Immaculate Conception

The Immaculate Conception of Marie is a dogma of the Catholic church, definite the December 8th 1854 by happy Pape Pie IX in its bubble Ineffabilis Deus .

Definition

The dogma means that Marie, mother of Jesus-Christ, was conceived free of the Original sin . The bubble declares:

“Us declare, pronounce and define that doctrines, which holds that the happy Virgin Mary was, at the first moment of its design by a grace and a singular favor of God the Almighty, for the merits of Jesus-Christ, Sauveur of mankind, preserved intact of any stain of the original sin, is revealed doctrines of God, and that thus it must be raw firmly, and constantly by all the faithful ones. ”

The dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium (1964) specifies that it “was repurchased in an eminent way in consideration of the merits of her Son” (LG 53) and that “unscathed of any spot of sin, having been kneaded by the the Holy Spirit, was formed like a new creature. ”

It is not directly related to the virginal Conception of Jesus, i.e. the belief in the fact that it was born from a virgin mother. This dogma, evoking the heart of the mother of God is during that of the virginity of the body. Saint Bernard de Clairvaux indicated in one of his homélies ( cf the second homélie on glories of the Virgin mother) the holiness of body and of heart of Marie was the precondition to the reception of the Annonciation made by the Archange Gabriel. This dogma is thus not very nine in Western patristics.

The Immaculate Conception celebrates the December 8th, date " supposée" design of Marie, since 1477, by decision of Sixth IV. The festival was confirmed by Clément XI in 1708. It is at the origin of the Fête of the lights, celebrated each year with Lyon on December 8th.

The definition of the " term; immaculée" mean without spot thus pure, and the definition of the " term; conception" mean " Creation of Esprit" , therefore Immaculate Conception means " literally; Creation of the Spirit, without spot, pure" or " Pure Creation of Esprit". Consequently, God being the Creative Spirit, by naming Marie Immaculate Conception indicates that it is Pure Creation of God!

History

The Immaculate Conception is mentioned in no text considered to be canonical by the Christian Churches. The source of this belief is in the Protévangile of Jacques, text datable apocryphal book of the middle of the 2nd century: Anne and Joachim, the parents of the Virgin, cannot have of child. But an angel appears to them to both, announcing a miraculous birth to them. Seven months later, Marie comes in the world. Although noncanonical, the apocryphal books exert a very great influence on the popular faith.

It is the Byzantine festival of the Design of the Very Holy Mother of God by Joachim and Anne (December 9th) who is at the origin of the development of a devotion and a new belief in Occident. She is already known and commented on by the English Benedictines with the xème century. This festival is especially introduced in Occident, at the time of the Croisade S, and one sees it appearing with the abbey of the Nozzle then in England and in Lyon as of the 12th century. But this introduction is made without the texts nor the comments of the Byzantine tradition. And the devotion quickly takes in Occident a quite different color and a significance which are at the origin of the devotion then worship of the Immaculate Conception in the Church of Occident and an additional divergence between the two Churches.

This new festival does not achieve however the unanimity in Occident: just as to a certain extent holy Thomas d' Aquin one century later, holy Bernard de Clairvaux however celebrates for its devotion mariale in 1146 opposes to this practice. The belief finds thanks to the eyes of the theologists only as from the 14th century and of Jean Duns Scot: as a Mother of God, Marie cannot according to him be sullied like the others by the original sin. During seven centuries, the Occident discusses this question bitterly. The franciscains are for the devotion news, the Dominican ones against. The Sorbonne is even paralyzed a year by this quarrel.

Recognized neither by the Protestant , nor by the orthodoxe , the belief in the Immaculate Conception is reaffirmed by the Concile of Thirty, and the artistic representations multiply at the 17th century, in particular in Spain. The Virgin appears there on crescent of the moon, draped in a floating coat in the sky, surrounded by a multitude of cherubs. Sometimes it presses with the feet a snake which symbolizes the Démon.

