Now, if we are to accept that it is fitting for Mary to have been immaculately conceived and to have remained sinless, we must confront the verses that seem to suggest otherwise. First and foremost, we come upon Luke 2:22-24 where Mary brings a sin offering to the Temple after the Birth of Jesus. It is only natural, especially for non-Jewish Christians, to look at this and say that, had Mary been sinless, she would not have needed to bring a sin offering to the Temple. This seems a simple enough explanation and so we accept it without examination, forgetting that it contradicts the doctrine that was clearly taught and believed by all Christians from the very beginning. Instead, I invite you to consider the larger context, and with it to examine the underlying assumption that propels this conclusion. We assume that, because it is called a "sin offering," it is always offered in consequence of having committed some sin or another. There is, of course, a problem with this logic. By the same reasoning, because Jesus, whom nearly every Christian church and tradition says was completely sinless His entire life, went to John the Baptiser to be baptised by him─keeping in mind that John's baptism was called by Mark "a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins," (1:4, emphasis added)─then Jesus must've sinned, thus proving every Christian who ever lived to believe in something soundly unbiblical. This is not only the same logic used to conclude that Mary must've sinned simply because she offered a sin offering, but it also places the person who uses it in the same position: standing in direct opposition of centuries to Christianity and millions of Christians. We live roughly 2000 years distant from the events and persons in question; we ought to trust the testimony of those closest to the time of Jesus and Mary far more than we trust our own opinions. After all, our opinions are being built on the testimony of those very people with whom we're deciding to disagree.
So, if we accept that Jesus was sinless, despite the fact that he received "a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins," because it was "fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness" (Matthew 3:15), then why should we not accept that Mary's offerings at the Temple might have been made for the same reason: to fulfil the requirements of righteousness? Let's take a look at the biblical passage in question, considering the larger context and noting the emphasis made by the author:
"And at the end of eight days, when He was circumcised, He was called Jesus, the name given to Him by the angel before He was conceived in the womb."
-Luke 2:21
In verse 21, Luke first, before mentioning what Jesus' parents do, tells of Jesus' circumcision on the eighth day.
In the twelfth chapter of Leviticus, the book of the Law of Moses, we see both the command to circumcise male Jewish children and the command that the mother do exactly as Mary did, because of ritual uncleanness. Not personal sin, mind you, but ritual uncleanness. Before we go on, therefore, I'd like you to read that chapter; it's fairly short:
"The Lord said to Moses, 'Say to the people of Israel, "If a woman conceives, and bears a male child, then she shall be unclean seven days; as at the time of her menstruation, she shall be unclean. And on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. Then shall she continue for thirty-three days in the blood of her purifying; she shall not touch any hallowed thing, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying are completed. But if she bears a female child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her menstruation; and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying for sixty-six days.
"And when the days of her purifying are completed, whether for a son or for a daughter, she shall bring to the priest at the door of the tent of meeting a lamb a year old for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon or a turtledove for a sin offering, and he shall offer it before the LORD, and make atonement for her; then shall she be clean from the flow of her blood. This is the law for her who bears a child, either male or female. And if she cannot afford a lamb, then she shall take two turtledoves or two young pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering; and the priest shall make atonement for her, and she shall be clean."'"
-Leviticus 12
Most of us are so divorced from our Jewish roots that the phrase "ritually unclean" has little meaning beyond the theoretical. But for Mary, a woman born under the Law of Moses, from the moment of her first menstruation, becoming ritually unclean was a constant ordeal. According to the prevailing Catholic tradition that she was a consecrated Virgin─as has been discussed previously─that constant, repeated ritual uncleanness, which, as we see in the above section of Leviticus, is one of many, many ways she can become temporarily barred from entrance into the Temple, is the very reason her marriage to Joseph was arranged. If she did not have a home outside the Temple, with a man who was either her father or her spouse, she would be homeless roughly every four weeks. This is not a matter of personal sin, but merely a fact of Jewish life as a woman.
Again, you'll note that there's no mention of the woman having sinned in giving birth. (Indeed, how could giving birth be a sin, if God is the God of Life?) She's simply required to bring a specific burnt offering and a specific sin offering so that she shall "be clean from the flow of her blood." These things were simply related to the ritual uncleanness that we talked about in regard to the Perpetual Virginity: because Mary is a woman who has a menstrual cycle, she becomes unclean periodically. The offerings that Luke tells us she brought to the temple are simply the things that she is required to bring, according to the Law of Moses as a consequence of giving birth to a child, which, just like a woman's regular menstrual cycle, causes a flow of blood. Since this is the reason for these specific sacrifices, it should be noted that they would not have been required except that Mary gave birth to the very Son of God; I should hope that no one considers giving birth to God Himself to be a sin...
Returning to Luke, we read,
"And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought Him up to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, 'Every male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord'), and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, 'a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.' ... the parents brought in the Child Jesus, to do for Him according to the custom of the Law. ... And when they had performed everything according to the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own city, Nazareth."
-Luke 2:22-24, 27, 39 (emphases added)
With Leviticus 12 in mind, notice how many times Luke repeats, "according to the Law," or some variation thereof. When as a Protestant I looked at this section of the Gospel of Luke with patience and an open mind, I realized that it would take a sort of tunnel vision to look past this repeated affirmation that everything that Mary and Joseph did was "according to the Law" and instead take their profound obedience to the Law of the Old Covenant as proof that Mary had somehow broken that Law. If that were the intent of the author, then surely some specific example of sinning would have been necessary to override the profound insistence by St. Luke that "they had performed everything according to the Law of the Lord" (v. 39).
All of these verses are written, not to show that Mary or anyone else was sinful, but rather the oposite: that they were perfectly obedient to the Law of Moses, under which they were all born. Jesus, whom even Paul admits was "born under the Law" (Galatians 4:4), is circumcised in accordance with that Law. Likewise, His mother, who was not only born under the Law but was also a woman, brings sacrifices to the Temple in accordance with the Law. As Leviticus 12 makes abundantly clear, the reason the sacrifices were necessary was not because of any personal sin or moral deficiency, but because she was made ritually unclean by the mere act of giving birth, because of "the flow of her blood." She offered them not to make up for sinfulness, but rather "to fulfil all righteousness," just as her Son did through His Baptism.
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