The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

This is not a single saint’s life but a feast of doctrine and history. The privilege means that Mary was preserved from original sin from the first moment of her existence by the merits of Christ, and the account is careful to distinguish that from vaguer Marian language and from other privileges such as the Assumption.

Because this text was written before the dogma was defined in 1854, it records the older state of the question, when the belief was overwhelmingly favored in the Church and fiercely protected from attack, but had not yet been solemnly defined as an article of faith. It also traces the feast itself through East and West, showing how the celebration of Mary’s conception gradually spread, especially through monastic and liturgical life, until the whole subject stood before Catholics as both a doctrinal question and a beloved devotion.