Today is a public holiday in Italy. What holiday is being celebrated? It is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Whose Immaculate Conception? Certainly not Jesus’ Virgin birth, as some still mistakenly think. It is the Immaculate Conception of Mary, mother of Jesus. It means that, unlike the rest of us, Mary was born without the original sin imparted to all mankind through Eve’s unfortunate temptation by the snake in the Garden of Eden, to eat of the forbidden fruit.

Mary was born in the normal way. Her parents were Anne and Joachim. Yet, as programmed by God to bear the son of man, she was not shamed by that shadow of original sin with which we are all born with – that is, according to Catholic theology – until we are baptised. Anne, as will be remembered if one reads the apocryphal Gospel of Saint James, was beyond child-bearing age so, in a sense, Mary’s was a symbolic virgin birth.

The idea of Mary’s unique status in mankind was first observed in fifth century Syria – that same country which is still being martyred by a war fought by fanatics of another monotheistic religion which, too, also holds Mary in the highest respect. Indeed, Mary is the only woman mentioned by name in the Holy Qur’an, in Sura nineteen.

I quote:

The Angel said: I am only a messenger of thy Lord, that I may bestow on thee a faultless son. She said: How can I have a son when no mortal hath touched me, neither have I been unchaste? He said: So (it will be). Thy Lord saith: It is easy for Me. And (it will be) that We may make of him a revelation for mankind and a mercy from Us, and it is a thing ordained. And she conceived him, and she withdrew with him to a far place.

That is clearly another take on the Annunciation, which is celebrated here on March 25^th.  Nine months, after the appropriate length of time, later Jesus is born.

December the 8^th was when Mary was conceived, not when she was born, which took place, again appropriately, nine months later and is celebrated on September 8^th.

The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, Mother of God, was officially promulgated by Pope Pius IX in 1854 and is held in the greatest respect by all practising Roman Catholics. Indeed, among Anglo-Catholics – an offshoot of the Oxford movement in Victorian Anglicanism – it is, too, a day of reverence.

In many countries the day is a national holiday and in Italy it serves as the start of serious Christmas festivities. No Christmas shopping two days after August bank holiday here – it all begins now: the full bonanza of gift wrapping, Christmas lights, trees and the rest of that strange mixture of bonhomie, excess feasting, tinsel, carol singing, living cribs, family love, religious outpouring, commercialism and the warmest of fires which the season brings to us.

(Our crib during Advent -awaiting for the birth of the Redeemer)

The Christmas tree, although only imported into Italy at the beginning of the last century has become an ever more important symbol of Christmas. Its triangular shape symbolizes the Holy Trinity and its nature as a perennial plant stands for the Eternity of God himself.

Here is part of our tree:

Surely our Mother Earth needs the same respect and adoration in her time of need, which is, more than ever, now…

MADONNA

Ineffable, your interstellar gaze

and cosmic garments’ flow unspeeches me

as unknown master’s brush paints God’s decree

and angel choir resounds from rainbow blaze.

Illumined chance, in summer’s sunset haze

had stopped my way, world’s restless refugee,

and opened aimless heart and made it free

when you accepted my unkempt bouquets.

 

Your face, I’ve seen before, in books and dreams:

till now unnoticed in its loveliness;

recondite smile that kisses all mankind,

unfathomed eyes that heal, touch that redeems,

marine star, sole reply in storm’s distress,

in your compassioned breast all hope’s enshrined.

 

(My poem written in 2008)