5. The Presentation of St Mary (praesentatio, illatio, oblatio) in the Temple at Jerusalem. In the modern Roman Kalendar at Nov. 21, it is a ‘greater double.’ It does not appear in the Kalendar of the Sarum Breviary or Missal; but the Sarum Enchiridion (1530) gives Nov. 21, and the Office is printed in the Breviary. There were many exceptions to this feast being observed[79]. The festival is based on a legend[80] that at an early age Mary was dedicated to the service of God in the Temple, and that there she grew up, and served under the priests and Levites. The first appearance of the festival is at Constantinople; and there is evidence for it there in A.D. 1150. It passed to the West towards the close of the fourteenth century[81]. And with more certainty than is usually possible in such enquiries we can trace its introduction to the impression made by the accounts, brought back from Cyprus, by Philip de Mazières, of the solemnities of the feast in the East. Pius V (A.D. 1566-1572) withdrew it from the Roman Kalendar; but it was restored by Sixtus V (A.D. 1585-1590).
6. The Conception of St Mary (Dec. 8). Since Dec. 8, 1854, when Pius IX (in the Apostolic Letters Ineffabilis Deus) decreed the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception to be a necessary article of the Faith, the epithet Immaculate has been prefixed to the original title in the service-books of the Roman Communion. In the Greek Church the day observed is Dec. 9, and the title is the Conception of St Anna, grandmother of God, the Easterns connecting the word ‘conception’ with the person who conceived, while the Latins connected it with the person who was conceived. The festival was commanded to be observed throughout the Empire of the East by the Emperor Manuel Comnenus in the middle of the twelfth century.
The evidence seems to point to the fact that, like several other festivals of the Virgin, this originated in the East. In the Greek Horologion we find it related that, according to the ancient tradition of the Church, Anna was barren and well stricken in years, and also that her spouse Joachim was an aged man. In sorrow for their childlessness they prayed to the Lord, who hearing their prayers intimated to them by an angel that they would have a child, and in accordance with the promise Anna conceived[82]. It appears that the festival had no dogmatic significance; and it had its parallel in the historical festival, still observed in the Greek Church on Sept. 23, of the Conception of St John the Baptist, a festival which also had a place in the old Latin Martyrologies.
In the West the local observance of the day is associated commonly with the name of St Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, who, in one form of the story, on a voyage from England to Normandy during a storm vowed to establish the festival. But the day is marked in some English Kalendars just before the Norman Conquest, though at first it had a very limited acceptance[83]. It is plain that at an early date there were some who connected the festival with the belief that St Mary differed from other mortals in being without original sin. For when the Chapter of the Cathedral of Lyons were about to institute the festival in that church, St Bernard of Clairvaux wrote (A.D. 1140) expostulating with them partly on the ground that though St Mary was, as he believed, sanctified in the womb, yet her conception was not holy. He added that this was a novel festival, ‘quam ritus Ecclesiae nescit, non probat ratio, non commendat antiqua traditio’; and declares that it was the outcome of the simplicity of a few unlearned persons, the daughter of inconsiderateness (levitatis), and the sister of superstition (Epist. 174).
John Beleth, Dean of the Faculty of Theology at Paris, towards the close of the twelfth century argued much in the same way as St Bernard. And in the following century, and towards its close, such a leading authority as Durandus, bishop of Mende, in his Rationale says that there were some who would celebrate this festival, but that he could not approve of it, because St Mary was conceived in original sin, though she was sanctified in the womb.
As regards the Church of Rome (properly so called), Innocent III in the beginning of the thirteenth century declares in one of his sermons (Serm. II de Joan. Bapt.) that no other conception than that of the Lord Jesus was celebrated in the Church. Nevertheless the celebration of the day spread both in France, and, more particularly, in England. The Council of Oxford (A.D. 1222) approved of the feast, but distinguished it from the other feasts of the Virgin by leaving it to be observed or not at discretion. In the province of Canterbury the day was made of obligation by Archbishop Simon Mepeham (A.D. 1328-33).
In 1263 the Franciscans resolved to celebrate the festival publicly in their churches. But even the Franciscans were not agreed among themselves as to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Alvarus Pelagius, the Spanish Theologian, Great Penitentiary of Pope John XXII, in his de Planctu Ecclesiae (1332) declares that ‘the new and fantastic opinion should be cancelled by the faithful.’
As is well known, the Dominicans took a strong and even violent part against the doctrine. The greatest doctor of the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas, had clearly pronounced that St Mary was not sanctified till the infusion of her anima rationalis. But with regard to the feast of the Conception he states that inasmuch as the Roman Church, though not celebrating the Conception of the Blessed Virgin, tolerates the practice of certain Churches which do celebrate it, the celebration of the feast is not to be wholly reprobated; and he adds that we must not infer from the observance of the day that St Mary was holy in her conception, but because we are ignorant as to the time when she was sanctified, the feast of her sanctification rather than of her conception is celebrated on the day of her conception[84]. Accordingly in Dominican Kalendars we find the day marked as Sanctificatio Mariae.
The Council of Bâle (1439) adopted a constitution applicable to the whole Church that the feast should be observed according to the ancient and laudable custom on Dec. 8, and that it should be known under the title of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, forbidding the use of the name Sanctification, as having a less extended use. The Roman See, not recognising this Council, did not take action till A.D. 1477, when Sixtus IV, who had been a Franciscan, published an ordinance (and it is the very first decree of any Pope on the subject) granting large indulgences to all the faithful who celebrated, or assisted at, the Mass and Office of the Conception on the festival or throughout its octave. In 1483 the same Pope pronounced excommunication on any preachers who asserted that St Mary was conceived in original sin or that those who observed the festival sinned[85]. Clement VIII (1592-1605) raised the festival to the rank of a greater double. The later history of the festival can be pursued in Baillet, and in recent writers dealing with Pius IX.
For minor festivals of the Virgin, such as ‘St Mary at Snows,’ the Visitation of St Mary, the Espousals (Desponsatio), the Most Holy Name of Mary, the Seven Sorrows, the Rosary of St Mary, Blessed Mary of Mount Carmel, the Expectation of the Delivery (partûs), and others, the reader may consult Baillet, the Catholic Dictionary, etc.