Commenting on STh., III q.27 a.2:
Art. 2: Whether the
Blessed Virgin was sanctified before animation?
By “animation” we mean the infusion
of the soul into the body. At the time of St. Thomas, the Church had not yet
dogmatically defined Mary’s Immaculate Conception, a definition that would not
occur until 1854. Aquinas, nonetheless, mentions the fact that several Churches
were already celebrating a feast of Our Lady’s conception in his time, which
suggests a sanctification of Mary at conception.
The more precise question,
however, is: Was Mary sanctified in the body before her soul was infused into
it by God? St. Thomas answers no, because sanctification understood as
purification from Original Sin is the work of grace, and grace is given to the rational
creature. If, however, a body is not yet animated by a rational soul, we are not
in the presence of a rational creature. On this we can agree with the stance of
St. Thomas.
On the contrary, it is impossible
to follow him on what he adds: “if the soul of the Blessed Virgin had not been
infected by Original Sin, Christ would lose the dignity of being the universal
Saviour of all. Therefore, the Blessed Virgin’s need to be saved. For Christ
did not in any way contract Original Sin but was holy in His own conception . .
. On the contrary, the Blessed Virgin contracted Original Sin but was cleansed
of it before she came forth from the womb. (Mauro Gagliardi, The Mystery of
Christ our Savior: The Person, Life, and Redemption of Jesus According to St.
Thomas Aquinas [Manchester, N.H.: Sophia Institute Press, 2025], 144)
The dogma defined by the Church
teaches otherwise, namely, that Mary never contracted Original Sin. It remains,
nevertheless, that Christ is the Savior also of Mary, as in her the salvation of
her Son acted in a preventive way, not by purifying the sin contracted but by
preventing Mary from being stained by it. This is one of the very rare cases in
which the Angelic Doctor made a serious mistake. He, however, unlike us, had
not been instructed in this regard by magisterial dogma. (Ibid., 144 n. 87)
