Hail Mary Full of Grace:
What Does the Immaculate
Conception Mean for Us Today?
By Leota Roesch
Purpose
We venerate Mary under many titles. Under the title of the Immaculate Conception, she
is the Patroness of the United States. This session explains the doctrine to the
participants and helps them understand the role of grace in their own lives.
Component: Catechesis
Session at a Glance
7:00 p.m.
Welcome, Introduction, and Prayer
7:15 p.m.
What is the Immaculate Conception?
7:25 p.m.
A Short History Lesson: The Immaculate Conception as Patroness
of the United States
7:30 p.m.
Amazing Grace: The Immaculate Conception in Our Lives
8:00 p.m.
Advent and the Immaculate Conception
8:20 p.m.
Closing Prayer, Announcements
8:30 p.m.
Good Night!
Extend the Session Ideas
Consider one or more of the ideas to extend this session:
1. Movie and Discussion. View a movie presentation of the appearance of the
Blessed Virgin Mary to St. Bernadette. Bernadette Soubirous had her first vision
of the Blessed Virgin at age 14 in February 1858 in the little Pyrenees town of
Lourdes. Over the course of little more than a month (February 11 through
March 25, 1858), she had had 18 visions that culminated in the Lady’s revelation
that she was the Immaculate Conception. This was four years after Pope Pius IX
declared infallibly the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. (Leaders might
want to check with diocesan multimedia libraries to see if the movie is available.) Check
Wikipedia for helpful and easy-to-use information on Our Lady of Lourdes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Lourdes.
Option 1: The popular movie telling her story, The Song of Bernadette, from
the 1940’s is now available in DVD format. While somewhat dated, it is
still hailed as a major religious film and faithfully tells Bernadette’s story.
(You can download various modes of this movie for viewing, but the
author cannot verify the reliability of this site.)
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Option 2: Bernadette, a newer movie made on the 150th anniversary of the
appearances of Mary to Bernadette at Lourdes, is also now available on
DVD in the American format; it also has garnered very good reviews.
Whichever movie you choose, view it for yourself and decide on the scenes you
wish to show to the participants.
 Ask questions to help participants engage with this saint who is so
closely associated with the mystery of the Immaculate Conception.
Before the movie scenes are shown you might ask:
o



Are there any girls in here who chose St. Bernadette as your
confirmation name? (If there are, ask why they chose her as their
patron.) What do any of you know about the story of St. Bernadette
of Lourdes?
Set up the scenes by giving a brief summary of the story up to
the point you have chosen.
After the participants have viewed the movie, ask (depending
on the scenes you have chosen) questions that go to a summary of the
movie, Bernadette’s experience of the vision, her family, friends, and
the church’s reaction to what she says she experiences, the
participants’ response to Bernadette’s struggle, how she grew in her
own faith through both the visions and her struggle, how she lived her
life after the visions, what they thought of how she died, etc.
Conclude with a summation of the saint’s life. For example,
you will find good information at Biography Online or at Catholic
Online.
2. Make Moravian Spice Cookies. In some countries, there is a tradition of making
these cookies for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. If you have access to a
kitchen, bake cookies for the parish’s enjoyment after the Vigil or Evening Mass
of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. See Resource 2, Moravian Cookies
for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.
 Because the dough must be made and refrigerated for at least 24 hours,
you will want to make the dough the day before. Perhaps there is a
group of participants who would make the dough under the
supervision of adults from the parish. Or perhaps there is a ladies
group in the parish who will make the dough for your group.
 At your session, participants will need to roll out the dough, cut it into
heart shapes (collect heart shaped cookie cutters—as many as needed),
bake, cool, and frost, decorate with symbols of Mary (if wished), pack
and store for the Immaculate Conception Masses.
 Assign the group times to serve the parish after the Masses. You may
also want to serve a beverage with the cookies. Some of the group
could decorate the parish setting for the gathering after the Mass.
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
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Another group may want to prepare little cards to give to the
parishioners about the feast, or they may want to create “holy cards”
of the Immaculate Conception for those who come for refreshments, or
cards that have the cookie recipe on it to give out, etc.
