All honor to you, Mary! From you arose the sun of justice, Christ our God.
(Communion Antiphon)
Today is the patronal feast of the Abbey of Saint Mary, Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception. The abbey honors the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title of the Immaculate Conception, a solemn feast of the Church begun by Blessed Pope Pius IX on this date in 1854. In 1857, this Benedictine abbey was founded, first in Newark, which moved to Morristown, New Jersey.
This Marian feast acknowledges a dogma believed by Western Christians that states Mary was born without Original Sin. That is, she was free from sin in order to collaborate with God in the work of our redemption by giving birth to Jesus.
A later feast of Mary, Our Lady of Lourdes (February 11) remembers the Virgin appearing to Saint Bernadette Soubirous 18 times between February 11 and July 16, 1858. On March 25th of that year Mary identified herself as "I am the Immaculate Conception." Today, also marks the end of the anniversary year of this dogma, 150 years!
The Church in many places in the West has observed this feast since the 8th century; likewise there are Churches in the East that have honored Mary under this title, or one similar.
The Abbey's celebration was connected with Delbarton School. Father Abbot Giles with the members of the monastic community celebrated the Sacrifice of the Mass at 10 am. The full student body was present. Father Abbot spoke about the need to be men of prayer and of the importance of having a true devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary as the monks of old did, and the monks of today, do. He noted that you can see the monks walking the property praying the rosary or sitting in front of the Blessed Sacrament doing so.
O Mary, conceived without sin,
pray for us you have recourse to you.
Greetings of peace ! This is more a request for clarification than a comment on your article.
I belong to a parish whose patroness is also Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception. What bothers me, however, is that our cathedral is often referred to as the Immaculate Conception Cathedral, or referring to December 8 as the feast day of the Immaculate Conception, with no reference at all to Our Lady. I really find that disturbing. As if what is given more importance is the "event" rather than the "person."
According to your article, Mama Mary (the majority of Filipinos often refers to Our Lady as such) identified herself on March 25, 1858, to St. Bernadette as "I am the Immaculate Conception." Could that have been the reason why our parish is often called even by its priests as Parish of the Immaculate Conception, rather than the Parish of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception? Please enlighten me. Thank you.
Hello Pearl, Thanks for reading the Communio blog! I don't perceive a sense of disrespect in referring to Our Lady by the event or in other cases location as in Knock, Fatima, Lourdes. It may be nothing more than short-hand. It is not uncommon to refer to the Blessed Virgin Mary as "the BVM." In the verbal recognition of someone we shorten titles but I think in printed materials (bulletins & signs) or on formal occasions an attentive person is going to use the full title of a church: "The Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception." I don't think there is enough to get upset about here because the beauty of Our Lady still shines brightly.