Hail Mary Full of Grace:

What Does the Immaculate Conception Mean for Us Today?

By Leota Roesch

Purpose

We venerate Mary under many titles. Under the title of the Immaculate Conception, she is the Patroness of the United States. This session explains the doctrine to the participants and helps them understand the role of grace in their own lives.

Component: Catechesis

Session at a Glance

7:00 p.m.Welcome, Introduction, and Prayer

7:15 p.m.What is the Immaculate Conception?

7:25 p.m.A Short History Lesson: The Immaculate Conception as Patroness of the United States

7:30 p.m. Amazing Grace: The Immaculate Conception in Our Lives

8:00 p.m.Advent and the Immaculate Conception

8:20 p.m.Closing Prayer, Announcements

8:30 p.m.Good Night!

Extend the Session Ideas

Consider one or more of the ideas to extend this session:

  1. Movie and Discussion. View a movie presentation of the appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mary to St. Bernadette. Bernadette Soubirous had her first vision of the Blessed Virgin at age 14 in February 1858 in the little Pyrenees town of Lourdes. Over the course of little more than a month (February 11 through March 25, 1858), she had had 18 visions that culminated in the Lady’s revelation that she was the Immaculate Conception. This was four years after Pope Pius IX declared infallibly the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. (Leaders might want to check with diocesan multimedia libraries to see if the movie is available.) Check Wikipedia for helpful and easy-to-use information on Our Lady of Lourdes:

Option 1: The popular movie telling her story, The Song of Bernadette, from the 1940’s is now available in DVD format. While somewhat dated, it is still hailed as a major religious film and faithfully tells Bernadette’s story. (You can download various modes of this movie for viewing, but the author cannot verify the reliability of this site.)

Option 2:Bernadette, a newer movie made on the 150th anniversary of the appearances of Mary to Bernadette at Lourdes, is also now available on DVD in the American format; it also has garnered very good reviews.

Whichever movie you choose, view it for yourself and decide on the scenes you wish to show to the participants.

  • Ask questions to help participants engage with this saint who is so closely associated with the mystery of the Immaculate Conception. Before the movie scenes are shown you might ask:
  • Are there any girls in here who chose St. Bernadette as your confirmation name? (If there are, ask why they chose her as their patron.) What do any of you know about the story of St. Bernadette of Lourdes?
  • Set up the scenes by giving a brief summary of the story up to the point you have chosen.
  • After the participants have viewed the movie, ask (depending on the scenes you have chosen) questions that go to a summary of the movie, Bernadette’s experience of the vision, her family, friends, and the church’s reaction to what she says she experiences, the participants’ response to Bernadette’s struggle, how she grew in her own faith through both the visions and her struggle, how she lived her life after the visions, what they thought of how she died, etc.
  • Conclude with a summation of the saint’s life. For example, you will find good information at Biography Online or at Catholic Online.
  1. Make Moravian Spice Cookies. In some countries, there is a tradition of making these cookies for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. If you have access to a kitchen, bake cookies for the parish’s enjoyment after the Vigil or Evening Mass of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. See Resource 2, Moravian Cookies for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.
  • Because the dough must be made and refrigerated for at least 24 hours, you will want to make the dough the day before. Perhaps there is a group of participants who would make the dough under the supervision of adults from the parish. Or perhaps there is a ladies group in the parish who will make the dough for your group.
  • At your session, participants will need to roll out the dough, cut it into heart shapes (collect heart shaped cookie cutters—as many as needed), bake, cool, and frost, decorate with symbols of Mary (if wished), pack and store for the Immaculate Conception Masses.
  • Assign the group times to serve the parish after the Masses. You may also want to serve a beverage with the cookies. Some of the group could decorate the parish setting for the gathering after the Mass.
  • Another group may want to prepare little cards to give to the parishioners about the feast, or they may want to create “holy cards” of the Immaculate Conception for those who come for refreshments, or cards that have the cookie recipe on it to give out, etc.
  • Make sure that you give the parish advance notice of what the youth are doing by advertising in the bulletin, making announcements from the pulpit, etc.
  1. A Virtual Tour of the Basilica of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception is the largest Roman Catholic Church in the United States and North America, and is one of the ten largest churches in the world.
  • In 1846, an excerpt from a Massachusetts newspaper told of ‘a magnificent Catholic church [to] be built at Washington, D.C.after the manner of the great cathedrals of the Old World from subscriptions of every Catholic Parish in America.’
  • Spanning the late 19th, 20th and now 21st century, American Catholics would indeed build a sanctuary that rivals those of Europe and the world, not only in size but in stature as well—insacred art,architecture,historyandheritage.
  • Dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, under her title of the Immaculate Conception, the Basilica is the nation’s preeminent Marian shrine. With over 70 chapels and oratories that relate to the peoples, cultures and traditions that are the tapestry of the Catholic faith and the mosaic of our great nation, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception is indeed, America’s Catholic church.”