Make sure that you give the parish advance notice of what the youth
are doing by advertising in the bulletin, making announcements from
the pulpit, etc.
3. A Virtual Tour of the Basilica of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in
Washington, D.C. The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate
Conception is the largest Roman Catholic Church in the United States and North
America, and is one of the ten largest churches in the world.
 In 1846, an excerpt from a Massachusetts newspaper told of ‘a
magnificent Catholic church [to] be built at Washington, D.C. after the
manner of the great cathedrals of the Old World from subscriptions of
every Catholic Parish in America.’
 Spanning the late 19th, 20th and now 21st century, American Catholics
would indeed build a sanctuary that rivals those of Europe and the
world, not only in size but in stature as well—in sacred
art, architecture, history and heritage.
 Dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, under her title of the
Immaculate Conception, the Basilica is the nation’s preeminent Marian
shrine. With over 70 chapels and oratories that relate to the peoples,
cultures and traditions that are the tapestry of the Catholic faith and
the mosaic of our great nation, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the
Immaculate Conception is indeed, America’s Catholic church.”
The Shrine offers an online virtual tour of the Basilica. Take the participants on
this tour in order to introduce them to this part of the religious history of our
nation.
Materials Needed
 Nametags/markers
 Materials for prayer setting
o Small table covered with a nice cloth
o Candle, cross or crucifix or picture of the Immaculate Conception as focal
point
o Bible
 Bibles for participants, one per participant
 Handout, one for each participant
 Two 3x5 index cards for each participant
 Prayer/Holy card of the Immaculate Conception (Printery House is one option),
optional
 Pencil or pen, one for each participant
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Resource 3, Titles of the Blessed Virgin Mary, one copy for session leader
Newsprint
Markers
Extend the Session: Movie and Discussion
 Computer and projector to show films on DVD or online
 Television or projector and DVD player
Note to Leader: Your audio/visual set up needs to be adequate for everyone to be
able to hear/see the movie clips.
Extend the Session: Bake Moravian Cookies
 Resource 2, Moravian Cookies
Extend the Session: Virtual Tour
 Computer and projector to show films on DVD or online
 Television or projector and DVD player
Note to Leader: Your audio/visual set up needs to be adequate for everyone to be
able to hear/see the movie clips.
Prepare in Advance
1. Prepare by familiarizing yourself with information from the Catechism of the Catholic
Church on the Immaculate Conception (see Resource 1).
2. Prepare a sheet of newsprint with the song, “Immaculate Mary.” Use this for the
closing prayer.
Immaculate Mary
Immaculate Mary, your praises we sing.
You reign now in heaven with Jesus our King.
Refrain
Ave, Ave, Ave, Maria!
Ave, Ave, Maria!
In heaven the blessed your glory proclaim;
On earth we your children invoke your fair name.
We pray for our Mother, the Church upon earth,
And bless, Holy Mary, the land of our birth.
3. Consider inviting a participant to be the prayer leader for the closing prayer. Invite a
participant to proclaim the Scripture reading in the closing prayer.
4. Prepare the prayer space using the materials mentioned above.
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5. Set up tables and chairs for small group work. Set up tables for refreshments and
sign-in. Have one or two people at the sign-in table with a check-in sheet and
nametags. Hospitality is important: As the leader, do not use the gathering time
before the session begins to take care of last-minute preparations. Spend the time
moving among the participants, greeting and speaking with them.
Session Outline
Welcome, Introduction, and Prayer (15 minutes)
Welcome the participants. As a warm up activity, give the participants each a 3x5 index
card and a pencil. Explain that you will give them 60 seconds to write down as many
“names” of the Blessed Virgin as they can. Call time and read the titles from the
Resource 3, Titles of the Blessed Virgin Mary, asking participants to check off the titles
they have. Ask for titles that they might have that you do not and make a determination
of whether or not you will accept the additional titles. If you decided to distribute
prayer cards, do so now. Continue:
This evening we are going to spend some time looking at the teaching about a
Blessed Virgin Mary which we call the Immaculate Conception. I am sure you have
often heard of this doctrine which we celebrate each December 8, but you may not
know what it actually means for the Church, for us. Tonight we will gain a deeper
understanding of this teaching of our faith.
