Arabic Songs

In preparation for my imminent pilgrimage to the Holy Land the study of the millennial language of that land is absorbing all of my spare time and energy for the past few months, hence the dearth of recent posts.  Here is one of my most recent major discoveries in this intense study of the Arab civilization: the huge and superb world (and largely unknown outside of the Arab world) of Arabic Songs. //www.melody4arab.com/en_index.htm is a website of many of the best Arab songs, free!  I'll add it to my side bar for my own frequent access.  Of course, the next problem will be finding the text of each song (Arabic with English) to conveniently follow along.

USCCB Religious Liberty Statement and CDF Doctrinal Assessment of Women Religious

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has published a letter on religious freedom with special attention to the 1) HHS mandate for contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs; 2) State immigration laws; 3) Altering Church structure and governance; 4) Christian students on college campuses; 5) Catholic foster care and adoption services; 6) Discrimination against church congregations; and 7) Discrimination against Catholic humanitarian services. Find it here.

Also, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has issued a Doctrinal Assessment (and overhaul) of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious leadership, which for years has been notorious for its radical opposition to church authority and discipline and Catholic doctrine in faith and morals.

Betrayal, Denial & Innocence: Tuesday of Holy Week (Jn. 13:21-33, 36-38)

In the light of Calvary, what is the difference between Judas Iscariot and Saint Peter? The first difference is in the will. Judas' sin was deliberate and obstinate--he was bent on betrayal. But Peter denied the Lord spontaneously, he was bent on fidelity and fell from it through weakness. So we could say that Peter fell from grace while Judas' sin was no fall at all, he was deliberately bad ("...Satan entered into him." Jn. 13:27). He betrays because he wants to betray. He fulfills his constant intention.

Peter, on the other hand, does fall. He falls from his fidelity, denying the Lord repeatedly--thrice. The spirit is willing by the flesh is weak. He was faithful and became unfaithful.

Judas is bad through malice and Peter is weak through frailty. There is a difference. The difference is in the habitual intention. The sin is the same but the disposition is different. To get better at the difference consider Saint John, the icon of innocence among the apostles at the Last Supper.

Saint John is the only one who does not abandon (betray) the Lord on Calvary. Peter (and the other nine Apostles who abandoned the Lord) is neither Judas nor John, as most of us are neither Judas' nor Saint Johns but fall somewhere in between these extremes of total depravity and total goodness. The solution is honesty, repentance, prayer and penance, and, above all worthy communion, communion with God! "He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood, abides in me and I in him." Jn. 6:57 The ultimate difference between Peter and Judas is sincere piety and true repentance.

The lesson of Saint Peter is that the human will is insufficient for holiness, it is necessary (distinguishes Peter from Judas), but not enough. It needs to be coupled with devotion and intelligence and intelligent action. Only the heart of God is the sufficient source of goodness in man. Peter needs to get closer to Christ! Like Saint John, every apostle of the Lord needs to lay his head on the heart of Jesus: "the disciple Jesus loved was reclining at Jesus' bosom." Jn. 13:23 "If you abide in my word, you shall be my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Jn. 8:33 Every apostle, every disciple of the Lord needs to aspire to the perfect devotion of Saint John, the will is not enough. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength.

Pope Benedict in Spe Salvi makes this point when he speaks of the logic of Purgatory. He says that most people are neither completely bad nor completely good. Most of us want to be good and need much purification to attain that desired perfection.

"45. ...There can be people who have totally destroyed their desire for truth and readiness to love, people for whom everything has become a lie, people who have lived for hatred and have suppressed all love within themselves. This is a terrifying thought, but alarming profiles of this type can be seen in certain figures of our own history. In such people all would be beyond remedy and the destruction of good would be irrevocable: this is what we mean by the word Hell. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1033-1037) On the other hand there can be people who are utterly pure, completely permeated by God, and thus fully open to their neighbors--people for whom communion with God even now gives direction to their entire being and whose journey towards God only brings to fulfillment what they already are. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1023-1029)

"46. Yet we know from experience that neither case is normal in human life. For the great majority of people--we may suppose--there remains in the depths of their being an ultimate interior openness to truth, to love, to God. In the concrete choices of life, however, it is covered over by ever new compromises with evil--much filth covers purity, but the thirst for purity remains and it still constantly re-emerges from all that is base and remains present in the soul...

"48. ...We all work out our salvation 'with fear and trembling' (Phil 2:12)..."

The Truth Shall Make You Free

This statement, which has become proverbial, is part of the Gospel (Jn. 8:31-42) of today's Mass (Wednesday of 5th Week of Lent). But most people are perhaps unaware of it's context: who said it, to whom and the necessary condition on which it is based?

Christ is the one who said it and He was speaking "to the Jews who had come to believe in Him." It is a conditional statement: "If you abide in my word, you shall truly be my disciples, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free."

In order for you to have freedom, therefore, you need to 1) know the truth. The truth can make you free only if you know it. And 2) you will know the truth if you are a true disciple of Jesus Christ (He being the Way, the Truth and the Life: noone comes to the Father except through Him). And 3) you are a true disciple of Christ if you abide in His word

This is the proper context of "the truth shall set you free." Get with Jesus and you can live, move, breathe, be for real, deeply, thoroughly and meaningfully.

There is an essentially ecclesial dimension also to this abiding. The place of the Lord's abiding is with the Father and with the body of believers: the Catholic and Apostolic Church. Just two chapters earlier in the same Gospel of John (6:57) we read "He who eats my flesh, and drink my blood abides in me and I in him." Holy Communion! Catholic Mass! That is the way to Christian abiding communion with the eternal Father in the eternal Word made Flesh.

So the question of freedom comes down to the fundamental problem of abiding with God in Christ. No Christ, no freedom. No Church (no Mass), no Christ. The foundation for the source of freedom is the truth which Christ teaches each man through the sacramental ministry of His Church.

Belloc's Antisemitism

Hilaire Belloc's writings are anti-Semitic: he consistently mocks the Arab and Islam, deriding them in several of his works. (E.g. the last three chapters of The Battle Ground and the entire The Mercy of Allah which is a caricature of one of the world's great civilizations, surprising in such a versatile thinker. His position, sad to say, is typical of the American conservative Catholic.)

Christ's Final Word: Silence!

The Holy Father eloquently and insightfully continues his theme on the depth of silence for supernatural understanding and direction in life with yesterday's Wednesday audience on the prayer of Christ on the Christ. You've heard of "the seven last words" of Christ from the Cross. Well, Pope Benedict sheds light on the most eloquent and deepest message of Christ from the Cross and the deepest source for the deepening of faith and divine confidence: silence: that of Christ on the Cross, that of man before the mystery of God, and that of the Father in the face of the greatest human tragedy.

Verbo crescente, verba deficient! (Saint Augstine).

When the Word of God increases the words of men fail.

World Media Day: Deliberate Silence is the Source of Real Communication

His Holiness' message for the 2012 World Media Day (Sunday, May 20th) is extraordinary. The Roman Pontiff implies that contemplatives are the only ones capable of real communication. Men of prayer are the only real communicators. In other words, all journalists need to first of all talk to God in order to know how to talk. Communication with the Word is the necessary source of all meaningful messages. And silence is a necessary context for discovering and asking the truly important questions, all of which point ultimately to God, and all the more necessary the greater the volume of information at hand.

For high quality communication silence is essential and in fact the source, the quiet in which alone one finds God. Get God and you'll have something to say (worth saying)! Be quiet so that you can really talk! You will know the truth and the truth will set you free!

A great message for Lent. It is the logic behind all time for prayer, reflection, days of recollection and retreats, which abound during this holy season. Our Blessed Lord himself spent forty days and forty nights in the desert in prayer and fasting before beginning his three year preaching circuit. And in those three years he was in the habit of spending the whole night alone in prayer (cf. Mk. 6:12).

