The Immaculate Conception
08 December 1998 08:35
Below is copied a prayer from the Holy Father to the Immaculate Mother of God. First, however, there is a short item about the history of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.
The festival of Our Lady’s Conception was celebrated at an early period in the Oriental Church. In the most ancient of the Eastern liturgies the origin of which is ascribed to St. James, the Blessed Virgin is commemorated as “Our most holy, immaculate and most glorious Lady, Mother of God, and ever Virgin Mary.” The feast was introduced later into the Western Church than in the East.
The Spanish have a tradition of it at a very early period but it was from England that this festival took its most remarkable rise and diffusion in the Western Church. It is affirmed to have originated in England from a vision which Helsinus, Abbot of Ramsey, experienced during a storm at sea in the time of William the Conqueror.
Besides the two letters appended to the works of St. Anselm, in which the vision is described, it is narrated in a twelfth century manuscript, formerly kept at the great monastery of La Trappe, from which the present narrative is taken.
During a storm at sea while the Abbot of the Monastery of Ramsey was returning to England from a mission to Denmark, the following vision occurred:
“Suddenly they saw a man of venerable aspect, clothed in pontifical garments, who seemed to stand erect on the waves near the vessel. He spoke to the Abbot Helsinus, and said, “Would thou escape the danger of the sea?” As the Abbot said that with all his heart he wished to do so, that august personage said to him: “Know, then, that I am sent by our Lady, Mary, the Mother of God, whom thou hast so piously invoked. And if thou wilt attend to my words thou shall be saved from the great peril of the deep, thou and thy companions.” The abbot promised him all obedience. “Promise, then, to God, and to me”, said the angel, “that thou wilt solemnly celebrate, each year, the feast of the Conception of the Mother of Christ, and that thou wilt preach the celebration of this festival.”
“Helsinus was a prudent man, and he asked, “On what day must this feast be
celebrated?” “On the eighth of December.” “And what Office shall we
take?” The angel answered: “The entire Office of the Nativity shall
be said on the Conception.” After these words he disappeared. At
once the tempest was appeased; and, driven forward by a rapid wind, the
abbot and his companions came safe and sound to the shores of England.”
Abide with us, Immaculate Mother
Pope John Paul II, December 8, 1997
1.We greet you, Daughter of God the Father!
We greet you, Mother of the Son of God!
We greet you, spouse of the Holy Spirit!
We greet you, dwelling place of the Most Holy Trinity!
With this greeting we come before you
on your feast day
with the trust of children,
and we pause, according to tradition,
at the foot of this historic column for our yearly gathering in Piazza di
Spagna.
>From here, beloved and venerated Mother of all, you watch over the city of Rome.
2. Abide with us, Immaculate Mother, in the heart of our preparation for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000. We beseech you, watch especially over the triduum, formed of the last three years of the second millennium, 1997. 1998. 1999, years dedicated to contemplation of the Trinitarian mystery of God. We would like this eventful century of ours and the second Christian millennium to close with the seal of the Trinity. It is in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit that we begin our daily work and prayer It is turning again to the heavenly Father that we end our activities by praying, Through Our Lord Jesus Christ your Son, Who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit. Thus, in the sign of the Trinitarian mystery, the Church of Rome united with believers throughout the world, approaches in prayer the end of the 20th century, to enter the third millennium with a renewed heart.
3. We greet you, Daughter of God the Father!
We greet you, Mother of the Son of God!
We greet you, Spouse of the Holy Spirit!
We greet you, dwelling place of the Most Holy Trinity!
This greeting highlights
how deeply you are imbued with God’s own life, with his profound and infallible mystery. You have been totally imbued with this mystery from the first moment of your conception. You are full of grace, you are immaculate!
4. We greet you, Immaculate Mother of God.
Accept our prayer and, as Mother, deign to bring the church in Rome and throughout the world
into that fullness of time towards which the universe has been advancing since the day your divine Son,
Our Lord Jesus Christ,
came into the world.
He is the Beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega,
the King of ages, the First-born of all creation,
the First and the Last.
In him all is definitively fulfilled;
in him, every reality grows to the full stature desired by God
in his mysterious plan of love.
5. We greet you, Virgin most prudent!
We greet you, Mother most clement!
Pray for us,
intercede for us,
Immaculate Virgin,
our merciful and power Mother,
Mary!