Let us take a moment now to recollect our thoughts and focus in prayer on the
Blessed Virgin Mary, our Mother, and the Mother of the Church.
Ask participants to put away anything in front of them that might distract them from
prayer.
Prayer Leader: (begin with the Sign of the Cross)
We will take time now to offer prayers of intercession
Let us praise God, who wished that Mary be celebrated by each generation. Our
response is Mary, full of grace, pray for us.
O God, worker of miracles, you made the immaculate Virgin Mary share, body
and soul, in your Son’s glory in heaven, direct our hearts to that same glory.
We pray: Mary, full of grace, pray for us.
You made Mary our mother. Through her prayer grant strength to the weak,
comfort to the sorrowing, pardon to sinners, salvation and peace to all. We
pray: Mary, full of grace, pray for us.
You made Mary the mother of mercy, may all who are faced with trials feel
her motherly love. We pray: Mary, full of grace, pray for us.
You prepared the Blessed Virgin to be the mother of your son by letting her
share beforehand in the salvation brought by his passion, death, and
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resurrection. May we, like her, lead lives worthy of such a gift.1 We pray:
Mary, full of grace, pray for us.
What is the Immaculate Conception? (10 minutes)
Note to Leader: Begin by asking the participants what they may already know about the
Immaculate Conception. Invite them to share in the large group and make note of their
input on newsprint or board, coming back to what they share after your presentation.
Then continue:
We come into this world in less than saintly condition; we are born with sin.
This inherited condition of sin is defined as original sin. Adam and Eve were clothed
with God’s love and grace and were meant to live in this state of happiness for all
their lives. Their choice to sin resulted in the broken state in which the world and we
find ourselves. We see great evil in our world, and pain, suffering, and death are
everywhere around us.
The church believes and teaches that only two people were ever conceived without
original sin. One, of course, was Jesus. The other was his mother, Mary. On
December 8, the church celebrates the Feast of the Immaculate Conception to
celebrate Mary’s conception and birth without sin.
Tradition has also played a role in the development of this feast. Besides the truth of
the Bible, God continues to reveal Godself and the mystery of salvation through the
lived experience of Christians, generation after generation. This ongoing
interpretation and understanding of God's revelation is called Tradition. As Catholics,
we believe that the pope and bishops have received the teaching authority of the
apostles to interpret and protect the Church’s Tradition.
The Feast of the Immaculate Conception shows how the beliefs of God’s people led to
the declaration of a church dogma.
 From the earliest centuries, writings of the Church Fathers taught that Mary
was free from original sin.
 In our Eastern Churches, this feast was originally and very early on called the
“Conception of St. Anne,” meaning that St. Anne had conceived Mary.
 Devotion to the belief grew over the centuries, especially through the
influence of religious orders like the Franciscans and Carmelites.
 In the fifteenth century, Pope Sixtus IV allowed the whole church to celebrate
the Immaculate Conception, but he did not require the feast to be celebrated.
 Finally, in 1854, Pope Pius IX elevated the feast to its highest rank when he
declared it a dogma of faith (meaning that, in the hierarchy of truth, this
teaching must be believed by us) that Mary was conceived without original
sin. He wrote:
“The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of
her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty
God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the
1
Adapted from Evening Prayer I, Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Liturgy of the Hours.
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human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin.”
(Ineffablis Deus)
So the Church teaches that Mary was preserved from original sin by the foreseen
merits of Jesus, her son and her redeemer. Mary is, therefore, the first person
redeemed, the first Christian, the first disciple; she is perfectly redeemed in every
way—body and soul.
In the appearances to St. Bernadette of Lourdes, France, in 1858, the Lady who
appeared to her eventually identified herself by saying, “I am the Immaculate
Conception.” Coming so soon after the papal declaration on Mary’s being conceived
without original sin, we can view the apparitions and revelation at Lourdes as an
affirmation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.
This belief in the Immaculate Conception of Mary has also roots in the Bible, for the
angel Gabriel revealed at the annunciation of Jesus’ birth that Mary was “full of
grace.”