During the appearances of the Street of the Vat to Paris with Catherine Labouré in 1830, the Virgin was presented in the form of a conceived without sin . The popularity of the miraculous medal which was struck following these appearances popularized the faith in the immaculate design of Marie.

Holy Bernadette Soubirous affirms that Marie presented itself thus, in Gascon, in the cave of Massabielle (with Lourdes): That soy will era immaculada councepciou (“I am the Immaculate Conception”) - on March 25th 1858, is four years after the promulgation of the dogma. Let us notice however that, the name “design” indicating the action to conceive and not a person, the direction of the words reported by Bernadette Soubirous remains somewhat enigmatic when one knows that on March 25th, 1858 was the day of celebration of the Annonciation, i.e. of the immaculate design of Jesus Christ within Marie.

Political reading

The dogma is proclaimed by Pie IX without this one joining together Concile and that, before the encyclical Pastor Æternus 1870 (Concile the Vatican I) which affirms the pontifical Infaillibilité.

If one follows the analysis of Claude Langlois in “Reading the Syllabus” ( Problèmes of history of religions sept-1998, ULB, Brussels), one is brought to replace the promulgation of this dogma in the context of the texts published by the the Vatican at the same time:

At first sight, the proclamation of a dogma marial in the middle of a series concerning “the modern errors” and misfortunes of time affecting the Roman Catholic church, in particular the rise to power of rationalism (and its procession in - ism : Materialism, Positivism, Athéisme) does not present an obvious coherence in the series, as in the context of the modernistic Crise and the fight of the Vatican against the liberal Catholicisme.

At second sight, Claude Langlois insists on this point that the milked encyclical of the original sin of which Marie would be free except for all the other human ones. It is thus a question of stigmatizing by there all the currents which assert the autonomous exercise of the reason, this one becoming ineffective by pollution of the Original sin . In which case, the encyclical becomes coherent with the series.

One can also raise an astonishing rational explanation of this immaculate design published in the Editions of Rhin/La Nuée Bleue/DNA in Strasbourg in February 2004 in the book " A cathedral dévoile". The demonstration apparently without fault, standardizes the concrete cases, making it acceptable at the same time completely comprehensible, therefore for the common run of people.

Point of view of the other Christian confessions

The divergences on the nature of the grace explain doctrinal divisions partly. The Protestants adopt a radical form of augustinism whereas the orthodoxe ones follow the way reverses and teach the Semi-pélagianisme.

  • the point of view of the orthodoxe can be summarized by this sentence of Vladimir Lossky: “if the Blessed Virgin had been isolated from the remainder of humanity by a privilege of God conferring to him in advance the state of the man before the sin, then its free assent with the divine will, its answer to the Gabriel archangel, would lose the historical bond of solidarity with the other acts which contributed to prepare, with the length of the centuries, the advent of the Messiah”.

  • the Église old woman-catholic does not accept this dogma.
  • the p rotestants so point out that Marie is quoted only 8 times in the New Testament and that, the Mariologie is perhaps excessive.

Churches bearing the name of the Immaculate Conception

  • Sées (Flowering ash), first church in the world put under the term of the Immaculate Conception.

  • Paris XIIe, Neo-gothic church of the street of the Appointment (splendid organ and a table of Christ in cross of Louis Vuillermoz). It was built in six months and was inaugurated on September 29th 1875, in the festival of Saint Michel. '' Voir the site of this church ''
  • Heavy, basilica of the Immaculate Conception: It was built of 1866 to 1871 and was blessed and inaugurated on August 15th 1871. Bond towards the site of the Sanctuaries of Doors
  • Wervicq-South, North, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France.
  • Toulouse, Bonnefoy suburb, Haute-Garonne, France. In construction at the time of the proclamation of the dogma, and renamed immediately consequently.
  • Melun, church of hexagonal form overcome by a frèle bell-tower built in 1959 by the architect Pierre Prunet in the districts of the Capuchins.

Immaculate Conception in art

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