The Repentance Possible in Mary

The course of ages was to be reversed; the tradition of evil was to be broken; a gate of light was to be opened amid the darkness, for the coming of the just; — a Virgin conceived and bore him.  It was fitting, for his honor and glory, that she, who was the instrument of his bodily presence, should first be a miracle of his grace; it was fitting that she should triumph, where Eve had failed, and should "bruise the serpent's head" by the spotlessness of her sanctity . . .

As grace was infused into Adam from the first moment of his creation, so that he never had experience of his natural poverty, till sin reduced him to it; so was grace given from the first in still ampler measure to Mary, and she never incurred, in fact, Adam's deprivation.  She began where others end, whether in knowledge or in love.  She was from the first clothed in sanctity, destined for perseverance, luminous and glorious in God's sight, and incessantly employed in meritorious acts, which continued till her last breath.  Hers was emphatically "the path of the just, which, as the shining light, goes forward and increases even to the perfect day" . . .

If Adam might have kept himself from sin in his first state, much more shall we expect immaculate perfection in Mary.