Brief history :
From the first centuries of Christianity, both in the East and in the West, the purity of Mary is celebrated as “Panaghia”, all holy, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Depending on the location, the feast of the Immaculate Conception appeared at various times, before becoming universal in 1602.
In the lack of the decaration of the dogma, the name “Mary conceived without sin” became widespread, particularly after the apparitions in the Rue du Bac in Paris in 1830. The Virgin asked Catherine Labouré to have a medal struck with the words: “O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee”.
Bernadette Soubirous herself wore this Medal of the Immaculate Conception, which the good Christian people had renamed the “Miraculous Medal”.
Wishing to strengthen daily this doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God in the minds of the faithful, and to excite their piety and zeal for the worship and veneration of the Virgin conceived without the original stain, the popes eagerly and joyfully granted the faculty of proclaiming the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin in the litanies known as the Litany of Loreto, and in the Preface of the Mass itself, so that the rule of prayer might thus serve to establish the rule of belief.
Dogmatic proclamation of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception on 8 December 1854, by Pope Pius IX, from the Dogmatic Constitution Ineffabilis Deus :
“Wherefore, in humility and fasting, we unceasingly offered our private prayers as well as the public prayers of the Church to God the Father through his Son, that he would deign to direct and strengthen our mind by the power of the Holy Spirit. In like manner did we implore the help of the entire heavenly host as we ardently invoked the Paraclete.
Accordingly, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, for the honor of the Holy and undivided Trinity, for the glory and adornment of the Virgin Mother of God, for the exaltation of the Catholic Faith, and for the furtherance of the Catholic religion, by the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own:
“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.”[29]
Hence, if anyone shall dare — which God forbid! — to think otherwise than as has been defined by us, let him know and understand that he is condemned by his own judgment; that he has suffered shipwreck in the faith; that he has separated from the unity of the Church; and that, furthermore, by his own action he incurs the penalties established by law if he should are to express in words or writing or by any other outward means the errors he think in his heart.”
READING THE WHOLE STORY THROUGH THE DOGMATIC CONSTITUTION INEFFABILIS DEUS
All novena to the Immaculate Conception
Novena to the Immaculate Conception