The Shrine offers an online virtual tour of the Basilica. Take the participants on this tour in order to introduce them to this part of the religious history of our nation.

Materials Needed

  • Nametags/markers
  • Materials for prayer setting
  • Small table covered with a nice cloth
  • Candle, cross or crucifix or picture of the Immaculate Conception as focal point
  • Bible
  • Bibles for participants, one per participant
  • Handout, one for each participant
  • Two 3x5 index cards for each participant
  • Prayer/Holy card of the Immaculate Conception (Printery House is one option), optional
  • Pencil or pen, one for each participant
  • Resource 3, Titles of the Blessed Virgin Mary, one copy for session leader
  • Newsprint
  • Markers

Extend the Session: Movie and Discussion

  • Computer and projector to show films on DVD or online
  • Television or projector and DVD player

Note to Leader: Your audio/visual set up needs to be adequate for everyone to be able to hear/see the movie clips.

Extend the Session: Bake Moravian Cookies

  • Resource 2, Moravian Cookies

Extend the Session: Virtual Tour

  • Computer and projector to show films on DVD or online
  • Television or projector and DVD player

Note to Leader: Your audio/visual set up needs to be adequate for everyone to be able to hear/see the movie clips.

Prepare in Advance

1.Prepare by familiarizing yourself with information from the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the Immaculate Conception (see Resource 1).

2.Prepare a sheet of newsprint with the song, “Immaculate Mary.” Use this for the closing prayer.

Immaculate Mary

Immaculate Mary, your praises we sing.
You reign now in heaven with Jesus our King.

Refrain
Ave, Ave, Ave, Maria!
Ave, Ave, Maria!

In heaven the blessed your glory proclaim;
On earth we your children invoke your fair name.

We pray for our Mother, the Church upon earth,
And bless, Holy Mary, the land of our birth.

3.Consider inviting a participant to be the prayer leader for the closing prayer. Invite a participant to proclaim the Scripture reading in the closing prayer.

4.Prepare the prayer space using the materials mentioned above.

5.Set up tables and chairs for small group work. Set up tables for refreshments and sign-in. Have one or two people at the sign-in table with a check-in sheet and nametags. Hospitality is important: As the leader, do not use the gathering time before the session begins to take care of last-minute preparations. Spend the time moving among the participants, greeting and speaking with them.

Session Outline

Welcome, Introduction, and Prayer(15 minutes)

Welcome the participants. As a warm up activity, give the participants each a 3x5 index card and a pencil. Explain that you will give them 60 seconds to write down as many “names” of the Blessed Virgin as they can. Call time and read the titles from the Resource 3, Titles of the Blessed Virgin Mary, asking participants to check off the titles they have. Ask for titles that they might have that you do not and make a determination of whether or not you will accept the additional titles. If you decided to distribute prayer cards, do so now. Continue:

This evening we are going to spend some time looking at the teaching about a Blessed Virgin Mary which we call the Immaculate Conception. I am sure you have often heard of this doctrine which we celebrate each December 8, but you may not know what it actually means for the Church, for us. Tonight we will gain a deeper understanding of this teaching of our faith.

Let us take a moment now to recollect our thoughts and focus in prayer on the Blessed Virgin Mary, our Mother, and the Mother of the Church.

Ask participants to put away anything in front of them that might distract them from prayer.

Prayer Leader: (begin with the Sign of the Cross)

We will take time now to offer prayers of intercession

Let us praise God, who wished that Mary be celebrated by each generation. Our response is Mary, full of grace, pray for us.

O God, worker of miracles, you made the immaculate Virgin Mary share, body and soul, in your Son’s glory in heaven, direct our hearts to that same glory. We pray:Mary, full of grace, pray for us.

You made Mary our mother. Through her prayer grant strength to the weak, comfort to the sorrowing, pardon to sinners, salvation and peace to all.We pray:Mary, full of grace, pray for us.

You made Mary the mother of mercy, may all who are faced with trials feel her motherly love. We pray:Mary, full of grace, pray for us.