Before we look at what it meant for Mary to be “full of grace” and what a life of grace
means for us, we’ll look first at the connection between the Feast of the Immaculate
Conception and the Catholic Church in the United States.
A History Lesson: The Immaculate Conception as Patroness of the United
States (5 minutes)
Mary Immaculate was officially declared the patroness of the United States in 1847.
A year earlier, the bishops had written to the Catholics of this country and said:
“We take this occasion 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….”
A patron is someone who takes responsibility for another, who protects another. As
Catholics, we rely on patron saints not only to inspire our lives by their example but
also to pray for us and protect us in our life. A patron looks out for us, sometimes in
ways we don’t always recognize. This was the role that our first bishops envisioned
for our Blessed Mother when they dedicated our country to her under the title of the
Immaculate Conception.
“The meaning of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception is that Mary was
always totally dependent on God, that her mission in life was given to her,
and that she never did anything on her own but always did things God’s way.
Never touched by sin, nothing in her resisted God’s will for her and for the
salvation of the world through her Son.
Of the few words attributed to her in the Gospels, the most basic is, “Let it be
done to me according to your word.” From this free decision on her part flows
her instruction to the servants at the wedding feast of Cana, ‘Do whatever he
tells you.’
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Mary Immaculate is our patroness. She speaks to us of God’s initiative in her
life and ours; she witnesses to the primacy of grace in her life and ours. She
tells us, proud of our own initiatives, to do it God’s way.”2
Let us take a few moments now to list those qualities of Mary’s life that our first
bishops wanted to see imitated in ours. Let us pray for an increase in grace in our
own lives in order to more perfectly conform our lives to the life of Christ as his
Mother did.
Note to Leader: Invite the participants to list out loud the qualities of Mary that they
would want to imitate in their own lives and write them on a sheet of newsprint. Leave
them there for comparison at the end of the next part.
Amazing Grace: The Immaculate Conception in Our Lives (30 minutes)
We said earlier that the scriptural basis for the doctrine of the Immaculate
Conception can be found in Gabriel’s greeting to Mary in Luke 1:28.
And coming to her, he said, “Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you.”
(NAB)
And the angel being come in, said unto her: ”Hail, full of grace, the
Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women” (Douay-Rheims, in
this we recognize our Catholic prayer, the Hail Mary.)
Sometimes we hear the angelic greeting rendered, “Rejoice, O highly
favored one”.
All of the biblical translations are dealing with the Greek words, chaire
kecharitōmĕnē.
Note to Leader: It is sufficient to say that the biblical greeting commonly translated “Hail
Mary, full of Grace” comes from two Greek words in Luke that greet Mary (“Hail”) and
give her a “title” (“full of grace”). The following information may be used if you wish.
[Kecharitomene] The Greek word in the Bible has to do with God’s grace, because it
is derived from a Greek root which means “grace”.
What does it mean for Mary to be “full of grace”? In the beginning, we learned what
the doctrine of the Church says it means—that Mary was conceived and was born
without sin. But that explanation is only a part of the story of Mary’s life. “Without
sin” is the doctrinal way to look at it, but “full of grace” gives us a biblical picture.
Grace, we know, is God’s life in us. It is grace that makes it possible for us to live as
God’s children, to discern, and to follow God’s will for us.
Francis Cardinal George, OMI. Copyright © 2004 Archdiocese of Chicago, from Clip Art for Parish Life,
Liturgy Training Publications.
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2
Gabriel’s declaration that Mary is “full of grace” comes before he even announces her
role in the economy of salvation as the Mother of the Messiah: that from the moment
of her own conception she was filled with grace by God.
Grace, then, and her cooperation with it, makes Mary “blessed.” This amazing and
undeserved gift of God, the life of the Trinity in her, enabled our Blessed Mother to
live daily fully aware of God’s love!
Let us take a look at Mary’s life in the Gospel of Luke to see how she lived a life “full
of grace.”
We first encounter Mary in the beginning of Luke’s gospel, when the angel Gabriel
announces that she is to be the Mother of God.
