Happy Feast of the Immaculate Conception!

A happy and most joyful feast of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady! Today we celebrate the singular privilege granted to Our Blessed Mother of being preserved free from original sin from the very first moment of her existence. Truly she is the most blessed of all creatures, full of every grace and virtue, the most worthy and noble Mother of God and our Mother as well. This feast is a Holy Day of Obligation (the obligation is never abrogated, even when it falls on a Monday or, like today, a Saturday), so be sure to check your parish’s Mass schedule today.

Blessed Pope Pius IX infallibly defined the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception in the Apostolic Constitution Ineffabilis Deus, promulgated on December 8th, 1854. There we read:

From the very beginning, and before time began, the eternal Father chose and prepared for His only-begotten Son a Mother in whom the Son of God would become incarnate and from whom, in the blessed fullness of time, He would be born into this world. Above all creatures did God so love her that truly in her was the Father well pleased with singular delight. Therefore, far above all the angels and all the saints so wondrously did God endow her with the abundance of all heavenly gifts poured from the treasury of His divinity that this mother, ever absolutely free of all stain of sin, all fair and perfect, would possess that fullness of holy innocence and sanctity than which, under God, one cannot even imagine anything greater, and which, outside of God, no mind can succeed in comprehending fully.

We wish a happy patronal feast day to our parishes in Omaha, Nebraska, El Paso, Texas and Colorado Springs, Colorado!

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!