Funerals are also for the Living

I have, over the years, run into good Catholics who because of the superficiality of the social trappings of funerals thought it would be better not to have one, better to plan not to have one for themselves as a testimony against the often ridiculous spectacle of funerals. They claim that funerals are for the living.

Well, the answer is that funerals are a testimony to the reality of God and the hope in the resurrection of the body, and, above all a suffrage for the dead. It is good to have funerals because they are efficacious for the purification of the souls of the deceased: the prayers and especially the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass (cf. 2 Maccabees 12:39-46). You should want people to pray for you when you die and it is good to provide them with an incentive to do so, which is primarily the funeral ritual.

Furthermore, there is a profound reason for having funerals for the sake of the living. The funeral, planned and provided for by the deceased is one last and posthumous spiritual work of mercy: to console the sorrowful. It may also be an occasion to posthumously exercise other spiritual works of mercy (if the funeral guests are particularly unworthy and undeserving of any acknowledgement or reward by the deceased: when the surviving family and friends have been particularly unjust in their relationship with the deceased): to forgive all injuries and to bear wrongs patiently and to pray for the living and the dead. In this case it would be the dead (vicariously, through the funeral ritual) praying for the living! in the knowledge that even the ingrates and the undeserving (especially they) need God's grace and mercy, which often come through the efficacious rites of the funeral to the survivors of the deceased. It provides a final occasion to exercise the "love thy enemies" and the "do good to those who persecute you" and "reconcile with your brother.

Plan your funeral for your own sake, that, through the ritual of the Church God's grace might forgive your own sins. And plan your funeral for the sake of the living: that the grace of God might touch, inspire, transform and forgive them through the same rites at which they assist, even their hypocrisy and neglect and superficiality. Funerals might be a final and deliberate act of indulgence granted by the deceased upon his survivors. That also is highly recommended.

One last thought, in another vein, on the value of funerals. Every act surrounding the respectful treatment of the remains of the deceased is an implicit act of divine worship and an expression of hope for life after death and of the resurrection of the body. Only in the light of God and eternal life and the bodily resurrection do any funeral rituals of whatever kind make any sense. Funeral rites are an expression of man's eternal instinct (we are by nature men who believe that the tomb cannot and must not be the end: God has made us so, from the beginning of man's creation on this earth in every land and in every culture: therefore all funeral rituals throughout the vast history of man are types pointing to the glorious Resurrection of Christ which is the source of our own definitive hope in life after death in the living flesh).

Don Julian Carron: All Great Men Need Children

Don Carron, the Spanish priest at the head of the lay movement Comunione e Liberazione, is a man with the spirit of il Papa Benedetto. In a recent Italian interview for L'Avennire he praises the Holy Father as a giant in Christian optimism and realism saying that this great herald of the Gospel for our age needs "children" to carry on his legacy. Many people need to get into and carry on the mind of the Holy Father as a light of hope for our present world crises.

Great Books College in Maryland

You've probably heard of Thomas Aquinas College, the elite Great Books college on the West Coast. It is the best in it's class.

But there is another high caliber Great Books college on the East Coast: Saint John's, Annapolis. Though not Catholic, it might be worth a look for it's excellence in classical education.

"Taxes and Fees" Extortion!

Have you noticed the exorbitant "taxes and fees" on international flights over the past several years? For instance, here is a quote from expedia.com on a flight to Israel.

Summary
1 Ticket / Roundtrip
JFK New York to TLV Tel Aviv
Leave: Sun 27-May
Return: Fri 29-Jun
1 adult $590.00
Taxes & Fees $492.00
Total $1,082.00

The taxes and fees are $492.00! making a $590.00 flight $1,082.00. This is very excessive taxation: over 83%! I wonder why nobody is doing anything about this airway robbery!

Ticket prices have not gone up, it is the "taxes and fees" in many instances which artificially raise the bottom line price on travel. There should be a reasonable ceiling to these extra charges for air travel which is no longer a luxury for most people. The taxes and fees should never exceed 10% of the ticket price!

Fugite Fornicationem

Fly fornication. (1 Cor. 6:18). That would be a great bumper sticker or billboard for New York, taken from today's second reading. The new translation says "avoid immorality," changing the verb and the noun. Flight is the best fight in matters of licentiousness.

Just a Donkey

Someone gave me this poem today, this ninth day of Christmas, in response to the donkey on my desk (an Opus Dei mascot).

Just a Little Donkey (by Rita S. Beer)
Just a little donkey, but on my back I bore
The one and only Savior the world was waiting for.
Just a little donkey, but I was strong and proud--
I gladly carried Mary through the chaos of the crowd.
I brought her to a stable where she made a tiny bed...
A place for Baby Jesus to lay His little head.
I pray the world remembers that special Christmas night
When just a little donkey carried Heaven's Precious Light.


The Opus Dei mascot of the donkey is the borrico de noria which is mentioned in The Way 606 and 998.

998 "O blessed perseverance of the donkey that turns the waterwheel! Always the same pace. Always around the same circle. One day after another, every day the same.

"Without that, there would be no ripeness in the fruit, nor blossom in the orchard, nor scent of flowers in the garden.

"Carry this thought to your interior life."

"O Blessed perseverance, most fruitfulful, of the poor waterwheel donkey!: always the same, monotonously, hidden and despised, at his humble pace...,without wanting to know that his perspirations are the aroma of the flower, the beauty of the fruit in season, the cool shade of the trees in the summer heat: all the rich foilage of the orchard, and all of the charm of the garden." (Note from Camino: edicion critico-historico.)

Two Books for the New Year

Having read one and just begun another of two modern American biographical classics, largely set in New York, I thought I might recommend them to my readers. I have known of them both for over twenty five years and only now gotten around to reading them. The Seven Storey Mountain by Father Thomas Merton and Witness by Whittacker Chambers.

Both works are intensely Catholic in their focus because they are blatant accounts of each man's personal quest for God and each one finding Him in the modern world even among the highest and most corrupt levels of society. Merton became a Trappist monk and Chambers became a Quaker and a top journalist exposing Communist espionage in the U.S. government.

There is a connection between Merton and Chambers in the person of Henry R. Luce (Time magazine's founder). In 1949 the Luces donated the property for Mepkin Abbey, a daughter monastery to Merton's Gethsemani, where Henry Luce himself is buried, and of which his wife Clare Boothe Luce continues to be a great benefactress. Chambers was hired to work for Time during his toughest years after his break with communism and became it's chief editor, with Luce's full support.

Take either book with you for your Christmas travels and you will have no time for direct TV!

There is a Whittacker Chambers blog.

Another great Catholic (Chambers was not Catholic but should have been, given his honesty and insight: his self-effacing integrity was most Catholic) American author which I am recently discovering (and was thoroughly Catholic like neither Merton nor Chambers was) is William Thomas Walsh. He produced the greatest Spanish historical biographies in the English language: e.g. Philip II.

Treatise on the Immaculate Conception

Here is an definitive introduction to the dogma and history of the dogma of the immaculate conception. It is by Frederick G. Holweck and is taken from The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1910 edition. It contains an extensive historical survey of the feast and the dogma which is most illuminating and appears to be quite thorough.



Immaculate Conception
The doctrine
In the Constitution “Ineffabilis Deus” of 8 December, 1854, Pius IX pronounced and defined that the Blessed Virgin Mary "in the first instance of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ , the Saviour of the human race , was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin."

"The Blessed Virgin Mary..."
The subject of this immunity from original sin is the person of Mary at the moment of the creation of her soul and its infusion into her body.

"...in the first instance of her conception..."
The term conception does not mean the active or generative conception by her parents. Her body was formed in the womb of the mother, and the father had the usual share in its formation. The question does not concern the immaculateness of the generative activity of her parents. Neither does it concern the passive conception absolutely and simply (conceptio seminis carnis, inchoata), which, according to the order of nature, precedes the infusion of the rational soul. The person is truly conceived when the soul is created and infused into the body. Mary was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin at the first moment of her animation, and sanctifying grace was given to her before sin could have taken effect in her soul.

