December 8
The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary is invoked as patron of the United States of America. The Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception celebrates the Catholic dogma that the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instant of her conception in the womb of her mother Saint Anne, was preserved free from all stain of original sin by a singular grace of Almighty God, in view of the foreseen merits of Jesus Christ the Savior. This was the constant faith of the Church East and West from the early centuries: the feast of Mary's Conception was being observed in the East by the seventh century and in the Latin West (initially in England and Normandy) by the eleventh. Sources: https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-ix/en/documents/18541208-costituzione-apostolica-ineffabilis-deus.pdf.
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