ON HER CONCEPTION AND ASSUMPTION

A few decades ago they discovered that the ovaries of a female fetus contains all the eggs that she will produce for reproduction in her entire life. There are no new eggs formed during her lifetime. The egg that is there that will one day become her child is present while she’s in her mother’s womb. Of course every egg will contain 23 chromosomes which will pair one day with the 23 chromosomes from her spouse and produce offspring containing 46 chromosomes.

So before a female child is born she has in her body that particular egg, with 23 chromosomes that will contribute to the making of one particular child. You were formed yet from a particular egg in your mother’s ovary, yet when she was still a fetus herself.

So why is this interesting?

This becomes rather interesting when you consider the mother of Jesus of Nazareth. If as a Christian believer you understand Mary to have birthed Jesus Christ, then you must agree that she contributed 23 chromosomes to his human body. Of course she did not contribute the Y chromosome that makes the child a male, this having been provided by the Holy Spirit which “overshadowed” her, causing the conceptus of the child Jesus in her womb to form the moment Mary assented to or agreed to receive our Lord into her body.

Now at the moment of Jesus’ conception, one particular egg in Mary’s ovary, which was present when she was still a fetus, was contributed to form the child Jesus. So if we can imagine performing a DNA analysis on our Lord after he was born, we would find 23 chromosomes having been contributed by his mother, Mary – those same chromosomes present when she was herself in her mother’s womb.

If we follow the teachings of the Old Testament and New Testament, nothing about Jesus Christ is or has ever been defiled. He was born sinless, without Original Sin. No stain whatsoever from the Fall of our parents, Adam and Eve. The rest of us, not so much. In the OT we find extreme measures being taken to avoid defiling God. To wit, Moses and the burning bush and the Holy of Holies and the measures taken to avoid defilement in the presence of God. So important is the reverence and dignity of God.

If Christ is to be undefiled by Original Sin, then it must be that from the moment of his conception in Mary there be nothing containing anything connected to Original Sin. For this to be so that means the 23 chromosomes contributed by Mary, his mother, must not be, nor have been connected to Original Sin. For during her time in her own mother’s womb, the particular egg containing the 23 chromosomes that she would contribute to form the human body of Jesus Christ must also be free of Original Sin – for he is indeed the Son of God. This means that all the eggs in Mary’s ovaries from the moment of her own conception had to be dissociated from Original Sin.

If this is the case, then this bolsters the belief as to why Mary herself had to be conceived without Original Sin in order to be an undefiled tabernacle (Ark) for the Son of God. In other words, her beginnings, how she was conceived, had to be a clean (free of sin) and spotless conception. Or, in other words, it had to be an immaculate conception.

And so this is why we, with confidence and a firm faith, on December 8, venerate and celebrate, the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the Mother of our Lord.
Hold on. There’s more.

Another interesting tidbit, even more fascinating, is that it has been found that when a mother gives birth, stem cells from the baby cross the placenta and enter the mother’s blood stream and integrate into her tissues. These cells remain in her body for the remainder of her life. The process, revealed by modern gene technology, is called microchimerism – or the mother with her own child’s stem cells integrated into her tissues, is called a microchimera. There’s an attempt to discover why this evolved evolutionary-wise, and to what purpose it may serve the mother. The thinking now is that these stem cells repair tissue injury.

Anyway, to bring Mary back into the picture. We now have come to understand that when Mary, like all mothers, gave birth to Jesus, that some of our Lord’s cells passed back into his mother’s blood stream and became integrated into her tissues. There’s no reason to believe anything different happened as it would, and does, with any human mother. This may be why many mothers say their children are always in their hearts.

So, if Mary is carrying in her body, the actual cells, integrated into her tissue, of our Lord Jesus Christ, cells that no other human being who’s ever lived or will live, have in their body, then it stands to reason that Mary is a very special person indeed. One can believe, I suppose, that something so technically complicated never happened, because our faith is of course to be as simple as that of a child.

But for those whose faith is that of a Doubting Thomas, and must have things explained to them before accepting them, then here is your explanation and the reason for why many Christians believe that Mary’s body, containing the Savior’s cells, was assumed into heaven, and not defiled or corrupted like the rest of us. Because of course the Savior was not to be corrupted.

Interestingly, of the many saints and martyrs of whom relics have been found, never in history has anyone anywhere ever talked about or identified the relics of Mary. And that might be because there was never a body on earth to be found as the source of a relic of Mary – because she was assumed, body and soul, into heaven – containing the cells of Christ himself, cells formed with her 23 chromosomes, free of Original Sin, and cells containing the divine seed itself.

And so since, as St. Augustine teaches, “faith seeks understanding,” we can confidently say, in good faith, that not only was Mary conceived without Original Sin, but that she was also assumed into heaven, body and soul. And thus we celebrate the Assumption of Mary on August 15th.