"...was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin..."
The formal active essence of original sin was not removed from her soul, as it is removed from others by baptism; it was excluded, it never was in her soul. Simultaneously with the exclusion of sin, the state of original sanctity, innocence, and justice, as opposed to original sin, was conferred upon her, by which gift every stain and fault, all depraved emotions, passions, and debilities, essentially pertaining to original sin, were excluded. But she was not made exempt from the temporal penalties of Adam -- from sorrow, bodily infirmities, and death.

"...by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race."
The immunity from original sin was given to Mary by a singular exemption from a universal law through the same merits of Christ, by which other men are cleansed from sin by baptism. Mary needed the redeeming Saviour to obtain this exemption, and to be delivered from the universal necessity and debt (debitum) of being subject to original sin. The person of Mary, in consequence of her origin from Adam, should have been subject to sin, but, being the new Eve who was to be the mother of the new Adam, she was, by the eternal counsel of God and by the merits of Christ, withdrawn from the general law of original sin. Her redemption was the very masterpiece of Christ's redeeming wisdom. He is a greater redeemer who pays the debt that it may not be incurred than he who pays after it has fallen on the debtor.

Such is the meaning of the term "Immaculate Conception."

Proof from Scripture
Genesis 3:15
No direct or categorical and stringent proof of the dogma can be brought forward from Scripture. But the first scriptural passage which contains the promise of the redemption, mentions also the Mother of the Redeemer. The sentence against the first parents was accompanied by the Earliest Gospel (Proto-evangelium), which put enmity between the serpent and the woman: "and I will put enmity between thee and the woman and her seed; she (he) shall crush thy head and thou shalt lie in wait for her (his) heel" (Genesis 3:15). The translation "she" of the Vulgate is interpretative; it originated after the fourth century, and cannot be defended critically. The conqueror from the seed of the woman, who should crush the serpent's head, is Christ; the woman at enmity with the serpent is Mary. God puts enmity between her and Satan in the same manner and measure, as there is enmity between Christ and the seed of the serpent. Mary was ever to be in that exalted state of soul which the serpent had destroyed in man, i.e. in sanctifying grace. Only the continual union of Mary with grace explains sufficiently the enmity between her and Satan. The Proto-evangelium, therefore, in the original text contains a direct promise of the Redeemer, and in conjunction therewith the manifestation of the masterpiece of His Redemption, the perfect preservation of His virginal Mother from original sin.

Luke 1:28
The salutation of the angel Gabriel -- chaire kecharitomene , Hail, full of grace (Luke 1:28) indicates a unique abundance of grace, a supernatural, godlike state of soul, which finds its explanation only in the Immaculate Conception of Mary. But the term kecharitomene (full of grace) serves only as an illustration, not as a proof of the dogma.

Other texts
From the texts Proverbs 8 and Ecclesiasticus 24 (which exalt the Wisdom of God and which in the liturgy are applied to Mary, the most beautiful work of God's Wisdom), or from the Canticle of Canticles ( 4:7 , "Thou art all fair, O my love, and there is not a spot in thee"), no theological conclusion can be drawn. These passages, applied to the Mother of God, may be readily understood by those who know the privilege of Mary, but do not avail to prove the doctrine dogmatically, and are therefore omitted from the Constitution "Ineffabilis Deus". For the theologian it is a matter of conscience not to take an extreme position by applying to a creature texts which might imply the prerogatives of God.

Proof from Tradition
In regard to the sinlessness of Mary the older Fathers are very cautious: some of them even seem to have been in error on this matter.

•Origen, although he ascribed to Mary high spiritual prerogatives, thought that, at the time of Christ's passion, the sword of disbelief pierced Mary's soul ; that she was struck by the poniard of doubt ; and that for her sins also Christ died (Origen, "In Luc. hom. xvii").
•In the same manner St. Basil writes in the fourth century: he sees in the sword, of which Simeon speaks, the doubt which pierced Mary's soul (Epistle 259).
•St. Chrysostom accuses her of ambition, and of putting herself forward unduly when she sought to speak to Jesus at Capharnaum ( Matthew 12:46 ; Chrysostom, Hom. xliv; cf. also "In Matt.", hom. 4).
But these stray private opinions merely serve to show that theology is a progressive science. If we were to attempt to set forth the full doctrine of the Fathers on the sanctity of the Blessed Virgin, which includes particularly the implicit belief in the immaculateness of her conception, we should be forced to transcribe a multitude of passages. In the testimony of the Fathers two points are insisted upon: her absolute purity and her position as the second Eve (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:22 ).

Mary as the second Eve
This celebrated comparison between Eve, while yet immaculate and incorrupt -- that is to say, not subject to original sin -- and the Blessed Virgin is developed by:

•Justin (Dialog. cum Tryphone, 100),
•Irenaeus (Contra Haereses, III, xxii, 4),
•Tertullian (De carne Christi, xvii),
•Julius Firmicus Maternus (De errore profan. relig xxvi),
•Cyril of Jerusalem (Catecheses, xii, 29),
•Epiphanius (Hæres., lxxviii, 18),
•Theodotus of Ancyra (Or. in S. Deip n. 11), and
•Sedulius (Carmen paschale, II, 28).
The absolute purity of Mary
Patristic writings on Mary's purity abound.

•The Fathers call Mary the tabernacle exempt from defilement and corruption (Hippolytus, "Ontt. in illud, Dominus pascit me");
•Origen calls her worthy of God, immaculate of the immaculate, most complete sanctity, perfect justice, neither deceived by the persuasion of the serpent, nor infected with his poisonous breathings ("Hom. i in diversa");
•Ambrose says she is incorrupt, a virgin immune through grace from every stain of sin ("Sermo xxii in Ps. cxviii);
•Maximus of Turin calls her a dwelling fit for Christ, not because of her habit of body, but because of original grace ("Nom. viii de Natali Domini");
•Theodotus of Ancyra terms her a virgin innocent, without spot, void of culpability, holy in body and in soul, a lily springing among thorns, untaught the ills of Eve, nor was there any communion in her of light with darkness, and, when not yet born, she was consecrated to God ("Orat. in S. Dei Genitr.").
•In refuting Pelagius St. Augustine declares that all the just have truly known of sin "except the Holy Virgin Mary, of whom, for the honour of the Lord, I will have no question whatever where sin is concerned" (De naturâ et gratiâ 36).
•Mary was pledged to Christ (Peter Chrysologus, "Sermo cxl de Annunt. B.M.V.");
•it is evident and notorious that she was pure from eternity, exempt from every defect (Typicon S. Sabae);
•she was formed without any stain (St. Proclus, "Laudatio in S. Dei Gen. ort.", I, 3);
•she was created in a condition more sublime and glorious than all other natures (Theodorus of Jerusalem in Mansi, XII, 1140);
•when the Virgin Mother of God was to be born of Anne, nature did not dare to anticipate the germ of grace, but remained devoid of fruit ( John Damascene, "Hom. i in B. V. Nativ.", ii).
•The Syrian Fathers never tire of extolling the sinlessness of Mary. St. Ephraem considers no terms of eulogy too high to describe the excellence of Mary's grace and sanctity : "Most holy Lady, Mother of God, alone most pure in soul and body, alone exceeding all perfection of purity ...., alone made in thy entirety the home of all the graces of the Most Holy Spirit, and hence exceeding beyond all compare even the angelic virtues in purity and sanctity of soul and body . . . . my Lady most holy, all-pure, all-immaculate, all-stainless, all-undefiled, all-incorrupt, all-inviolate spotless robe of Him Who clothes Himself with light as with a garment . ... flower unfading, purple woven by God, alone most immaculate" ("Precationes ad Deiparam" in Opp. Graec. Lat., III, 524-37).
•To St. Ephraem she was as innocent as Eve before her fall, a virgin most estranged from every stain of sin, more holy than the Seraphim, the sealed fountain of the Holy Ghost, the pure seed of God, ever in body and in mind intact and immaculate ("Carmina Nisibena").
•Jacob of Sarug says that "the very fact that God has elected her proves that none was ever holier than Mary ; if any stain had disfigured her soul, if any other virgin had been purer and holier, God would have selected her and rejected Mary ". It seems, however, that Jacob of Sarug, if he had any clear idea of the doctrine of sin, held that Mary was perfectly pure from original sin ("the sentence against Adam and Eve ") at the Annunciation.
St. John Damascene (Or. i Nativ. Deip., n. 2) esteems the supernatural influence of God at the generation of Mary to be so comprehensive that he extends it also to her parents. He says of them that, during the generation, they were filled and purified by the Holy Ghost, and freed from sexual concupiscence. Consequently according to the Damascene, even the human element of her origin, the material of which she was formed, was pure and holy. This opinion of an immaculate active generation and the sanctity of the "conceptio carnis" was taken up by some Western authors; it was put forward by Petrus Comestor in his treatise against St. Bernard and by others. Some writers even taught that Mary was born of a virgin and that she was conceived in a miraculous manner when Joachim and Anne met at the golden gate of the temple (Trombelli, "Mari SS. Vita", Sect. V, ii, 8; Summa aurea, II, 948. Cf. also the "Revelations" of Catherine Emmerich which contain the entire apocryphal legend of the miraculous conception of Mary.

