The traditional religious festival of the Immaculate Conception, held every year on the eighth of December would not be complete in Barga without the sound of the bells in the Duomo ringing out over the city for one solid hour – the so called “Doppio dell’Immacolata” and last night was no exception.
From nine o’clock until the stroke of 10 o’clock the three huge bells at the top of the Duomo tower were kept in motion by a team of bell ringers – the Campanari of Barga. Always a special occasion, but for one of the bellringers last night it carried more significance than usual as he was celebrating his 40th year of ringing the Doppio dell’Immacolata. Enrico Cosimini first took hold of the bell rope in 1969. This evening 40 years later he was still there pulling for all he was worth.
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A feast called the Conception of Mary arose in the Eastern Church in the seventh century (prior to the Great Schism of 1054). It looked to the West in the eighth century. In the eighth century it became a feast of the Roman Catholic Church. It is the only one of Mary’s feasts that came to the Western Church not by way of Rome, but instead spread from the Byzantine area to Naples, and then to Normandy during their period of dominance over southern Italy. From there it spread into England, France, Germany, and eventually Rome.
Prior to Pope Pius IX’s definition of the Immaculate Conception as Church dogma in 1854, most missals referred to it as the Feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The festal texts of this period focused more on the action of her conception than on the theological question of her preservation from original sin. A missal published in England in 1806 indicates the same collect for the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary was used for this feast as well.
The first move towards describing Mary’s conception as “immaculate” came in the eleventh century. In the fifteenth century Pope Sixtus IV, while promoting the festival, explicitly tolerated those who promoted it as the Immaculate Conception and those who challenged such a description, a position later endorsed by the Council of Trent.
The proper for the feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Medieval Sarum Missal, perhaps the most famous in England, merely addresses the action of her conception.
The collect for the feast reads:
O God, mercifully hear the supplication of thy servants who are assembled together on the Conception of the Virgin Mother of God, may at her intercession be delivered by Thee from dangers which beset us.
In 1854, Pius IX made the infallible statement Ineffabilis Deus: “The most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the saviour of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin.” – source
Now this is a trick. What is the gestation period of a virgin immaculately conceived? 17 days start to finish! No wonder that kid was raised in a manger. Two and a half weeks is not a lot of time to get the new arrivals room painted.
Merry Christmas,
Big R
hmmm, small confusion here I think Randy. The immaculate conception refers not to the conception of Jesus Christ but to the immaculate conception of his mother.
“…the blessed Virgin Mary to have been, from the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, in view of the merits of Christ Jesus the Saviour of Mankind, preserved free from all stain of original sin.”
Essentially the immaculate conception is the belief that Mary was protected from original sin, that Mary was sinless.
The problem with the doctrine of the immaculate conception is that it is not taught in the Bible. The Bible nowhere describes Mary as anything but an ordinary human female whom God chose to be the mother of the Jesus Christ.
The doctrine of the immaculate conception originated out of confusion over how Jesus Christ could be born sinless if he was conceived inside of a sinful human female.
The thought was that Jesus would have inherited a sinful nature from Mary had she been a sinner.
In contrast to the immaculate conception, the Biblical solution to this problem is understanding that Jesus Himself was miraculously protected from being polluted by sin while he was inside Mary’s womb.
If God was capable of protecting Mary from sin, would he not be able to protect Jesus from sin?
Jesus was miraculously conceived inside Mary, who was a virgin at the time. That is the Biblical concept of the virgin birth. The Bible does not even hint that there was anything significant about Mary’s conception.
If we examine this concept logically, Mary’s mother would have to be immaculately conceived as well. How could Mary be conceived without sin if her mother was sinful?
The same would have to be said of Mary’s grandmother, great-grandmother etc.
I stand corrected Father Doggybag, it’s not easy being a Catholic!
Ciao,
Randy much Wiserman