IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

Day 210: December 08

Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary



In the bull Ineffabilis Deus of December 8, 1854 , Pope Pius IX proclaimed that this was a doctrine revealed by God and that therefore all the faithful must firmly and constantly believe that the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instant of her conception, was, by the unique grace and privilege of almighty God in the light of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of humanity, free from every trace of original sin.

The stain of original sin had not been removed but was absent in his soul. For many centuries before this solemn definition, the Church had believed in this doctrine, but it was not a "dogma": it had the same status as the doctrine of the Assumption before 1950. From the moment of the proclamation of Pius IX in 1854, every Catholic was required to believe in the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.


CONSECRATION FOR THE FEAST OF

THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

1. O immaculate virgin Mary, we rejoice with you, and we bless the divine Trinity for the singular privileges granted to you.

2. Blessed are you, because you are exempt from the law of original sin, and are without ignorance, without weakness. You are all virtue and gifts, perfectly united to God since your immaculate conception.

3. O immaculate in purity, immaculate in truth, immaculate in charity, you reveal to us the holiness that God had given us at the beginning!

4. O my God! What treasures we have lost! Here we are born in sin, and not in grace, inclined to evil, not to good, born to suffer and die, not to live and enjoy, in a valley of tears, and not in an earthly paradise!

5. We thank you, O divine Trinity, for the holiness and integrity, for the immortality and knowledge that you had originally given us, and that, through our fault, we have lost.

6. We thank you for having given these gifts to the virgin Mary. We thank you for the coming of Jesus; he came to repair our ruin, to obtain again for us the gifts we had lost, giving us his own blood.

7. Blessed are you, O Jesus, for the grace, virtues and gifts of the Holy Spirit that you give us again! Blessed are you, O Jesus, because you consider our battle against evil inclinations as a merit, and you raise our suffering and death to the glory of sacrifice.

8. As long as we are free from sin, we accept the consequences of sin; consequences that were suffered also by the virgin Mary and by you, my Jesus, even though you were the personification of holiness, with no shadow of fault.

9. Oh! How confused and humiliated we are, O Mary, O Jesus, O blessed Trinity, because to the original sin we have added our own personal sins!

10. O divine truth, we detest our falsehood. O divine charity, we detest our infidelity, O divine purity, we detest our sensuality.

11. In the presence of the immaculate Virgin and of the blessed Trinity we reject every mortal and venial sin, and every imperfection.

12. We consecrate ourselves to do everything, to suffer everything - even death - in order to eradicate mortal sin from us and from others, not only to avoid hell, but most of all to obey God!

13. We consecrate ourselves to do everything, to suffer everything - even death - in order to remove every venial sin from us and from others, not only to avoid purgatory, but most of all to please God!

14. We consecrate ourselves to do everything, to suffer everything - even death in order to become perfect in everything, not in order to receive the best reward in heaven, but in order to give God the greatest glory! O blessed mother, allow us, poor sinners to be one with your immaculate heart in loving God!

16. Grant that we may share as much as possible in the gifts of original holiness, which Jesus offers us again through his redemption!

17. O mother, make us immaculate in purity and in truth, so that the blessed Trinity may be pleased to dwell within us. Amen.

(St Justin Russolillo, Works, Vol XX: Consecrations, trans. Louis Caputo, Florham Park, Vocationist Editions, 2021, pp. 281-283)

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