From this summary it appears that the belief in Mary's immunity from sin in her conception was prevalent amongst the Fathers, especially those of the Greek Church. The rhetorical character, however, of many of these and similar passages prevents us from laying too much stress on them, and interpreting them in a strictly literal sense. The Greek Fathers never formally or explicitly discussed the question of the Immaculate Conception.

The Conception of St. John the Baptist
A comparison with the conception of Christ and that of St. John may serve to light both on the dogma and on the reasons which led the Greeks to celebrate at an early date the Feast of the Conception of Mary.

•The conception of the Mother of God was beyond all comparison more noble than that of St. John the Baptist, whilst it was immeasurably beneath that of her Divine Son.
•The soul of the precursor was not preserved immaculate at its union with the body, but was sanctified either shortly after conception from a previous state of sin, or through the presence of Jesus at the Visitation.
•Our Lord, being conceived by the Holy Ghost, was, by virtue of his miraculous conception, ipso facto free from the taint of original sin.
Of these three conceptions the Church celebrates feasts. The Orientals have a Feast of the Conception of St. John the Baptist (23 September), which dates back to the fifth century; it is thus older than the Feast of the Conception of Mary, and, during the Middle Ages, was kept also by many Western dioceses on 24 September. The Conception of Mary is celebrated by the Latins on 8 December; by the Orientals on 9 December; the Conception of Christ has its feast in the universal calendar on 25 March. In celebrating the feast of Mary's Conception the Greeks of old did not consider the theological distinction of the active and the passive conceptions, which was indeed unknown to them. They did not think it absurd to celebrate a conception which was not immaculate, as we see from the Feast of the Conception of St. John. They solemnized the Conception of Mary, perhaps because, according to the "Proto-evangelium" of St. James, it was preceded by miraculous events (the apparition of an angel to Joachim, etc.), similar to those which preceded the conception of St. John , and that of our Lord Himself. Their object was less the purity of the conception than the holiness and heavenly mission of the person conceived. In the Office of 9 December, however, Mary, from the time of her conception, is called beautiful, pure, holy, just, etc., terms never used in the Office of 23 September (sc. of St. John the Baptist ). The analogy of St. John's sanctification may have given rise to the Feast of the Conception of Mary. If it was necessary that the precursor of the Lord should be so pure and "filled with the Holy Ghost " even from his mother's womb, such a purity was assuredly not less befitting His Mother. The moment of St. John's sanctification is by later writers thought to be the Visitation ("the infant leaped in her womb"), but the angel's words ( Luke 1:15 ) seem to indicate a sanctification at the conception. This would render the origin of Mary more similar to that of John. And if the Conception of John had its feast, why not that of Mary ?

Proof from Reason
There is an incongruity in the supposition that the flesh, from which the flesh of the Son of God was to be formed, should ever have belonged to one who was the slave of that arch-enemy, whose power He came on earth to destroy. Hence the axiom of Pseudo-Anselmus (Eadmer) developed by Duns Scotus, Decuit, potuit, ergo fecit , it was becoming that the Mother of the Redeemer should have been free from the power of sin and from the first moment of her existence ; God could give her this privilege, therefore He gave it to her. Again it is remarked that a peculiar privilege was granted to the prophet Jeremiah and to St. John the Baptist. They were sanctified in their mother's womb, because by their preaching they had a special share in the work of preparing the way for Christ. Consequently some much higher prerogative is due to Mary. (A treatise of P. Marchant, claiming for St. Joseph also the privilege of St. John, was placed on the Index in 1833.) Scotus says that "the perfect Mediator must, in some one case, have done the work of mediation most perfectly, which would not be unless there was some one person at least, in whose regard the wrath of God was anticipated and not merely appeased."

The Feast of the Immaculate Conception
The older feast of the Conception of Mary (Conception of St. Anne), which originated in the monasteries of Palestine at least as early as the seventh century, and the modern feast of the Immaculate Conception are not identical in their object.

Originally the Church celebrated only the Feast of the Conception of Mary, as she kept the Feast of St. John's conception, not discussing the sinlessness. This feast in the course of centuries became the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, as dogmatical argumentation brought about precise and correct ideas, and as the thesis of the theological schools regarding the preservation of Mary from all stain of original sin gained strength. Even after the dogma had been universally accepted in the Latin Church, and had gained authoritative support through diocesan decrees and papal decisions, the old term remained, and before 1854 the term "Immaculata Conceptio" is nowhere found in the liturgical books, except in the invitatorium of the Votive Office of the Conception. The Greeks, Syrians, etc. call it the Conception of St. Anne (Eullepsis tes hagias kai theoprometoros Annas , "the Conception of St. Anne, the ancestress of God").

Passaglia in his "De Immaculato Deiparae Conceptu," basing his opinion upon the "Typicon" of St. Sabas: which was substantially composed in the fifth century, believes that the reference to the feast forms part of the authentic original, and that consequently it was celebrated in the Patriarchate of Jerusalem in the fifth century (III, n. 1604). But the Typicon was interpolated by the Damascene, Sophronius, and others, and, from the ninth to the twelfth centuries, many new feasts and offices were added.

To determine the origin of this feast we must take into account the genuine documents we possess, the oldest of which is the canon of the feast, composed by St. Andrew of Crete, who wrote his liturgical hymns in the second half of the seventh century, when a monk at the monastery of St. Sabas near Jerusalem (d. Archbishop of Crete about 720). But the solemnity cannot then have been generally accepted throughout the Orient, for John, first monk and later bishop in the Isle of Euboea, about 750 in a sermon, speaking in favour of the propagation of this feast, says that it was not yet known to all the faithful (ei kai me para tois pasi gnorizetai ; P. G., XCVI, 1499). But a century later George of Nicomedia, made metropolitan by Photius in 860, could say that the solemnity was not of recent origin (P. G., C, 1335). It is therefore, safe to affirm that the feast of the Conception of St. Anne appears in the Orient not earlier than the end of the seventh or the beginning of the eighth century.

As in other cases of the same kind the feast originated in the monastic communities. The monks, who arranged the psalmody and composed the various poetical pieces for the office, also selected the date, 9 December, which was always retained in the Oriental calendars. Gradually the solemnity emerged from the cloister, entered into the cathedrals, was glorified by preachers and poets, and eventually became a fixed feast of the calendar, approved by Church and State.

