The angel saluted Mary by calling her kecharitomene, which Jerome quite accurately translated as gratia plena, "full of grace". (kecharitomene is the perfect passive participle of charitoo, "to grace".)Kecharitomene means "already completely graced as an accomplished fact".
The traditional translation, "full of grace," is better than the one found in many recent versions of the New Testament, which give something along the lines of "highly favored daughter." Mary was indeed a highly favored daughter of God, but the Greek implies more than that (and it never mentions the word for "daughter").
Kecharitomene is a perfect passive participle of charitoo, meaning "to fill or endow with grace." Since this term is in the perfect tense, it indicates that Mary was graced in the past but with continuing effects in the present. So, the grace Mary enjoyed was not a result of the angel’s visit.
Luke 1:28 has the perfect passive participle,
kecharitomene. The perfect stem of a Greek verb denotes the "continuance of a completed action";(Blass and DeBrunner, 175.) "completed action with permanent result is denoted by the perfect stem."(Smyth, sec. 1852:b.) On morphological grounds, therefore, it is correct to paraphrase
kecharitomene as "completely, perfectly, enduringly endowed with grace." This becomes clearer when we examine other New Testament examples of verbs in the perfect tense:(The next three examples are taken from Blass and DeBrunner, 175-176.)
1. "
He has defiled this sacred place" (Acts 21:28)--their entrance in the past produced defilement as a lasting effect.
2. "The son of the slave woman
was born according to the flesh" (Gal. 4:23)--the perfect with reference to an Old Testament event can mean it retains its exemplary effect.
3. "
Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?" 1 Cor. 9:1, Acts 22:15)--that Paul has seen the Lord is what establishes him permanently as an apostle.
1. "God
spoke to Moses" (John 9:29)--the Pharisees hold that the Mosaic Law still and always holds.
2. "It
is finished" (John 19:30)--the work of redemption culminating in the passion and death of Christ is complete and forever enduring .
3 "He
rose on the third day" (1 Cor. 15:4)--unlike Lazarus who was raised from the dead but must die again, Christ rose to everlasting life.
4. "All things
have been created through him and for him" (Col. 1:16)--all creation continually exists, upheld by God (this is the teaching of God's universal providence and also the refutation of deism).
Here are examples, like
kechari-tomene, of perfect participles in the New Testament:
1. "To the praise of his glorious grace, which he bestowed on us in his
beloved"(Eph. 1:6)--Christ is perfectly, completely, endlessly loved by his Father.
2. "
Blessed is the fruit of your womb" (Luke 1:42)--Christ is perfectly and endlessly blessed by God.
Because Luke 1:28 uses the perfect participle kecharitomene to describe Mary, CRI is wrong to say there is nothing in this verse to establish the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. One word of one Bible verse does not prove the doctrine, but kecharitomene proves the harmony of the doctrine with Scripture.
using the resources that Latin does have, Jerome expresses the root meaning of charitoo by the Latin noun gratis ("grace," "favor") and the amplitude and completeness of the Greek perfect tense by the Latin adjective plena ("full"). The Latin phrase does not well connote permanent condition, as the Greek perfect participle does.
Remember again, Mary is not by her own power, virtue, or merit sinless. It was not her merits but those of her Son which were applied to her