The Immaculate Conception

8 DECEMBER 2019. Although transferred to tomorrow in the United States, today is the date reserved for commemorating the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a dogma of the Church proclaimed by Pope Pius IX, after centuries of consistent belief and teaching that the Blessed Virgin was conceived without sin - set apart from the world to be the Mother of God from the moment of her conception.

Holy Virgin,
as you were conceived without sin 
to be the vessel of God in our World,
pray for us,
sinners, that we may always,
faithfully follow your son.
As so great an exemplar for all of us,
we entrust our faith to you, that you
will bring our prayers and needs
before He, who created the world, 
but who calls you Mother,
as do we all.

Amen.

Image: Fresco of Pope Pius IX's declaration of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception
            (Francesco Podesti)

The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

8 DECEMBER 2010. Today the Church celebrates the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Macula is Latin for "stain." This day the Church celebrates the conception of our Blessed Mother without the stain of sin.

First recognized in Church teaching (in the Eastern Churches) as early as the fifth century, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception was not formally promulgated by the Church until 8 December 1854 by Blessed Pope Pius IX. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception, one of the four Marian dogmas of the Church, holds that Mary was conceived in the womb of her mother, Saint Ann, and kept free for her entire life, from its very first moment, without the stain of sin.

Christ, the Word, who is beyond all time and space and physical limitation, was contained in the womb of Mary, our Immaculate Mother. As the angel greeted her "full of grace," we believe that she was indeed preserved by God our savior, her Son, from the stain of sin to fulfill her unique and indispensable role in salvation history--to carry Christ in her womb, the initiate His public ministry at a wedding in Cana, to follow Him to the point of the  foot of the cross, and to join our Lord bodily though her assumption into heaven.

Hail Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with thee;
blessed art thou amongst women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.

Holy Mary, the Immaculate Conception, is the exemplar for all Christian faithful in living a true life of Christian love, dedicated to Christ and truly open to the love and works of God. Pray to our Lady for her assistance in each of our life journeys to Christ.

Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception

8 DECEMBER 2009. Today the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception and, for us here in the United States, our country's patronal feast.

The Immaculate Conception was promulgated as dogma for the Church by Pope Pius IX in 1854, with these words:

We declare, pronounce and define that the doctrine which asserts that the Blessed Virgin Mary, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God, and in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, Saviour of the human race, was preserved free from every stain of original sin is a doctrine revealed by God and, for this reason, must be firmly and constantly believed by all the faithful.

However, long before the declaration of Pope Pius IX, the feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary had been celebrated by the Church in the East since the Seventh Century (prior to the great schism in 1054) and had been celebrated in the Western Church since the Eighth Century. By the Eleventh Century, the feast had taken on its current title: the Immaculate Conception.

For the faithful, today we recognize the special place that Mary holds in salvation history. As the Mother of God, Mary was conceived without original sin and remained sinless during her life. While not God, being only human in constitution, Mary was especially chosen by Our Lord to be the vessel for the Messiah's birth and His mother on earth.

Pray to Mary, the Immaculate Conception, that being preserved from all stain of sin She will pray for us that we may persevere against sin on our earthly pilgrimage, for the glory of, and in service to, Jesus Christ her son.

Prayer
(Saint Ephram (306-373))

O pure and immaculate
and likewise blessed Virgin,
who art the sinless Mother of thy Son,
the mighty Lord of the universe,
thou who art inviolate and altogether holy,
the hope of the hopeless and sinful,
we sing thy praises.
We bless thee, as full of every grace,
thou who didst bear the God-Man:
we bow low before thee;
we invoke thee and implore thine aid.
Rescue us, O holy and inviolate Virgin,
from every necessity that presses upon us
and from all the temptations of the devil.

Be our intercessor and advocate
at the hour of death and judgment;
deliver us from the fire
that is not extinguished
and from the outer darkness;
make us worthy of the glory of thy Son,
O dearest and most clement Virgin Mother.
Thou indeed art our only hope most sure
and sacred in God's sight,
to Whom be honor and glory and majesty and dominion
for ever and ever world without end.

Amen.

IMAGE: Inmaculada Concepción, by Francisco de Zurbarán (1598-1664).