It is registered in the calendar of Basil II (976-1025) and by the Constitution of Emperor Manuel I Comnenus on the days of the year which are half or entire holidays, promulgated in 1166, it is numbered among the days which have full sabbath rest. Up to the time of Basil II, Lower Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia still belonged to the Byzantine Empire; the city of Naples was not lost to the Greeks until 1127, when Roger II conquered the city. The influence of Constantinople was consequently strong in the Neapolitan Church, and, as early as the ninth century, the Feast of the Conception was doubtlessly kept there, as elsewhere in Lower Italy on 9 December, as indeed appears from the marble calendar found in 1742 in the Church of S. Giorgio Maggiore at Naples.

Today the Conception of St. Anne is in the Greek Church one of the minor feasts of the year. The lesson in Matins contains allusions to the apocryphal "Proto-evangelium" of St. James, which dates from the second half of the second century (see SAINT ANNE ). To the Greek Orthodox of our days, however, the feast means very little; they continue to call it "Conception of St. Anne", indicating unintentionally, perhaps, the active conception which was certainly not immaculate. In the Menaea of 9 December this feast holds only the second place, the first canon being sung in commemoration of the dedication of the Church of the Resurrection at Constantinople. The Russian hagiographer Muraview and several other Orthodox authors even loudly declaimed against the dogma after its promulgation, although their own preachers formerly taught the Immaculate Conception in their writings long before the definition of 1854.

In the Western Church the feast appeared (8 December), when in the Orient its development had come to a standstill. The timid beginnings of the new feast in some Anglo-Saxon monasteries in the eleventh century, partly smothered by the Norman conquest, were followed by its reception in some chapters and dioceses by the Anglo-Norman clergy. But the attempts to introduce it officially provoked contradiction and theoretical discussion, bearing upon its legitimacy and its meaning, which were continued for centuries and were not definitively settled before 1854. The "Martyrology of Tallaght" compiled about 790 and the "Feilire" of St. Aengus (800) register the Conception of Mary on 3 May. It is doubtful, however, if an actual feast corresponded to this rubric of the learned monk St. Aengus. This Irish feast certainly stands alone and outside the line of liturgical development. It is a mere isolated appearance, not a living germ. The Scholiast adds, in the lower margin of the "Feilire", that the conception (Inceptio) took place in February, since Mary was born after seven months -- a singular notion found also in some Greek authors. The first definite and reliable knowledge of the feast in the West comes from England ; it is found in a calendar of Old Minster, Winchester (Conceptio S'ce Dei Genetricis Mariae), dating from about 1030, and in another calendar of New Minster, Winchester, written between 1035 and 1056; a pontifical of Exeter of the eleventh century (assigned to 1046-1072) contains a "benedictio in Conceptione S. Mariae "; a similar benediction is found in a Canterbury pontifical written probably in the first half of the eleventh century, certainly before the Conquest. These episcopal benedictions show that the feast not only commended itself to the devotion of individuals, but that it was recognized by authority and was observed by the Saxon monks with considerable solemnity. The existing evidence goes to show that the establishment of the feast in England was due to the monks of Winchester before the Conquest (1066).

The Normans on their arrival in England were disposed to treat in a contemptuous fashion English liturgical observances; to them this feast must have appeared specifically English, a product of insular simplicity and ignorance. Doubtless its public celebration was abolished at Winchester and Canterbury, but it did not die out of the hearts of individuals, and on the first favourable opportunity the feast was restored in the monasteries. At Canterbury however, it was not re-established before 1328. Several documents state that in Norman times it began at Ramsey, pursuant to a vision vouchsafed to Helsin or Æthelsige, Abbot of Ramsey on his journey back from Denmark, whither he had been sent by William I about 1070. An angel appeared to him during a severe gale and saved the ship after the abbot had promised to establish the Feast of the Conception in his monastery. However we may consider the supernatural feature of the legend, it must be admitted that the sending of Helsin to Denmark is an historical fact. The account of the vision has found its way into many breviaries, even into the Roman Breviary of 1473. The Council of Canterbury (1325) attributes the re-establishment of the feast in England to St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1109). But although this great doctor wrote a special treatise "De Conceptu virginali et originali peccato", by which he laid down the principles of the Immaculate Conception, it is certain that he did not introduce the feast anywhere. The letter ascribed to him, which contains the Helsin narrative, is spurious. The principal propagator of the feast after the Conquest was Anselm, the nephew of St. Anselm. He was educated at Canterbury where he may have known some Saxon monks who remembered the solemnity in former days; after 1109 he was for a time Abbot of St. Sabas at Rome, where the Divine Offices were celebrated according to the Greek calendar. When in 1121 he was appointed Abbot of Bury St. Edmund's he established the feast there; partly at least through his efforts other monasteries also adopted it, like Reading, St. Albans, Worcester, Gloucester, and Winchcombe.

But a number of others decried its observance as hitherto unheard of and absurd, the old Oriental feast being unknown to them. Two bishops, Roger of Salisbury and Bernard of St. Davids, declared that the festival was forbidden by a council, and that the observance must be stopped. And when, during the vacancy of the See of London, Osbert de Clare, Prior of Westminster, undertook to introduce the feast at Westminster (8 December, 1127), a number of monks arose against him in the choir and said that the feast must not be kept, for its establishment had not the authority of Rome (cf. Osbert's letter to Anselm in Bishop, p. 24). Whereupon the matter was brought before the Council of London in 1129. The synod decided in favour of the feast, and Bishop Gilbert of London adopted it for his diocese. Thereafter the feast spread in England, but for a time retained its private character, the Synod of Oxford (1222) having refused to raise it to the rank of a holiday of obligation.

In Normandy at the time of Bishop Rotric (1165-83) the Conception of Mary, in the Archdiocese of Rouen and its six suffragan dioceses, was a feast of precept equal in dignity to the Annunciation. At the same time the Norman students at the University of Paris chose it as their patronal feast. Owing to the close connection of Normandy with England, it may have been imported from the latter country into Normandy, or the Norman barons and clergy may have brought it home from their wars in Lower Italy, it was universally solemnised by the Greek inhabitants. During the Middle Ages the Feast of the Conception of Mary was commonly called the "Feast of the Norman nation", which shows that it was celebrated in Normandy with great splendour and that it spread from there over Western Europe. Passaglia contends (III, 1755) that the feast was celebrated in Spain in the seventh century. Bishop Ullathorne also (p. 161) finds this opinion acceptable. If this be true, it is difficult to understand why it should have entirely disappeared from Spain later on, for neither does the genuine Mozarabic Liturgy contain it, nor the tenth century calendar of Toledo edited by Morin. The two proofs given by Passaglia are futile: the life of St. Isidore, falsely attributed to St. Ildephonsus , which mentions the feast, is interpolated, while, in the Visigoth lawbook, the expression "Conceptio S. Mariae" is to be understood of the Annunciation.

