Today is December 8 and it is the celebration for the feast of Immaculate Conception. According to Catholic doctrine, the Immaculate Conception of Mary is the conception of Virgin Mary without any stain of original sin. Catholics believe that every people born has already acquired the sin which originally came from Adam and Eve, the first man and woman created by God on Earth. Thus, each newly born baby needs to be baptized in order to remove the sin.
However, with Mary’s Immaculate Conception, from the very first moment of her existence, Mary was preserved by God from the original sin. On March 25, 1858, In the answer Bernadette Soubirous asked Mary who is she and Mary answered it by saying: “I am the Immaculate Conception.”
The Immaculate Conception was solemnly defined as a dogma by Pope Pius IX in his constitution Ineffabilis Deus on 8 December 1854 defining the mother of Jesus Christ as the “Blessed Virgin Mary in the first instance of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved and exempt from all stain of original sin.”
The Feast of the Immaculate Conception does not pertain to Mary’s conception of Jesus as some believed since December 8 is just 17 days short before the celebration of Christmas, the birth of Jesus Christ. Mary received the message from Angel Gabriel that she would conceive the son of God in the Annunciation which took place March 25. When you count in from March to December, that would be 9 months of conception, exactly the same thing as what an average human baby in the womb of the mother.
In celebration of today’s Feast of Immaculate Conception, let us salute Mary for her purity and say a prayer asking for her guidance and love. One prayer that we can utter says: “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you.”
Written by: Kenneth Lori. and posted under World on December 8, 2010 at 11:34 pm |
