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President Biden made an early morning trip to church Wednesday to mark the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception ahead of an afternoon flight to Kansas City to push his spending agenda. Biden attended the 8:15 a.m. Mass at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Georgetown, waving to children and parents outside the adjacent Holy Trinity School as he walked in. The president left the church approximately 40 minutes after he arrived and returned to the White House. The trip was not initially listed on Biden’s public schedule. The president was expected to depart Washington later Wednesday morning to travel to Kansas...

"O God, who by the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, did prepare a worthy dwelling place for Your Son, we beseech You that, as by the foreseen death of this, Your Son, You did preserve Her from all stain, so too You would permit us, purified through Her intercession, to come unto You. Through the same Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, world without end. Amen."

The Octave of the Assumption (The Immaculate Heart of Mary);Commemoration of Saints Timothy, Hippolytus, and Symphorian, Martyrs White Double of the Second Class HE ALONE WHO COULD UNDERSTAND Mary’s holiness could appreciate her glory. But Wisdom, who presided over the formation of the abyss, has not revealed to us the depth of that ocean, beside which all the virtues of the just and all the graces lavished upon them are but streamlets. Nevertheless, the immensity of grace and merit, whereby the Blessed Virgin’s supernatural perfection stands quite apart from all others, gives us a right to conclude that she...

White Greater Double THIS, THE EIGHTH DAY from that on which we kept the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, is the Octave properly so called; whereas the other days were simply called days within the Octave. The custom of keeping up the principal Feasts for a whole week is one of those which the Christian Church adopted from the Synagogue. God had thus spoken in the Book of Leviticus: "The first day shall be called most solemn and most holy: you shall do no servile work therein … The eighth day also shall be most solemn and most holy,...

White Semidouble LET US CONSIDER how our Blessed Lady, having arrived at the house of her holy cousin Elizabeth, rendered her every possible service with the greatest love, favored her with the sweet and holy conversations, assisted at the glorious Birth of St. John the Baptist, and at length returned home to her humble dwelling at Nazareth. But that we may the better enter into these divine mysteries, let us again listen to the Seraphic St. Bonaventure: “When, therefore, her time was expired, Elizabeth gave birth to a son, whom our Lady took up, and with all diligence did...

White Semidouble LET US CONTEMPLATE the sentiments of profound respect and maternal tenderness, which fill the soul of our Blessed Lady, now that she has conceived Jesus in her chaste womb: he is her God, and yet he is her Son. Let us think upon this wonderful dignity bestowed upon a creature; and let us honor the Mother of our God. It was by this mystery that was fulfilled the prophecy of Isaias: Behold, a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son; and that of Jeremias: The Lord hath created a new thing upon the earth; a Woman shall...

White Double of the First Class (with an Octave) AT LENGTH, on the distant horizon, rises, with a soft and radiant light, the aurora of the Sun which has been so long desired. The happy Mother of the Messias was to be born before the Messias himself; and this is the day of the Conception of Mary. The earth already possesses a first pledge of the divine mercy; the Son of Man is near at hand. Two true Israelites, Joachim and Anne, noble branches of the family of David, find their union, after a long barrenness, made fruitful by...

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Nearly 1 percent of young women in a U.S. study who have become pregnant claim to have done so as virgins, according to a report in the Christmas edition of Britain's BMJ medical journal. The authors of "Like a virgin (mother)" - whose prose is devoid of irony - say such scientifically impossible claims show researchers must use care in interpreting self-reported behavior. Fallible memory, beliefs and wishes can cause people to err in what they tell scientists. Based on interviews with 7,870 women and girls ages 15 to 28, 45 of the 5,340 pregnancies in this group through the...

The connection between mother and child is ever deeper than thought Scientists Discover Children’s Cells Living in Mothers’ Brains The connection between mother and child is ever deeper than thought By Robert Martone | Tuesday, December 4, 2012 | 37 A living connection Image: ock / Анастасия Попова ADVERTISEMENT The link between a mother and child is profound, and new research suggests a physical connection even deeper than anyone thought. The profound psychological and physical bonds shared by the mother and her child begin during gestation when the mother is everything for the developing fetus, supplying warmth and sustenance, while...

A Biblical Basis for the "Immaculate Conception"? A Review and Rebuttal of Patrick Madrid's Article "Ark of the New Covenant" in "This Rock" magazine, December 1991. by James White Catholic Answers has some interesting ways of grabbing your attention. By placing the beginning paragraph or two of the lead article of their monthly magazine, This Rock, on the very cover of the work, they draw your attention into reading the rest of the article. True to form, the December, 1991 edition sported Pat Madrid's article, "Ark of the New Covenant" with the interesting lead in, "His face stiffened, and his...