The controversy
No controversy arose over the Immaculate Conception on the European continent before the twelfth century. The Norman clergy abolished the feast in some monasteries of England where it had been established by the Anglo-Saxon monks. But towards the end of the eleventh century, through the efforts of Anselm the Younger, it was taken up again in several Anglo-Norman establishments. That St. Anselm the Elder re-established the feast in England is highly improbable, although it was not new to him. He had been made familiar with it as well by the Saxon monks of Canterbury, as by the Greeks with whom he came in contact during exile in Campania and Apulin (1098-9). The treatise "De Conceptu virginali" usually ascribed to him, was composed by his friend and disciple, the Saxon monk Eadmer of Canterbury . When the canons of the cathedral of Lyons, who no doubt knew Anselm the Younger Abbot of Bury St. Edmund's, personally introduced the feast into their choir after the death of their bishop in 1240, St. Bernard deemed it his duty to publish a protest against this new way of honouring Mary. He addressed to the canons a vehement letter (Epist. 174), in which he reproved them for taking the step upon their own authority and before they had consulted the Holy See. Not knowing that the feast had been celebrated with the rich tradition of the Greek and Syrian Churches regarding the sinlessness of Mary, he asserted that the feast was foreign to the old tradition of the Church. Yet it is evident from the tenor of his language that he had in mind only the active conception or the formation of the flesh, and that the distinction between the active conception, the formation of the body, and its animation by the soul had not yet been drawn. No doubt, when the feast was introduced in England and Normandy, the axiom "decuit, potuit, ergo fecit", the childlike piety and enthusiasm of the simplices building upon revelations and apocryphal legends, had the upper hand. The object of the feast was not clearly determined, no positive theological reasons had been placed in evidence.

St. Bernard was perfectly justified when he demanded a careful inquiry into the reasons for observing the feast. Not adverting to the possibility of sanctification at the time of the infusion of the soul, he writes that there can be question only of sanctification after conception, which would render holy the nativity, not the conception itself (Scheeben, "Dogmatik", III, p. 550). Hence Albert the Great observes: "We say that the Blessed Virgin was not sanctified before animation, and the affirmative contrary to this is the heresy condemned by St. Bernard in his epistle to the canons of Lyons" (III Sent., dist. iii, p. I, ad 1, Q. i).

St. Bernard was at once answered in a treatise written by either Richard of St. Victor or Peter Comestor. In this treatise appeal is made to a feast which had been established to commemorate an insupportable tradition. It maintained that the flesh of Mary needed no purification; that it was sanctified before the conception. Some writers of those times entertained the fantastic idea that before Adam fell, a portion of his flesh had been reserved by God and transmitted from generation to generation, and that out of this flesh the body of Mary was formed (Scheeben, op. cit., III, 551), and this formation they commemorated by a feast. The letter of St. Bernard did not prevent the extension of the feast, for in 1154 it was observed all over France, until in 1275, through the efforts of the Paris University, it was abolished in Paris and other dioceses.

After the saint's death the controversy arose anew between Nicholas of St. Albans, an English monk who defended the festival as established in England, and Peter Cellensis, the celebrated Bishop of Chartres. Nicholas remarks that the soul of Mary was pierced twice by the sword, i.e. at the foot of the cross and when St. Bernard wrote his letter against her feast ( Scheeben, III, 551). The point continued to be debated throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and illustrious names appeared on each side. St. Peter Damian, Peter the Lombard, Alexander of Hales, St. Bonaventure, and Albert the Great are quoted as opposing it.

St. Thomas at first pronounced in favour of the doctrine in his treatise on the "Sentences" (in I. Sent. c. 44, q. I ad 3), yet in his "Summa Theologica" he concluded against it. Much discussion has arisen as to whether St. Thomas did or did not deny that the Blessed Virgin was immaculate at the instant of her animation, and learned books have been written to vindicate him from having actually drawn the negative conclusion. Yet it is hard to say that St. Thomas did not require an instant at least, after the animation of Mary, before her sanctification. His great difficulty appears to have arisen from the doubt as to how she could have been redeemed if she had not sinned. This difficulty he raised in no fewer than ten passages in his writings (see, e.g., Summa III:27:2, ad 2). But while St. Thomas thus held back from the essential point of the doctrine, he himself laid down the principles which, after they had been drawn together and worked out, enabled other minds to furnish the true solution of this difficulty from his own premises.

In the thirteenth century the opposition was largely due to a want of clear insight into the subject in dispute. The word "conception" was used in different senses, which had not been separated by careful definition. If St. Thomas, St. Bonaventure, and other theologians had known the doctrine in the sense of the definition of 1854, they would have been its strongest defenders instead of being its opponents.

We may formulate the question discussed by them in two propositions, both of which are against the sense of the dogma of 1854:

•the sanctification of Mary took place before the infusion of the soul into the flesh, so that the immunity of the soul was a consequence of the sanctification of the flesh and there was no liability on the part of the soul to contract original sin. This would approach the opinion of the Damascene concerning the holiness of the active conception.
•The sanctification took place after the infusion of the soul by redemption from the servitude of sin, into which the soul had been drawn by its union with the unsanctified flesh. This form of the thesis excluded an immaculate conception.
The theologians forgot that between sanctification before infusion, and sanctification after infusion, there was a medium: sanctification of the soul at the moment of its infusion. To them the idea seemed strange that what was subsequent in the order of nature could be simultaneous in point of time. Speculatively taken, the soul must be created before it can be infused and sanctified but in reality, the soul is created and sanctified at the very moment of its infusion into the body. Their principal difficulty was the declaration of St. Paul (Romans 5:12) that all men have sinned in Adam. The purpose of this Pauline declaration, however, is to insist on the need which all men have of redemption by Christ. Our Lady was no exception to this rule. A second difficulty was the silence of the earlier Fathers. But the divines of those times were distinguished not so much for their knowledge of the Fathers or of history, as for their exercise of the power of reasoning. They read the Western Fathers more than those of the Eastern Church, who exhibit in far greater completeness the tradition of the Immaculate Conception. And many works of the Fathers which had then been lost sight of have since been brought to light.

The famous Duns Scotus (d. 1308) at last (in III Sent., dist. iii, in both commentaries) laid the foundations of the true doctrine so solidly and dispelled the objections in a manner so satisfactory, that from that time onward the doctrine prevailed. He showed that the sanctification after animation -- sanctificatio post animationem -- demanded that it should follow in the order of nature (naturae) not of time (temporis); he removed the great difficulty of St. Thomas showing that, so far from being excluded from redemption, the Blessed Virgin obtained of her Divine Son the greatest of redemptions through the mystery of her preservation from all sin. He also brought forward, by way of illustration, the somewhat dangerous and doubtful argument of Eadmer (S. Anselm) "decuit, potuit, ergo fecit."

From the time of Scotus not only did the doctrine become the common opinion at the universities, but the feast spread widely to those countries where it had not been previously adopted. With the exception of the Dominicans, all or nearly all, of the religious orders took it up: The Franciscans at the general chapter at Pisa in 1263 adopted the Feast of the Conception of Mary for the entire order; this, however, does not mean that they professed at that time the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Following in the footsteps of their own Duns Scotus, the learned Petrus Aureolus and Franciscus de Mayronis became the most fervent champions of the doctrine, although their older teachers (St. Bonaventure included) had been opposed to it. The controversy continued, but the defenders of the opposing opinion were almost entirely confined to the members of the Dominican Order. In 1439 the dispute was brought before the Council of Basle where the University of Paris, formerly opposed to the doctrine, proved to be its most ardent advocate, asking for a dogmatical definition. The two referees at the council were John of Segovia and John Turrecremata (Torquemada). After it had been discussed for the space of two years before that assemblage, the bishops declared the Immaculate Conception to be a doctrine which was pious, consonant with Catholic worship, Catholic faith, right reason, and Holy Scripture; nor, said they, was it henceforth allowable to preach or declare to the contrary (Mansi, XXXIX, 182). The Fathers of the Council say that the Church of Rome was celebrating the feast. This is true only in a certain sense. It was kept in a number of churches of Rome, especially in those of the religious orders, but it was not received in the official calendar. As the council at the time was not ecumenical, it could not pronounce with authority. The memorandum of the Dominican Torquemada formed the armoury for all attacks upon the doctrine made by St. Antoninus of Florence (d. 1459), and by the Dominicans Bandelli and Spina.

