Top five articles on the Immaculate Conception
On the feast of the Immaculate Conception, check out our top five articles on this important dogma of the Church.
Since our launch in 2021, The WM Review has sought to provide rigorous and solidly theologically resources for our fellow Catholics.
In honour of the feast of the Immaculate Conception, we present a curated selection of our favourite five articles on the dogma, which address its scriptural, theological, and historical foundations.
FIRST, Fr Henry James Coleridge SJ sets out what the dogma means, and how it relates to Our Lady’s divine maternity. Why was Our Lady immaculately conceived, and how does this relate to her role as the Mother of God?
SECOND, we have Cardinal John Henry Newman’s explanation of the dogma. Protestants and even Eastern Orthodox will sometimes object to the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Cardinal Newman breaks the matter down:
THIRD, we have an extract from Georges Bernanos’ modern novel Diary of a Country Priest. Many of us know how to state the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. But have we thought about the implications of this dogma, especially in relation to prayer? Bernanos explains what it should mean to us for Our Lady to have been immaculately conceived:
FOURTH, we return to Fr Henry James Coleridge. Although the Blessed Virgin Mary seems to be in the background in the New Testament narrative, her influence quietly pervades the events, which she ponders in her Immaculate Heart. Coleridge explains the debt which the Church owes to her Immaculate Heart—a debt owed as a society, and by us as individuals:
FIFTH, and finally—the solution to our modern problems. Sister Lucy of Fatima said the Immaculate Heart of Mary would be our refuge, and that the Rosary can resolve any problem, no matter how difficult. This essay by M.J. McCusker, one of The WM Review’s editors, is based on talks given at numerous pro-life rallies across Ireland in 2018, and it remains as relevant today as then:
Bonus Article:
As an Advent-themed “BONUS,” we return again to Fr Coleridge, for his treatment of the foundational prophecy of Our Lady’s virginal conception. Isaias was not simply prophesying a miracle, but a delivering a promise from God to the House of David—a promise which has now been gloriously fulfilled.
Consecration of this project
The WM Review is consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and we are pleased to renew that consecration today in this article, with the prayer of Fr Maximilian Kolbe:
O Immaculata, Queen of Heaven and earth, refuge of sinners and our most loving Mother, God has willed to entrust the entire order of mercy to thee. We repentant sinners cast ourselves at thy feet humbly imploring thee to take The WM Review and its work wholly to thyself as thy possession and property. We beseech thee, do thou make of it whatever most pleases thee. If it pleases thee, use all that it is and has without reserve, wholly to accomplish what was said of thee: ‘She will crush your head,’ and, ‘Thou alone have destroyed all heresies in the whole world.’
Let it be a fit instrument in thine Immaculate and merciful hands for introducing and increasing thy glory to the maximum in all the many strayed and indifferent souls, and thus help extend as far as possible the blessed Kingdom of the most Sacred Heart of Jesus. For wherever thou enters, one obtains the grace of conversion and growth in holiness, since it is through thy hands that all graces come to us from the most Sacred Heart of Jesus.
V. Allow me to praise thee O Sacred Virgin.
R. Give me strength against thy enemies.
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Started praying on my Fatima rosary when mater populi dropped.