By DONAL ANTHONY FOLEY
December is a month rich in feasts and celebrations involving our Lady, ranging from the Immaculate Conception on December 8 to Christmas Day itself on December 25, culminating in the Feast of the Holy Family, which this year falls on Sunday, December 27.
The Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception commemorates and celebrates the Catholic belief that the Blessed Virgin was uniquely preserved from original sin. It was proclaimed as a dogma by Pope Pius IX in 1854 although it had been a widely held belief in the previous centuries. The text of the dogmatic definition, Ineffabilis Deus, states that “the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin.”
This belief in the Church is of great antiquity, but we can also see how it is a theme that was developed in some of the major Marian apparitions of the last five hundred years or so.
When our Lady appeared to Juan Diego in Mexico in 1531, the first apparition actually took place on Saturday December 9, 1531, as he was journeying to celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, which at that time was held on that date rather than on December 8 as is the case today.
The Blessed Virgin appeared at Tepeyac hill as the woman clothed with the sun and standing on the moon, which is one of the traditional representations of the Immaculate Conception. So at Guadalupe, she was proclaiming in symbolic form the belief about her conception which the Church would define dogmatically in 1854.
Just under three centuries later, in November 1830, our Lady appeared to Sr. Catherine Labouré at the Rue du Bac convent in Paris, giving her the design of the Immaculate Conception medal, which would become known as the “Miraculous Medal” because of its wonder-working properties.
During the third apparition experienced by Catherine, she saw the Blessed Virgin stretch out her arms, as an oval frame formed around her with golden lettering that read: O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee. She was then told to: “Have a Medal struck after this model. All who wear it will receive great graces; they should wear it around the neck. Graces will abound for persons who wear it with confidence.”
These apparitions of Our Lady to Catherine Labouré, the rapid spread of the Miraculous Medal, and the growth of Marian devotion generally in the first half of the nineteenth century, convinced Pope Pius IX that the time had come to dogmatically proclaim the Blessed Virgin’s Immaculate Conception.
And so, after theological clarification, on December 8, 1854, the Pope promulgated the bull Ineffabilis Deus, which declared that belief in Mary’s Immaculate Conception was now an article of faith for Catholics. This was the beginning of a century of greatly increased devotion to Mary within the Church, culminating in Pope Pius XII’s dogmatic declaration in 1950 that she had been assumed into Heaven.
Just four years after the proclamation by Pius IX, our Lady began to appear to St. Bernadette at Lourdes from February 11, 1858. Then, on March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation, after Bernadette had asked her several times to reveal her name, the Blessed Virgin extended her arms to assume the position shown on the Miraculous Medal before rejoining them at the breast, looking up to Heaven and saying in the local patois, Que soy era Immaculada Concepciou, or, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”
Thus at Lourdes she revealed her inner essence, as it were, that she was immaculately conceived, and of course without the Immaculate Conception, there would have been no Christmas Day.
On December 10, a feast related to that of Christmas, that of the Translation of the Holy House of Loreto, was celebrated in former times. This was done as a commemoration of the belief that the House of the Annunciation had been transported by Angels to Loreto in Italy in the thirteenth century.
This humble dwelling is thus believed to the very place where the Angel Gabriel announced to our Lady the sublime news that she, of all womankind, had been chosen to be the Mother of God. This was when, after pondering the Angel’s words, and saying, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto me according to your word,” the Second Person of the Holy Trinity became incarnate in her womb.
The tradition is that after the sacred places in the Holy Land were lost to Christendom, at the end of the thirteenth century, the House of the Annunciation was first translated by Angels to Dalmatia and then to Italy.
Numerous saints including St. Francis de Sales, St. Louis de Montfort, and St. Charles Borromeo, who made four pilgrimages to the shrine between 1566 and 1583, have visited the Holy House of Loreto over the centuries. And it has also received support from numerous Popes, including Pope St. John Paul II. In 2019, Pope Francis approved celebrations for the Feast of Our Lady of Loreto on December 10 as part of the universal calendar of celebrations for the Church.
Regarding Christmas Day itself, it is probable that the birth of Jesus was celebrated in the early Church along with the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6 as the Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles in the persons of the Magi. But by the time of Pope Julius I (337-352), the date of Christ’s birth was established as being on December 25.
A number of precious relics of the birth are preserved in some of the churches of Rome: that of St. Anastasia claims the veil of the Blessed Virgin and the chlamys or cloak of St. Joseph, with which the Baby Jesus was wrapped in a the moment of his birth, while the Basilica of St. Mary Major possesses relics of the manger in which He was laid.
The Model For All Families
Christmas Day itself is undoubtedly the most joyful feast of the liturgical year, a feast bound up with so many beautiful themes: the birth of God-man; the love and devotedness of our Lady and St. Joseph; the glorious angelic apparition to the shepherds, and the mysterious coming of the Three Kings with their mystical gifts, a visit symbolic of the way that the Gentile world would one day embrace the teachings of Christ, and thus renew itself.
The Feast of the Holy Family is celebrated on the Sunday within the Octave of Christmas, which this year falls on December 27. This feast emphasizes the Holy Family as the model for all Christian families, and as Pope St. John Paul II said, “If we aspire to a deeper understanding of Jesus’s life and mission, we must draw nearer to the Holy Family of Nazareth to observe and listen. . . . For every believer, and especially for Christian families, the humble dwelling place in Nazareth is an authentic school of the Gospel. . . . Recollection and prayer, mutual understanding and respect, personal discipline and community asceticism and a spirit of sacrifice, work, and solidarity, are typical features that make the family of Nazareth a model for every home.”
Yes, Christmas is a wonderful feast, but especially for families — and since we are all part of the family of God, as His sons and daughters, no one need miss out on the blessings of Christmastide.
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