The 8th of December marks the feast of the Immaculate Conception. The celebration of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary – situated in the early days of the new liturgical year and the Advent season – reminds us of the unique destiny of this Jewish woman, chosen by God. For the Christian faith, Mary is inseparable from the child she carried, Jesus, in whom the living God fully manifested. Since the Council of Ephesus (431), she is called "Mother of God." According to Catholic tradition, since the dogma promulgated by Pope Pius IX on December 8, 1854, she is declared free from original sin from her birth.\n\nWhy a dogma?\nA dogma is a truth of faith solemnly proclaimed by the Pope to be accepted by the Church. So, on December 8, 1854, in the papal bull Ineffabilis Deus, Pope Pius IX declared: "We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a unique grace and privilege of Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God, and thus must be firmly and constantly believed by all the faithful." In other words, to receive the Son of God, Mary could have no trace of hesitation or refusal in her heart. God needed His gift of love to encounter perfectly pure faith, a soul without sin. Only grace (the free gift of God) could thus prepare her, and she is filled with it (Gospel according to Saint Luke, chapter 1). Like an anticipated fruit of the forgiveness offered by Jesus on the cross, Mary (who was conceived normally, by the union of her father and mother) is immaculate, pure of all sin, and preserved from the separation from God that marks man from the beginning of his existence, original sin. \n"For most people, 'the immaculate conception' would mean that Mary became a mother, conceived Jesus, by the action of the Holy Spirit, without conjugal relations. As if the conjugal relationship was, by itself, a sin. That is not at all what Christian faith says. If marriage were a sin, it could not be a sacrament [...] reminds Bishop Jacques Perrier, emeritus Bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes." What did Pius IX mean? What does the Catholic Church celebrate on December 8? This:\n\nMary, from the beginning, was wholly foreign to sin. That is why, in all appearances, she always shows herself wonderfully beautiful, radiant with light and goodness.\n\nLourdes and the Immaculate\nThe apparitions of Lourdes took place four years after the solemn proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception by Pope Pius IX. On March 25, 1858, in the damp and dark grotto of Massabielle, Mary converses familiarly with Bernadette who asks her name; she tells her: "I am the Immaculate Conception."