The Immaculate Conception
On December 8, the church observes the feast of the Immaculate Conception to celebrate Mary's clean and pure beginnings from the time she was first conceived.
We are all born into a sinful condition.
This is evident whenever we act in an evil way in spite of our best intentions; envy, greed, hate, and revenge invade our thoughts.
Pain, suffering, and death are part of the human experience.
This inherited condition of sin is defined as original sin.
The first humans, Adam and Eve in the Bible, were clothed in God's grace and destined to live forever in eternal happiness.
Their personal choice to sin resulted in the state of brokenness we find in ourselves and in the world at large.
We are people who are capable of love and goodness, yet also capable of hate and evil.
The church teaches that only two people were ever conceived without original sin.
One, of course, was Jesus.
The other was his mother, Mary.
Tradition plays an important role in the development of this feast.
The ongoing interpretation and understanding of God's revelation is called Sacred Tradition.
We believe that the pope and bishops have received the teaching authority of the apostles to interpret and protect the church's Tradition.
In 1854, Pope Pius IX elevated the feast to its highest rank when he declared it a doctrine of faith that Mary was conceived without original sin.
He wrote: “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 belief in the Immaculate Conception of Mary has roots in the Bible, for the angel Gabriel revealed to Mary at the annunciation of Jesus' birth, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you: blessed are you among women.” (Luke 1:28)
We are all born into a sinful condition.
This is evident whenever we act in an evil way in spite of our best intentions; envy, greed, hate, and revenge invade our thoughts.
Pain, suffering, and death are part of the human experience.
This inherited condition of sin is defined as original sin.
The first humans, Adam and Eve in the Bible, were clothed in God's grace and destined to live forever in eternal happiness.
Their personal choice to sin resulted in the state of brokenness we find in ourselves and in the world at large.
We are people who are capable of love and goodness, yet also capable of hate and evil.
The church teaches that only two people were ever conceived without original sin.
One, of course, was Jesus.
The other was his mother, Mary.
Tradition plays an important role in the development of this feast.
The ongoing interpretation and understanding of God's revelation is called Sacred Tradition.
We believe that the pope and bishops have received the teaching authority of the apostles to interpret and protect the church's Tradition.
In 1854, Pope Pius IX elevated the feast to its highest rank when he declared it a doctrine of faith that Mary was conceived without original sin.
He wrote: “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 belief in the Immaculate Conception of Mary has roots in the Bible, for the angel Gabriel revealed to Mary at the annunciation of Jesus' birth, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you: blessed are you among women.” (Luke 1:28)