By a Decree of 28 February, 1476, Sixtus IV at last adopted the feast for the entire Latin Church and granted an indulgence to all who would assist at the Divine Offices of the solemnity (Denzinger, 734). The Office adopted by Sixtus IV was composed by Leonard de Nogarolis, whilst the Franciscans, since 1480, used a very beautiful Office from the pen of Bernardine dei Busti (Sicut Lilium), which was granted also to others (e.g. to Spain, 1761), and was chanted by the Franciscans up to the second half of the nineteenth century. As the public acknowledgment of the feast of Sixtus IV did not prove sufficient to appease the conflict, he published in 1483 a constitution in which he punished with excommunication all those of either opinion who charged the opposite opinion with heresy (Grave nimis, 4 Sept., 1483; Denzinger, 735). In 1546 the Council of Trent, when the question was touched upon, declared that "it was not the intention of this Holy Synod to include in the decree which concerns original sin the Blessed and Immaculate Virgin Mary Mother of God" (Sess. V, De peccato originali, v, in Denzinger, 792). Since, however, this decree did not define the doctrine, the theological opponents of the mystery, though more and more reduced in numbers, did not yield. St. Pius V not only condemned proposition 73 of Baius that "no one but Christ was without original sin, and that therefore the Blessed Virgin had died because of the sin contracted in Adam, and had endured afilictions in this life, like the rest of the just, as punishment of actual and original sin" (Denzinger, 1073) but he also issued a constitution in which he forbade all public discussion of the subject. Finally he inserted a new and simplified Office of the Conception in the liturgical books ("Super speculam", Dec., 1570; "Superni omnipotentis", March, 1571; "Bullarium Marianum", pp. 72, 75).

Whilst these disputes went on, the great universities and almost all the great orders had become so many bulwarks for the defense of the dogma. In 1497 the University of Paris decreed that henceforward no one should be admitted a member of the university, who did not swear that he would do the utmost to defend and assert the Immaculate Conception of Mary. Toulouse followed the example; in Italy, Bologna and Naples; in the German Empire, Cologne, Maine, and Vienna; in Belgium, Louvain; in England before the Reformation. Oxford and Cambridge; in Spain Salamanca, Toledo, Seville, and Valencia; in Portugal, Coimbra and Evora; in America, Mexico and Lima. The Friars Minor confirmed in 1621 the election of the Immaculate Mother as patron of the order, and bound themselves by oath to teach the mystery in public and in private. The Dominicans, however, were under special obligation to follow the doctrines of St. Thomas, and the common conclusion was that St. Thomas was opposed to the Immaculate Conception. Therefore the Dominicans asserted that the doctrine was an error against faith (John of Montesono, 1373); although they adopted the feast, they termed it persistently "Sanctificatio B.M.V." not "Conceptio", until in 1622 Gregory XV abolished the term "sanctificatio". Paul V (1617) decreed that no one should dare to teach publicly that Mary was conceived in original sin, and Gregory XV (1622) imposed absolute silence (in scriptis et sermonibus etiam privatis) upon the adversaries of the doctrine until the Holy See should define the question. To put an end to all further cavilling, Alexander VII promulgated on 8 December 1661, the famous constitution "Sollicitudo omnium Ecclesiarum", defining the true sense of the word conceptio, and forbidding all further discussion against the common and pious sentiment of the Church. He declared that the immunity of Mary from original sin in the first moment of the creation of her soul and its infusion into the body was the object of the feast (Densinger, 1100).

Explicit universal acceptance

Since the time of Alexander VII, long before the final definition, there was no doubt on the part of theologians that the privilege was amongst the truths revealed by God. Wherefore Pius IX, surrounded by a splendid throng of cardinals and bishops, 8 December 1854, promulgated the dogma. A new Office was prescribed for the entire Latin Church by Pius IX (25 December, 1863), by which decree all the other Offices in use were abolished, including the old Office Sicut lilium of the Franciscans, and the Office composed by Passaglia (approved 2 Feb., 1849).

In 1904 the golden jubilee of the definition of the dogma was celebrated with great splendour (Pius X, Enc., 2 Feb., 1904). Clement IX added to the feast an octave for the dioceses within the temporal possessions of the pope (1667). Innocent XII (1693) raised it to a double of the second class with an octave for the universal Church, which rank had been already given to it in 1664 for Spain, in 1665 for Tuscany and Savoy, in 1667 for the Society of Jesus, the Hermits of St. Augustine, etc., Clement XI decreed on 6 Dec., 1708, that the feast should be a holiday of obligation throughout the entire Church. At last Leo XIII, 30 Nov 1879, raised the feast to a double of the first class with a vigil, a dignity which had long before been granted to Sicily (1739), to Spain (1760) and to the United States (1847). A Votive Office of the Conception of Mary, which is now recited in almost the entire Latin Church on free Saturdays, was granted first to the Benedictine nuns of St. Anne at Rome in 1603, to the Franciscans in 1609, to the Conventuals in 1612, etc. The Syrian and Chaldean Churches celebrate this feast with the Greeks on 9 December; in Armenia it is one of the few immovable feasts of the year (9 December); the schismatic Abyssinians and Copts keep it on 7 August whilst they celebrate the Nativity of Mary on 1 May; the Catholic Copts, however, have transferred the feast to 10 December (Nativity, 10 September). The Eastern Catholics have since 1854 changed the name of the feast in accordance with the dogma to the "Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary."

The Archdiocese of Palermo solemnizes a Commemoration of the Immaculate Conception on 1 September to give thanks for the preservation of the city on occasion of the earthquake, 1 September, 1726. A similar commemoration is held on 14 January at Catania (earthquake, 11 Jan., 1693); and by the Oblate Fathers on 17 Feb., because their rule was approved 17 Feb., 1826. Between 20 September 1839, and 7 May 1847, the privilege of adding to the Litany of Loretto the invocation, "Queen conceived without original sin", had been granted to 300 dioceses and religious communities. The Immaculate Conception was declared on 8 November, 1760, principal patron of all the possessions of the crown of Spain, including those in America. The decree of the First Council of Baltimore (1846) electing Mary in her Immaculate Conception principal Patron of the United States, was confirmed on 7 February, 1847.

Passaglia, De Immac. Conceptu. B.M.V. (3 vols., Rome, 1855); Ballerini, Sylloge monumentorum ad myster. Immac. Conc. Pectantium (Rome, 1854-6); Scheeben, Dogmatik III, 279 sq.; Idem in Kirchenlexicon, s.v. Empfangnis unbefleckte; Roskovany, De b. Virginie Maria in suo conceptu immaculate (13 vols., Budapest, 1873-1892); Le Bachelet, L’Immac. Conc. (Paris, 1903); J. and P. Hobeika, Temoignage de l’Eglise Syro-maronite en faveur de l’Imm. Conc. Et l’Eglise de Paris (Paris, 1905); Sardi, La solenne Definizione etc. (2 vols., Rome, 1904); Petrides, L’Imm. Conc. Et les Grecs modernes in Echos d’Orient (1905), 275 sqq.; Kellner, Heortologie, 174 sqq. (2nd ed., Freiburg, 1906, Eng. Tr. London, 1908); Preuss, Zum Lobe der unbefl. Empf. (Freiburg, 1879); Bishop, On the Origins of the Feast of the Conc. B.M.V. (London, 1904); De Meester, La Festa della Conc. Di Maria SS. Nella Chiesa Greca (Rome, 1904); Ullathorne, The Imm. Conc. Of the Mother of God (Westminster, 1905); Livius, The Bl. V.M. in the Fathers of the first six centuries (London, 1893); Toscani and Cozza, De Imm. Deip. Conc. Hymnologia Graecorum (Rome 1862); Holweck, Fasti Mariani (Freiburg, 1892); Bourasse, Bullarium Marianum in Summa Aurea, VII (Paris, 1866); Waterson, Pietas Mariana Britannica (London, 1879); Schutz, Summa Mariana (2 vols., Paderborn, 1903-9); Coleridge, The Mother of the King (New London, 1890); Hunter, Outlines of Dogmatic Theology (New York, 1894); Kosters in Buchberger, Kirchliches Handlexikon, s.v. Empfangnis Maria, Unbefleckte; Berington, Kirk and Waterworth, The Faith of Catholics (St. Louis), 433 sqq.

