in you” (Missale Romanum 1962, February 11, tract).

The Fathers: Ephrem, Ambrose, and Augustine

Saint Ephrem, the fourth-century Syrian poet, in a hymn preserved in the Carmina Nisibena, joins the Son and the Mother in a single sentence. The original is Syriac, and the sentence reaches us in a Latin translation:

“Revera quidem Tu et mater tua, vos soli estis, qui omni ex parte omnino pulchri sint. In te enim, Domine, non est labes, nec ulla in matre tua macula.” “Truly, You and Your Mother alone are entirely beautiful, in every respect. In You, Lord, there is no blemish, nor is there any stain in Your Mother” (Ephrem, Carmina Nisibena 27,8, in Latin in the Enchiridion Marianum, n. 429).

Pius XII quoted these very words in 1953, in the encyclical for the centenary of the dogma (Fulgens corona, AAS 45 (1953) 580).

Saint Ambrose, commenting on Psalm 118, places on the lips of humanity, the lost sheep, a request to Christ that He take on its flesh, and speaks of the Virgin with the other Latin word for stain, labes:

“Suscipe me non ex Sarra, sed ex Maria, ut incorrupta sit virgo, sed virgo per gratiam ab omni integra labe peccati.” “Take me not from Sarah, but from Mary, so that she may be an incorrupt virgin, but a virgin by grace, untouched by any stain of sin” (Ambrose, Expositio in Psalmum 118, sermo 22,30, PL 15, 1521).

Saint Augustine, arguing with Pelagius about the universality of sin, makes an exception that became famous:

“Excepta itaque sancta Virgine Maria, de qua propter honorem Domini nullam prorsus, cum de peccatis agitur, haberi volo quaestionem.” “Excepting, then, the holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom, for the honor of the Lord, I wish no question at all to be raised when it is a matter of sins” (Augustine, De natura et gratia 36,42, PL 44, 267).

These texts should be read with rigor. Ambrose and Augustine affirm that Mary is free from sin, but they do not yet address the precise question of original sin in her conception. That question is only raised explicitly later.

A question debated for centuries

During the Middle Ages, the question “was Mary conceived with the original stain?” divided theologians and schools. The Church let the debate run its course, but increasingly favored the feast and the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. In 1477, Sixtus IV invites the faithful to give thanks to God “de ipsius immaculatae Virginis mira conceptione,” “for the wonderful conception of the same immaculate Virgin,” and enriches the Mass and Office of the feast with indulgences (Sixtus IV, Cum praeexcelsa, DS 1400).

In 1546, the Council of Trent, in defining the doctrine of original sin, declares that it does not intend to include in that decree “beatam et immaculatam Virginem Mariam Dei genitricem,” “the blessed and immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of God” (Council of Trent, Session V, DS 1516). The Council defines nothing about her, but it already calls her immaculate.

The exact words: from “macula” to “labes”

The formula that the dogma was to enshrine already appears in 1483. Sixtus IV condemns the preachers who accused of heresy those who believed that the Mother of God was “ab originalis peccati macula in sua conceptione praeservatam,” “preserved from the stain of original sin in her conception” (Sixtus IV, Grave nimis, DS 1426). In 1661, Alexander VII describes the ancient faith of the faithful, according to which the soul of Mary, in the first instant, was

“speciali Dei gratia et privilegio, intuitu meritorum Iesu Christi eius filii, humani generis Redemptoris, a macula peccati originalis praeservatam immunem.” “by a special grace and privilege of God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, her Son, Redeemer of the human race, preserved free from the stain of original sin” (Alexander VII, Sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarum, DS 2015).

When Pius IX defines the dogma, on December 8, 1854, he keeps the structure of these formulas, reformulates it, and uses another word:

“ab omni originalis culpae labe praeservatam immunem.” “preserved free from all stain of original guilt” (Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus, DS 2803).

The bull therefore uses labes and not macula, even though both words mean “stain.” And, at the beginning of the same document, it describes Mary as “ab omni prorsus peccati labe semper libera ac tota pulchra et perfecta,” “always entirely free from every stain of sin, all fair and perfect” (DS 2800), with a clear echo of the “tota pulchra” of the Song.

Lourdes: the name the Virgin gave herself

A little more than three years after the definition, on March 25, 1858, the feast of the Annunciation, Bernadette Soubirous insistently asked the Lady of the grotto of Massabielle to tell her who she was. At last she received the answer, in the dialect of Lourdes:

“Que soy era Immaculada Councepciou,” “I am the Immaculate Conception” (Laurentin and Sbalchiero, Dictionnaire des apparitions de la Vierge Marie, p. 563).

The parish priest, Abbé Peyramale, found the phrase strange. The Dictionary explains that, for him, the Virgin was conceived without sin, but she “is” not the Immaculate Conception (ibid.). The strangeness gives force to the answer: Mary takes as her name the title that designates the singular privilege of her conception, preservation from original guilt by the grace of God.

The Immaculate Conception is not the virginal conception

Two distinct dogmas are frequently confused: (1) Immaculate Conception: Mary was conceived without original sin in the womb of her mother Anne. (2) Virginal conception of Jesus: Jesus was conceived in the womb of Mary without the intervention of a man, by the action of the Holy Spirit. The first dogma is about Mary. The second is about Jesus. The Immaculate Conception does not mean that Mary was born in a virginal way, but that she was preserved from original sin from the beginning of her existence.

Deepen your studies: explore the Immaculate Conception, Mariology, Kecharitôménē, Marian dogmas, and the Postgraduate Program in Mariology.

See also: The 4 Marian dogmas: what they are and what the Church defines

Would you like to study this in depth? Discover the Postgraduate Program in Mariology at Locus, a rigorous academic formation for theologians, priests, religious, and laypeople.

Learn more about the Immaculate Conception.

Learn what the Church teaches about Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces.