Feast day: December 8
Immaculate Conception
The solemnity of Mary's conception without original sin — preserved by grace from the first instant, in view of her Son's merits. Patronal feast of the USA.
The Immaculate Conception, celebrated on December 8, is the Church's belief that the Blessed Virgin Mary, from the very first instant of her conception in her mother's womb, was preserved free from original sin — the inherited fault that touches all the children of Adam. It is often confused with the virgin birth of Jesus, but it speaks of Mary's own conception, and of a grace given to her in view of the saving work of her Son.
The teaching is that this was not something Mary earned, but a singular gift of God, granted 'in view of the merits of Jesus Christ' — so that she too was redeemed by Christ, but in an even more perfect way, being preserved from sin rather than rescued from it after the fact. She was, as the angel's greeting hailed her, 'full of grace,' a fitting dwelling for the Son of God.
The doctrine was believed and celebrated for many centuries before it was formally defined, and was the subject of long and famous debate among theologians, with the Franciscan John Duns Scotus offering the argument that finally carried the day. At last, in 1854, Pope Pius IX solemnly defined the Immaculate Conception as a dogma of the faith in the document 'Ineffabilis Deus.'
Four years later, at Lourdes, when the young Bernadette asked the lady of her visions to give her name, the answer came: 'I am the Immaculate Conception' — taken by the faithful as heaven's own confirmation of the newly defined truth. The feast is kept as a holy day, and under this title Mary is the patroness of the United States and of many other lands.
It's the most misunderstood feast in the calendar: it celebrates Mary's conception, not Jesus's. Four years after its definition, the Lady of Lourdes confirmed it to Bernadette by name.
Image: Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.
Source: newadvent.org/cathen/07674d.htm
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