The month of December is traditionally dedicated to the Immaculate Conception. This belief of the Church was defined by Pope Pius IX in 1854 as an article of revealed truth. Here’s how Blessed Pope Pius IX defined the doctrine in his proclamation of December 8, 1854: “The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin.”
The Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception is celebrated on December 8th and is a holy day of obligation in the United States, where Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception is the patron.
Clearing up a common misconception about the Immaculate Conception: It is not, as many Catholics believe, the virginal conception of Jesus Christ in Mary. Nor is it the virginal birth of Jesus by Mary. Instead, the Immaculate Conception refers to the doctrine that Mary, from the very moment of her conception, was never stained by original sin. The word immaculate literally means pure, or without blemish.
It’s important to note that Mary was not “immaculate” by any merit of her own, but by the saving (“sanctifying”) grace of Jesus Christ, her savior. But in the case of Mary, the saving grace of Jesus Christ preserved her from being stained by original sin in the first place. She was conceived with the same original innocence, holiness, and justice that Adam and Eve possessed before they broke away from God. She was, as the angel Gabriel declared, “full of grace” (Luke 1:28).
Mary still experienced the earthly effects of original sin, such as death or sadness, just as Christians experience these effects even after being washed clean in the waters of baptism. However, she did not experience the same desire to place herself over God that other human beings do.
God preserved Mary from original sin in order to “prepare a worthy Mother for your Son and signify the beginning of the Church, his beautiful Bride without spot or wrinkle.” Mary would be made pure in order to prepare her to carry the Son of the Living God in her womb.
O God, who by the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin
prepared a worthy dwelling for your Son,
grant, we pray, that as you preserved her from every stain
by virtue of the Death of your Son, which you foresaw,
so, through her intercession,
we, too, may be cleansed and admitted to your presence.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
