Feast of the Conception of the Virgin Mary

In the present General Roman Calendar, the feast is called the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

[1][2] A strong devotion to Saint Anne (and by extension to Joachim) developed in the East, and a number of churches were dedicated to them.

Herbert Thurston says that by the tenth century, the Feast of the Conception of Mary was noted in Irish liturgical calendars and listed for May 3.

The ecclesiastic and scholar Eadmer wrote De Conceptione sanctae Mariae, the first, and for two centuries the most valuable, Western exposition of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.

Eadmer's advocacy of a sinless Mary was probably motivated as much by the restoration of local Anglo-Saxon devotions at Canterbury as with the wider propagation of the doctrine.

The East celebrates the miracle of God taking away the barrenness of Anna's womb, while the Western Church, emphasizes Mary's purity from all sin from her conception.

In 1568, in revising the Roman Breviary, Pope Pius V suppressed the office, substituting the word "nativity"; although the Franciscans were allowed to retain the old form.

[13] In 1708 under the papal bull Commissi Nobis Divinitus, Pope Clement XI made it a Holy Day of Obligation.

In 1854, in the apostolic constitution Ineffabilis Deus, Pope Pius IX defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

[18] Many Anglo-Catholic parishes observe the feast using the traditional Roman Catholic title, the "Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary".