WELCOME TO DECEMBER

THE MONTH DEDICATED TO THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

The month of December is dedicated to the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. "From all eternity God chose with infinite wisdom the woman who would be the Mother of His divine Son. To prepare for the Word Incarnate a spotless and holy tabernacle, God created Mary in grace and endowed her from the moment of her conception with all the perfections suited to her exalted dignity. St. Thomas teaches that through her intimacy with Christ, the principle of grace, she possessed beyond all creatures a fullness of divine life."

— Liturgical Meditations, The Sisters of St. Dominic

This feast calls us to think about the virtue of purity. "Our Lady alone — 'our tainted nature's solitary boast'— never saw her soul's purity darkened with the dust of any stain, nor did she see in any part of her triumphal course toward heaven any sin or trace of worldliness. By a unique and singular privilege from God she was kept from original sin from the initial moment of her Immaculate Conception; by another privilege derived from the first, the Lord did not permit her ever to be stained even with those unavoidable failings of human weakness."

— Luis M. Martinez