You prepared the Blessed Virgin to be the mother of your son by letting her share beforehand in the salvation brought by his passion, death, and resurrection. May we, like her, lead lives worthy of such a gift.[1]We pray:Mary, full of grace, pray for us.

What is the Immaculate Conception? (10 minutes)

Note to Leader: Begin by asking the participants what they may already know about the Immaculate Conception. Invite them to share in the large group and make note of their input on newsprint or board, coming back to what they share after your presentation.

Then continue:

We come into this world in less than saintly condition; we are born with sin.

This inherited condition of sin is defined as original sin. Adam and Eve were clothed with God’s love and grace and were meant to live in this state of happiness for all their lives. Their choice to sin resulted in the broken state in which the world and we find ourselves. We see great evil in our world, and pain, suffering, and death are everywhere around us.

The church believes and teaches that only two people were ever conceived without original sin. One, of course, was Jesus. The other was his mother, Mary. On December 8, the church celebrates the Feast of the Immaculate Conception to celebrate Mary’s conception and birth without sin.

Tradition has also played a role in the development of this feast. Besides the truth of the Bible, God continues to reveal Godself and the mystery of salvation through the lived experience of Christians, generation after generation. This ongoing interpretation and understanding of God's revelation is called Tradition. As Catholics, we believe that the pope and bishops have received the teaching authority of the apostles to interpret and protect the Church’s Tradition.

The Feast of the Immaculate Conception shows how the beliefs of God’s people led to the declaration of a church dogma.

  • From the earliest centuries, writings of the Church Fathers taught that Mary was free from original sin.
  • In our Eastern Churches, this feast was originally and very early on called the “Conception of St. Anne,” meaning that St. Anne had conceived Mary.
  • Devotion to the belief grew over the centuries, especially through the influence of religious orders like the Franciscans and Carmelites.
  • In the fifteenth century, Pope Sixtus IV allowed the whole church to celebrate the Immaculate Conception, but he did not require the feast to be celebrated.
  • Finally, in 1854, Pope Pius IX elevated the feast to its highest rank when he declared it a dogma of faith (meaning that, in the hierarchy of truth, this teaching must be believed by us) that Mary was conceived without original sin. He wrote:

“The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin.” (Ineffablis Deus)

So the Church teaches that Mary was preserved from original sin by the foreseen merits of Jesus, her son and her redeemer. Mary is, therefore, the first person redeemed, the first Christian, the first disciple; she is perfectly redeemed in every way—body and soul.

In the appearances to St. Bernadette of Lourdes, France, in 1858, the Lady who appeared to her eventually identified herself by saying, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” Coming so soon after the papal declaration on Mary’s being conceived without original sin, we can view the apparitions and revelation at Lourdes as an affirmation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.

This belief in the Immaculate Conception of Mary has also roots in the Bible, for the angel Gabriel revealed at the annunciation of Jesus’birththat Mary was “full of grace.”

Before we look at what it meant for Mary to be “full of grace” and what a life of grace means for us, we’ll look first at the connection between the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and the Catholic Church in the United States.

A History Lesson: The Immaculate Conception as Patroness of the United States (5 minutes)

Mary Immaculate was officially declared the patroness of the United States in 1847.

A year earlier, the bishops had written to the Catholics of this country and said:

“We take this occasion to communicate to you the determination, unanimously adopted by us, to place ourselves and all entrusted to our charge throughout the United States under the special patronage of the holy Mother of God, whose Immaculate Conception is venerated by the piety of the faithful throughout the Catholic Church….”

A patron is someone who takes responsibility for another, who protects another. As Catholics, we rely on patron saints not only to inspire our lives by their example but also to pray for us and protect us in our life. A patron looks out for us, sometimes in ways we don’t always recognize. This was the role that our first bishops envisioned for our Blessed Mother when they dedicated our country to her under the title of the Immaculate Conception.

“The meaning of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception is that Mary was always totally dependent on God, that her mission in life was given to her, and that she never did anything on her own but always did things God’s way. Never touched by sin, nothing in her resisted God’s will for her and for the salvation of the world through her Son.

Of the few words attributed to her in the Gospels, the most basic is, “Let it be done to me according to your word.” From this free decision on her part flows her instruction to the servants at the wedding feast of Cana, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’

Mary Immaculate is our patroness. She speaks to us of God’s initiative in her life and ours; she witnesses to the primacy of grace in her life and ours. She tells us, proud of our own initiatives, to do it God’s way.”[2]