On Thursday, December 8, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This is a Holy Day of Obligation.
The Early Church Fathers regarded the Blessed Virgin Mary as the holiest and most blessed of all Christian disciples. Even though the New Testament is silent about the birth and early life of Mary, early Christian piety believed Mary's birth miraculous. Just as Isaac and John the Baptist were born of parents thought to be barren, so was Mary given to Joachim and Anne, when both were old. Early Christian writers also believed that from the first moment of her birth, her parents knew she would be the Mother of the Messiah of Israel.
The unique role of Mary in salvation history serves as both fruitful meditation in popular piety, and as deep theological reflection by some of the great "doctors" of the Church. Mary is honored as pure, immaculate, and born without sin.
It is fitting that Mary was preserved from sin because she would be the Mother of God. In 1854 this doctrine became Church dogma via an encyclical letter to the bishops of the world from Pope Pius IX, who declared and defined that:
"We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful." (Encyclical, Ineffabilis Deus)
• Masses on Thursday, December 8th, The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a Holy Day of Obligation, will be 6:30 and 8:00 a.m., 12:00 noon, and 7:00 p.m.
• National Night of Prayer for Life: praying for the unborn, an end to abortion, and that all might come to affirm the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death. Prayer will be in the Chapel following 7:00 p.m. Mass, concluding at midnight.