All Hail, The Immaculate Conception, Patroness of These United States

Today is the Feast of The Immaculate Conception of Mary Here is a little known fact about that and America

The French version of The Ave Maria (Hail Mary) is the most beautiful of all. It begins with a salutation to Our Lady that none other does.

“Je vous salue Marie, pleine de grâce le Seigneur est avec vous…”

“I salue Mary, full of grace, Our Lord is with you"…”

The prayer reminds us that France, “The Eldest Daughter of The Church” has an ancient love and respect for the “Mère de Dieu” i.e. Mother of God. This love affair with The Immaculate Conception led the French to do things like commission, design then over 2 centuries, build Notre Dame de Paris, Her most famous and beautiful Cathedral on this Earth. So it was with profound joy that I watched President-Elect Trump IN Notre Dame de Paris yesterday for its re-opening on the Vigil of The Immaculate Conception. This is Trump’s second homage to Mary this year as he previously wished her “Happy Birthday, Mary!” on September 8th the Feast of Mary’s Nativity.

I bring all this up because I believe that Our Lady’s Graces are working through Trump in some way and I offer this amazing, historical reminder to him and all the MAGA nation including Catholics like Marjorie Taylor Green: The Immaculate Conception is The Patroness of The United States! The Pilot, America’s Oldest Catholic Newspaper ran this stunning story on Friday, which I must confess, dear reader, was news to your humble correspondent!

“One of the first Catholic churches in what is now the United States was dedicated to the Immaculate Conception in 1584: the now-Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, in Jacksonville, Fla.

John Carroll, the first bishop in the United States, had a great devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. In 1792, he placed the diocese of Baltimore -- which encompassed the 13 colonies of the young republic -- under her protection.

Over the next 50 years, seven more dioceses were created, including New Orleans, Boston, Chicago and Oregon City.

"The colonies were now the USA, and Baltimore was not the only diocese -- so, the American hierarchy felt a need for a national protectress for this new republic," said Dr. Geraldine M. Rohling, archivist-curator emerita for the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington D.C.

Peter Paul Rubens “The Immaculate Conception”

U.S. bishops unanimously named Mary, under her title of the Immaculate Conception, patroness of the nation in 1846, during the Sixth Provincial Council of Baltimore.

"We take this occasion, brethren, to communicate to you the determination, unanimously adopted by us, to place ourselves, and all entrusted to our charge throughout the United States, under the special patronage of the holy Mother of God, whose immaculate conception is venerated by the piety of the faithful throughout the Catholic church.... To her, then, we commend you, in the confidence that ... she will obtain for us grace and salvation," the bishops wrote in a letter at the time.

Bl. Pius IX approved the declaration in 1847.

On this day, then, let us joyfully “Salute Mary” as our Patroness, my fellow Americans, and pray for her intercession! Dom Prosper Gueranger, reminds us of why this is a fitting request and lovely way to honor Mary.

The intention of the Church, in this Feast, is not only to celebrate the anniversary of the happy moment in which began, in the womb of the pious Anne, the life of the ever-glorious Virgin Mary; but also to honour the sublime privilege, by which Mary was preserved from the original stain, which, by a sovereign and universal decree, is contracted by all the children of Adam the vey moment they are conceived in their mother's womb. The faith of the Catholic Church on the subject of the Conception of Mary is this: that at the vey instant, when God united the Soul of Mary, which he had created, to the Body which it was to animate, this eve-blessed Soul did not only not contract the stain, which, at that same instant, defiles every human soul, but was filled with an immeasurable grace which rendered her, from that moment, the mirror of the sanctity of God himself, as fa as this is possible to a creature. The Church, with her infallible authority, declared, by the lips of Pius the Ninth, that this article of her faith had been revealed by God himself. The Definition was received with enthusiasm by the whole of Christendom, and the Eighth of December of the year 1854 was thus made one of the most memorable days of the Church's history.

O’ Queen and Patroness, conceived without Original Sin, Ora Pro Nobis!