As we approach the patronal feast day of the United States, it's the perfect time to mention a beautiful devotion to Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception. The Corona of the Immaculate Conception is a chaplet composed by a Jesuit priest who was one of North America's great explorers: Father Jacques Marquette. Unfortunately, the Corona is not very well known. There's another, better known devotion called the "Chaplet of the Immaculate Conception" written by St. John Berchmanns. But in terms of authorship and historical context, Marquette's Corona has a special significance for Americans and Canadians. Let's set the stage with...

Was Mary, Jesus' mother and wife of Joseph, immaculately conceived, i.e., free of original sin from conception? If we accept the teaching of the Scriptures we must answer, "No". The Bible is not ambiguous on this subject as the inspired writer, the apostle of Christ, Paul, wrote at Romans 5:12: "Well then, sin entered the world through one man (Adam), and through sin death, and thus death has spread through the whole human race because everyone has sinned".(JB) Mary was part of the human race and grew old and died just as Paul wrote. As The Catholic Encyclopedia, under the...

Artist Sculps Barack Obama’s Rear, Calls It “The Immaculate Conception” Famed Sculptor, Christopher Wanker, has had his hands on one rear or another for years now—sculpting a lifeless rear, and bringing it to the brink of artistic perfection. Until now, there has always been something missing, something that has left him empty inside, searching for the next creation of perfection. Now, however, the sculptor has created perfection personified. He has sculpted the rear of Barack Obama. It’s so perfect that Wanker is calling it “The Immaculate Conception.” Many argue that the art is in bad taste, but Wanker points out...

Today's feast day is more than Pope Pius IX's 1854 infallible proclamation, as important as that Dogma was and is. Today's feast day, which issues not only from the Papal Bull Ineffabilis Deus but its echo at the Grotto in Lourdes four years later, demonstrates that the Virgin Mary, with all Her wonderful titles, wants to be known by that name. And the reason is not so much that she was conceived without sin, but that through her humility before God She continued without sin until the day She was assumed into Heaven. It is for this reason Her...

  Mary, mother of Jesus, as the Immaculate Conception. Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. Museo del Prado.  Mary Immaculate:Patroness of the United StatesA patron is like a sponsor, someone who takes responsibility for another, who protectsanother. Catholics rely on our patron saints not only to inspire our lives by their examplebut also to pray for us and protect us in our life of grace. A patron looks out for us, sometimesin ways we don’t always recognize.  Mary Immaculate was officially declared thepatroness of the United States in 1847. A year earlier, the U.S. bishops had written to theCatholics of this country: We...

December 8, 2006 Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary Psalm: Friday 48 Reading 1Gn 3:9-15, 20 After the man, Adam, had eaten of the tree,the LORD God called to the man and asked him, “Where are you?”He answered, “I heard you in the garden;but I was afraid, because I was naked,so I hid myself.”Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked?You have eaten, then,from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat!”The man replied, “The woman whom you put here with me—she gave me fruit from the tree, and so I ate...

Holy Days of Obligation, Or Holy Days of Opportunity Holy days are usually regarded in terms of obligation and imposition. But should they not be considered even more as graced times of opportunity to mark a special mystery of our faith? In recent years, holy days have come in for a good deal of discussion, evaluation and renewal. As early as the fourth century, St. John Chrysostom was concerned about the celebration of holy days in Constantinople. This Father and Doctor of the Church commented in a homily that "many people celebrate the holy days and know their names: but...

December 8, 2005Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary Psalm: Thursday 52 Reading IGn 3:9-15, 20 After the man, Adam, had eaten of the tree,the LORD God called to the man and asked him, “Where are you?”He answered, “I heard you in the garden;but I was afraid, because I was naked,so I hid myself.”Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked?You have eaten, then,from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat!”The man replied, “The woman whom you put here with me—she gave me fruit from the tree, and so I ate it.”The...

LETTER OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI ON THE OCCASION OF THE NATIONAL PILGRIMAGE TO THE SHRINE OF NUESTRA SEÑORA DEL PILAR OF SARAGOSSA Beloved Brothers in the Episcopate, Dear Priests and Deacons, Men and Women Religious and Catholic faithful of Spain, I am pleased to address my cordial greeting to you and I spiritually join you on the national pilgrimage to the Shrine of Nuestra Señora del Pilar of Saragossa, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the definition of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception and to renew the consecration of Spain to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which took...