Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Here is my contribution to this month's parish magazine at St Martin-on-the-hill.

COUNTDOWN TO CHRISTMAS AND THE NEW YEAR

The entry in the Parish Diary for December 8th reads 'The Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary' and refers to the Feast kept on that day.

It is a good place to begin the countdown to Christmas and the New Year.

The doctrine of 'The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary' developed in the West in the Anglo-Saxon England of the early 11th century. It is the belief that Mary, mother of Jesus, being 'full of grace', was 'empty of sin' from her conception.

As recently as 2005 the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) confirmed that our two churches hold this doctrine in common: 'As a result of our study, the Commission offers the following agreements, which we believe significantly advance our consensus regarding Mary. We affirm together....that in view of her vocation to be the Mother of the Holy One, Christ's redeeming work reached back in Mary to the depths of her being and to her earliest beginnings.'

Next year will be a special year in Lourdes. It will be 150 years since Our Lady appeared there 18 times to the young girl, Bernadette Soubirous, between February 11th and July 16th. Her parish priest insisted that she ask the lady for her name. At the sixteenth apparition, on March 25th (Lady Day), Bernadette reported:

'After beseeching her a third time to tell me Her name the Lady's expression turned to sadness and humiliation. She joined Her hands, holding them over Her breast, and raised Her eyes to heaven. Then She slowly unfolded Her hands and, bowing down towards me, said in a trembling voice: I AM THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION.'

The doctrine was infallibly declared only four years before this, in 1854. It seems most unlikely that a semi-literate girl, from an impoverished family, would have been familiar with such a theological expression, still less that she could have made it up.

The Bishop of Whitby is leading a pilgrimage to Lourdes next year from September 22nd to 26th, jointly sponsored by 'The Society of Mary' and 'The Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham'. Further details can be supplied to anyone interested.

May the mystery and joy of Christmas be an inspiration to you through the coming year.

IMMACULATE PROJECTION

In the first week of December, the Jesuit fathers project a giant full-colour image of the Nativity on the Mount Street side of the Church of the Immaculate Conception in London's West End. It is a glorious rebuke to the commercial tawdriness all around. (Today's 'Daily Telegraph')