Today is the relatively new feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, also formerly known as the Conception of St. Anne, since what took place concerned that saint. The feast itself, and on this date, is actually quite old (7th century in Palestine, spreading to Italy by the 9th and all of Europe by the 11th), but the name is new, since the solemn definition of Immaculate Conception wasn't given us til 1854! (For the Catholic Church, that's relatively recent. For some Protestant sects, that even pre-dates them.) I read an awful lot which really needed a philosopher to fully appreciate, but here's Butler's Lives' lucid explanation. Everyone knew she WAS conceived, everyone knew she WAS sanctified -- they just disagreed about WHEN exactly the two happened. "The sanctification of our Lady rather than her bare conception is the object of the church's devotion. . . . In 1661 Pope Alexander VII declared that the feast celebrated the immunity of our Lady from original sin in the first moment of the creation of her soul and its infusion into her body, i.e., the moment of 'passive conception' in the sense of the Catholic doctrine."
What helped out was the development of science which clearly proveed a new human life -- complete with a new, unique and lifelong genetic code -- is created immediately at fertilization, i.e. conception. This is previous to so-called quickening (or independent movement in the womb) and even previous to implantation. It occurs in the Fallopian tubes of the mother and is a great natural wonder. The soul comes into being at this point -- and lives forever. As my pastor said to me when I told him I was pregnant with my 4th, "Just think . . . another immortal soul." Would that more folks had such a profound, proper and objective realization!
Our Lady conceived without sin, pray for us.
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