Catechism of the Catholic Church

128 Part One “Mary is more blessed because she embraces faith in Christ than because she conceives the flesh of Christ.” 169 507 At once virgin and mother, Mary is the symbol and the most perfect realization of the Church: “the Church indeed . . . by receiving the word of God in faith becomes herself a mother. By preaching and Baptism she brings forth sons, who are conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of God, to a new and immortal life. She herself is a virgin, who keeps in its entirety and purity the faith she pledged to her spouse.” 170 IN BRIEF 508 From among the descendants of Eve, God chose the Virgin Mary to be the mother of his Son. “Full of grace,” Mary is “the most excellent fruit of redemp- tion” ( SC 103): from the first instant of her conception, she was totally preserved from the stain of original sin and she remained pure from all personal sin through- out her life. 509 Mary is truly “Mother of God” since she is the mother of the eternal Son of God made man, who is God himself. 510 Mary “remained a virgin in conceiving her Son, a virgin in giving birth to him, a virgin in carrying him, a virgin in nursing him at her breast, always a virgin” (St. Augustine, Serm. 186, 1: PL 38, 999): with her whole being she is “the handmaid of the Lord” ( Lk 1:38). 511 The Virgin Mary “cooperated through free faith and obedience in human salvation” ( LG 56). She uttered her yes “in the name of all human nature” (St. Thomas Aquinas, STh III, 30, 1). By her obedience she became the new Eve, mother of the living. 169 St. Augustine, De virg., 3: PL 40, 398. 170 LG 64; cf. 63. 967 149