Mary, the Mother of God, was immaculately conceived and remained immaculate all her life, and is so now in heaven. In human terms “immaculate” means:
pure, perfect, innocent, faultless, spotless, impeccable, unblemished, unsullied, untainted, sweet, unsoiled, intact, beyond all praise, clean, stainless, guiltless, faultless, sinless, spotless, undefiled, blameless, and virtuous
“Immaculate” is the word we use to describe her; but, taking into account God’s perfection and love, this word does not, and cannot, fully convey the perfection of this creature of God.
God made Mary, and only Mary, all these things and more. Try to imagine you are God and you are going to make the woman within whom your Son will be conceived, will grow, and within whom He will live for the first nine months of His existence on earth. This is the woman whose voice your Son will hear, in her womb, until He is born. Her heartbeat will be His constant lullaby. This is the woman who will be with Him until He dies, and as He dies. This is the first person He will come to the moment after His resurrection. Of course, His Father is going to make her immaculate, and so much more.
God’s Son will not be a homeless orphan. God sends the archangel Gabriel not to ask Mary if she will accept a child already born to care for until He is an adult. He asks her if she will provide a human tabernacle, a place of motherly warmth, comfort, and love, a germ-free, antiseptic, safe place of purity, for a baby to live and thrive in, within her. Gabriel invites Mary to “house” the Son of God:
And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God (Luke 1:35).
In short, God made Mary holy because she was to mother the Holy of Holies.
When one receives Holy Communion, one becomes, for a short time, a God-bearer, not identical to, but like Mary, the God-bearer, the Mother of God. Although no one else has been immaculately conceived and everyone is a sinner, the church realizes that one receiving Jesus in the Eucharist should, at least for that moment, be without sin:
What is necessary to receive Holy Communion worthily? To receive Holy Communion worthily it is necessary to be free from mortal sin, to have a right intention, and to obey the Church’s laws on the fast required before Holy Communion out of reverence for the body and blood of Our Divine Lord. However, there are some cases in which Holy Communion may be received without fasting (No. 367, Lesson 28, The Baltimore Catechism).
To respond to this invitation we must prepare ourselves for so great and so holy a moment. St. Paul urges us to examine our conscience: “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself.”218 Anyone conscious of a grave sin must receive the sacrament of Reconciliation before coming to communion. . . . Anyone who desires to receive Christ in Eucharistic communion must be in the state of grace. Anyone aware of having sinned mortally must not receive communion without having received absolution in the sacrament of penance. (1385 and 1415; Catechism of the Catholic Church).
Jesus cannot be received by and into a person in sin. Holy Communion is so powerful, and the reception of His body, blood, soul, and divinity are so efficacious, that venial sins are forgiven when one receives:
Communion with the Body and Blood of Christ increases the communicant’s union with the Lord, forgives his venial sins, and preserves him from grave sins. Since receiving this sacrament strengthens the bonds of charity between the communicant and Christ, it also reinforces the unity of the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ (1416; Catechism of the Catholic Church).
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has provided us with an instruction for receiving Holy Communion:
Those who receive Communion may receive either in the hand or on the tongue, and the decision should be that of the individual receiving, not of the person distributing Communion. If Communion is received in the hand, the hands should first of all be clean. If one is right handed the left hand should rest upon the right. The host will then be laid in the palm of the left hand and then taken by the right hand to the mouth. (USCCB, The Reception of Holy Communion at Mass).
At least for some moments, receiving Him, also becoming His tabernacle, each of us being a Theotokos like Mary, a God-bearer, we too are without sin.
If as we are instructed our hands should be clean when receiving in the hand, how much more should our tongue be clean? Part of my own “Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my roof” before Holy Communion is to extend the Munda cor meum ac labia mea, cleanse my heart and my lips, said before the Gospel, and the Offertory’s Lavabo, cleanse me of my sins, to cleanse my tongue; and to express contrition for all the sins I have committed with it.
Even imperfect contrition requires a firm purpose of amendment, and this means intending and then trying not to sin again with words, the verbo of the Confiteor, in the Mass’s penitential rite, when we say, “quia peccavi nimis cogitatione, verbo, et opere,” I have greatly sinned in my thought, word, and deed.
The grace of this sacrament is infinite. This is certainly sufficient so that after Mass one is spiritually impelled to use words of charity and virtue simply by recalling to mind that Jesus Himself was here, on my tongue, within me, me a God-bearer, although I am not perpetually immaculate, but, for some moments, sinless.
