Category: Christian Saints and Feasts

The Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, also called Immaculate Conception Day, celebrates the sinless lifespan and Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary on 8 December, nine months before the feast of the Nativity of Mary, celebrated on 8 September. It is one of the most important Marian feasts in the liturgical calendar of the Roman Catholic Church celebrated worldwide.

By Pontifical decree, it is the patronal feast day of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Italy, Korea, Nicaragua, Paraguay, the Philippines, Spain, the United States, and Uruguay. By royal decree, it is designated as the day honoring the patroness of Portugal. It is celebrated by the Roman Catholic Church and some select Protestant Christian denominations.

Since 1953, the Pope visits the Column of the Immaculate Conception in the Piazza di Spagna to offer expiatory prayers commemorating the solemn event.

The feast was first solemnized as a Holy day of obligation on 6 December 1708 under the Papal Bull Commissi Nobis Divinitus by Pope Clement XI and is often celebrated with Catholic Mass, parades, fireworks, processions, food, and cultural festivities in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary and is generally considered a Family Day, especially in many pious Catholic countries.

In Christianity, the Visitation is the visit of Mary, who was pregnant with Jesus, to Elizabeth, who was pregnant with John the Baptist, in the Gospel of Luke, Luke 1:39–56.

It is also the name of a Christian feast day commemorating this visit, celebrated on 31 May in the feast-celebrating branches of Western Christianity (most and mainstream calendars of Catholics and High Church Anglicans) or as 2 July in calendars of 1263–1969, (retained in the modern calendar of some countries whose bishops’ conferences wanted to retain this, notably Germany and Slovakia) and 30 March in Eastern Christianity.

The episode is one of the standard scenes shown in cycles of the Life of the Virgin in art, and sometimes in larger cycles of the Life of Christ in art.

St. Joseph with the Infant Jesus

Joseph is a figure in the Gospels who was married to Mary, Jesus’ mother, and was Jesus’ legal father. Joseph is venerated as Saint Joseph in the Catholic Church, Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Church, Anglicanism, Lutheranism, and Methodism, and is also known as Joseph the carpenter. Some differing views are due to theological interpretations versus historical views.

In both Catholic and Protestant traditions, Joseph is regarded as the patron saint of workers and is associated with various feast days. Pope Pius IX declared him to be both the patron and the protector of the Catholic Church, in addition to his patronages of the sick and of a happy death, due to the belief that he died in the presence of Jesus and Mary. In popular piety, Joseph is regarded as a model for fathers and has also become patron of various dioceses and places.

Several venerated images of Saint Joseph have been granted a canonical coronation by a Pope. In popular religious iconography he is associated with lilies or a spikenard. With the present-day growth of Mariology, the theological field of Josephology has also grown and since the 1950s centers for studying it have been formed.

In the Apocrypha, Joseph was the father of James, Joses, Jude, Simon, and at least two daughters. According to Epiphanius and the apocryphal History of Joseph the Carpenter, these children were from a marriage which predated the one with Mary, a belief that is accepted by some select Christian denominations.

Mary (Greek: Μαρία, translit. María; Aramaic: ܡܪܝܡ‎, translit. Mariam‎; Hebrew: מִרְיָם‎, translit. Miriam‎; Arabic: مريم‎, translit. Mariam‎), also known by various titles, styles and honorifics, was a 1st-century Galilean Jewish woman of Nazareth, and the mother of Jesus, according to the New Testament and the Quran.

The gospels of Matthew and Luke in the New Testament and the Quran describe Mary as a virgin (Greek: παρθένος, translit. parthénos) and Christians believe that she conceived her son while a virgin by the Holy Spirit. The miraculous conception took place when she was already betrothed to Joseph and was awaiting the concluding rite of marriage, the formal home-taking ceremony. She married Joseph and accompanied him to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born.

The Gospel of Luke begins its account of Mary’s life with the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and announced her divine selection to be the mother of Jesus. According to canonical gospel accounts, Mary was present at the crucifixion and is depicted as a member of the early Christian community in Jerusalem. According to the Catholic and Orthodox teaching, at the end of her earthly life her body was assumed directly into Heaven; this is known in the Christian West as the Assumption.

Mary has been venerated since early Christianity, and is considered by millions to be the most meritorious saint of the religion. She is claimed to have miraculously appeared to believers many times over the centuries. The Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran churches believe that Mary, as mother of Jesus, is the Mother of God (Greek: Θεοτόκος, translit. Theotokos, lit. ‘God-bearer’). There is significant diversity in the Marian beliefs and devotional practices of major Christian traditions. The Roman Catholic Church holds distinctive Marian dogmas, namely her status as the Mother of God, her Immaculate Conception, her perpetual virginity, and her Assumption into heaven. Many Protestants minimize Mary’s role within Christianity, based on the argued brevity of biblical references. Mary (Arabic: مريم‎, translit. Maryām‎) also has a revered position in Islam, where one of the longer chapters of the Quran is devoted to her.