Plenary Indulgences

The 1968 Enchiridion Indulgentiarum is the official catalogue of indulgences granted by the Holy See. Here and below I provide the plenary indulgences listed in that book with their respective number in the list. Please note that there are many other plenary indulgences available at privileged altars, etc. which are not listed in the Enchiridion.

Only one plenary indulgence can be obtained per day (except at the moment of death), and it is applicable to one's own soul or to the souls in purgatory, with the normal conditions for a plenary indulgence (again except in articulo mortis): Sacramental Confession, Communion, and Prayer for the intention of the Holy Father, all to be performed within eight days of the indulgenced work. Under those conditions, the first four listed below may be obtained anytime.



Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament at least 1/2 hour. (3)

Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary in a Church or in the family. (48)

Bible, devout prayerful reading of at least 1/2 hour. (50)

Via Crucis, devoutly exercised (going from station to station with at least some mental prayer on the Passion and Death of the Lord at each station). When done in a group it suffices that at least the leader go from station to station. Those "impeded" can gain the same indulgence with at least 1/2 hour pious reading and meditation on the Lord's Passion and Death. (63)



Roman Major Basilicas, devout visit to any of the four reciting there a Pater and Credo, on the titular feast, on any holyday of obligation, or once a year on any day. (11)

Urbi et Orbi Papal Blessing devoutly received, even via live broadcast. (12)

Cemetery visit devoutly praying (at least mentally) for the departed during the Octave of all Souls: 1-8 November, applicable only to the Souls in Purgatory. (13)

Veneration of the cross of Good Friday during that service. (17)

"Look down upon me, good and gentle Jesus..." prayer after receiving Holy Communion, any Friday of Lent, before an image of Christ crucified. (22)

Eucharistic Congress, participation in the closing Liturgy. (23)

Retreat (spiritual exercises) of at least three whole days. (25)

Sacred Heart Solemnity, publicly saying The Act of Reparation--"Most Sweet Jesus...". (26)

Christ the King Solemnity, publicly saying The Act of Dedication of the Human Race to Jesus Christ the King. (27)

In Articulo Mortis (at the moment of death), for the faithful who habitually recited some prayers during their lifetime, even if unable to be assisted by a priest and the sacraments. (28)

Saints Peter and Paul Solemnity (29 June) pious use of an object blessed by a bishop or the Pope saying the Creed. (35)

Parish Mission, hearing some of the sermons and participating in the solemn closing thereof. (41)

First Holy Communion, one's own or that of others. (42)

Solemn First Mass, one's own or that of others. (43)

Priestly anniversary upon 25, 50, 60 anniversary renewing his faithful purpose, and the faithful who assist at that solemn Mass. (49)

Station Church (Lent in Rome) visited on the proper day and attending a sacred function. (56)

Diocesan Synod devoutly visiting the Church thereof and saying a Pater and Credo. (58)

Tantum Ergo solemnly recited on Holy Thursday and Corpus Christi. (59)

Te Deum publicly recited on the last day of the year. (60)

Veni Creator publicly recited on the first day of the year and Pentecost. (61)

Parish church titular feast visit, or on the "Portiuncula" (2 August) saying a Pater and Credo. (65)

Church or altar on the day of its consecration, visit saying a Pater and Credo. (66)

All Souls Day visit a church or oratory, applicable only to the Souls in Purgatory, saying a Pater and Credo. (67)

Feast of the canonized Founder (of an Order), visit a church or oratory of the Order saying a Pater and Credo. (68)

Pastoral Visitation, attending a sacred function thereof to be obtained only once during the visitation. (69)

Renewal of Baptismal vows during the Easter Vigil or the anniversary of one's baptism. (70)

Playmobil Nativity Sets

The German toy maker Playmobil is offering a line of high-quality Nativity sets this Christmas for children 4-10 years old. Check them out. They are not for children under 3 years because the small figures may be a choking hazard. They are wonderful for grade school!


Nativity Manger with Stable 4884 $29.99

Nativity Scene With Stable 5958 $19.99

Nativity Scene 4885 $10.99

Three Wise Kings 4886 $10.99

Saint Nicholas and Angel 4887 $4.99

Southern Tridentine Monastery

This past Divine Mercy Sunday (1 May 2011) Christ the King, a small and quaint SSPX Abbey in the Diocese of Birmingham, Alabama reconciled with Rome. It is in Cullman, an hour north of EWTN, and just an half hour north of Mother Angelica's Hanceville Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament/Our Lady of the Angels Monastery. The newly reconciled extraordinary form monastery is just another reason to visit that increasingly Catholic part of our beloved South! All of this is two hours west of Atlanta.

For flying there the Birmingham airport is just minutes away from the Irondale studios of EWTN. I'll see about making my annual retreat at the Cullman Abbey.

If you like Conyers you should love Cullman!

The Psalter Saint

14 October 1060 was the holy death of Saint Dominic Loricatus, whom we could call "The Psalter Saint." He prayed the entire psalter every day and often various times in one day, while flagellating himself, doing penance to make up for corrupt clergy and all of the sins of the world.

I think about him especially now that I have taken up the 1962 breviary, which is more demanding than the reformed breviary. The previous breviary did the whole psalter every week while the new one does the entire psalter monthly (in four weeks). Saint Dominic said the whole psalter by dawn every day!

Saint Dominic Loricatus pray for the penitence of today's clergymen.

Maternitatis Beatae Mariae Virginis

In 1931 Pope Pius XI, in commemoration of the 1500 anniversary of the conclusion of the Council of Ephesus, declared 11 October the feast of The Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Blessed Pope John XXIII chose this same feast in 1962 to begin the Second Vatican Council under the patronage of the Theotokos with these words: "Mother Church rejoices that, by the singular gift of Divine Providence, the longed-for day has finally dawned when--under the auspices of the virgin Mother of God, whose maternal dignity is commemorated on this feast--the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council is solemnly opened beside Saint Peter's tomb."

A week earlier he had concluded his last pre-Council general audience with these words of extreme affection. "Only a week separates us from the Council: and the first thought turns naturally to the Most Holy Mother of Jesus and our Mother, Mary, who represents for the light of our eyes and the beating of our hearts all that is most tender and most dear in our families."

It is a bit ironic that the revised Roman Calander took this feast off the calendar and now it is the feast of Blessed Pope John XXIII! I'm sure he is not happy with that. This is iconic for the confusion, liturgical and otherwise, that continues to reign in the post-conciliar Church. Let me give just one other timely example of the ongoing confusion in the Reform of the Reform.

The newly translated Roman Missals have just arrived, to be implemented the first Sunday of Advent. The translation is a great improvement from the 1970 disaster. However, the greatest part of the previous edition was excised--the Latin appendix! The new addition has no Latin! Here is another great post-Conciliar irony with which Blessed Pope John cannot be happy. The new edition of the English Missal--with its countless improvements--has no trace of Latin (or Greek [e.g. Kyrie]) anywhere! I would have expected, after all we have been through, the Latin option in the text, especially for the silent prayers of the priest during the Mass. So that I have to see this as another transitional Missal! Simultaneous Latin in the text should be normative for all translations, if it is to be truly an option!

Another matter brought up by the local liturgists is how many times to strike the breast during the Confiteor. They say once! contrary to the constant and long standing tradition and contrary to the usage in the other translations (e.g. Spanish) where the people have always done the three stikes. The rubrics are not clear saying "striking" but not specifying the number of times. Here again the anti-traditional and wrong-headed interpretation of the "experts" continue to be a tug-of-war resisting the continual Reform of the Reform. We will strike three times!