Invite participants to either read the Scripture verses silently and look for the effect of
grace exhibited in Mary’s words or actions or invite one participant to read the verse
and then, in small groups decide on what her graced response is. Allow them to name
the effect of grace, and then incorporate their response as you offer an explanation.
Consider giving each small group one of the passages listed below to consider.
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Luke 1:28-29 – Her instinct is one of being “greatly troubled.” In her reaction, we
see the first instance of Mary’s unassuming faith in God. A true daughter of Israel
who knows of the prophecies bearing on the birth of the Messiah, she cannot believe
that she would be chosen by God.
Luke 1:30-34 – Her relationship with God, even at a young age, having lived a life
of faithfulness to the Jewish law, allows her to question God, not because she is
opposed to God’s will, but because she wants to say, “Yes,” with all of her being—
with her free will.
Luke 1:35–38 – Mary listens to all that the angel tells her what will happen to her
and through her and what it will mean for the salvation of the word, and she puts
her troubled mind and her questions aside and says, “Yes.” Mary is completely
obedient to God’s will for her, even though she does not and cannot possibly know
what that response will mean for her life. Her trust in God is fearless, and it will
shape her life.
Luke 1:39ff – Mary hears the news of the pregnancy with which her cousin
Elizabeth has been blessed. She immediately puts aside all concerns about her own
life on hold, and leaves to visit and take care of her elderly cousin until she gives
birth. Her compassion is based in her faith in God and her devotion to God’s will. All
of this comes to her and marks her life because it is the result of the grace of God
within her with which she has cooperated her entire life. She continues to be patient
as she listens for and discerns God’s will in her life.
Luke 1:45-55 – In Mary’s great hymn of praise and thanksgiving, the Magnificat,
we find that the life of grace, the life of God within her leads to gratefulness, joy,
humility, praise of God, faithfulness, and a great concern for the poor and
marginated.
Ask the participants if they heard anything else in the Scripture that would describe
Mary’s life of grace. Compare their list with your sharing and the list that they created
in the first part of the evening.
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Then give each participant a 3x5 index card and pencil or pen and invite them to write
down three of the Marian qualities that they want to imitate in their own lives. Invite
them to put the card in their Bible, or purse, or billfold, for example, or to tape it inside
their lockers to remind them of how our Patroness, Mary Immaculate, wants us to
imitate her Son in our lives.
Advent and the Immaculate Conception (20 minutes)
During Advent, as we prepare for the birth of Christ, we also celebrate the Solemnity
of the Immaculate Conception on December 8. It is not only a celebration of the
Blessed Virgin Mary but a foretaste of our own redemption.
In keeping the Blessed Virgin free from the stain of sin from the moment of her
conception, as we have learned tonight, God gave us an example of what humankind
was meant to be. Mary is truly the second Eve, because, like Eve, she entered the
world without sin. Unlike Eve she lived her entire life dedicated fully to the will of
God.
The Incarnation of Christ and our salvation is due to Mary’s graced “Yes” at the
Annunciation. The Immaculate Conception was not a precondition for Christ’s act of
redemption but the result of it. Standing outside of time, God knew that Mary would
humbly submit herself to his will, and in his love for this perfect servant, he applied
to her at the moment of her conception the redemption, won by Christ, that we
received at our baptism.
This feast and the truth it celebrates, coming as it does, at the beginning of Advent
helps us prepare in patience for the coming of Christ into our own lives. Mary had a
special mission in the redemption of humankind. So God created her as a “fitting
dwelling place” for his son Jesus. When Gabriel announced to Mary’s God’s will for
her, that she would be the mother of the Christ, the Evangelist, Luke, wanted the
community he was writing for to understand that they were also to give birth to
Christ in their hearts, in their families, and their community, so that Christ’s life
could come to fullness in them and the world in which they found themselves. We
wait in patience and in joy for Christ to come to us so that we can give birth to him
in the world around us.
Mention that this feast is a Holy Day of Obligation for Catholics in the United States.
Besides stressing what that means, it is important to underscore that we do not
participate in Mass on this or any holy day ONLY out of obligation, but because we
want to celebrate with the community the great gift of Mary’s Immaculate Conception
and its meaning in our life.
Hail Mary Full of Grace: What Does the Immaculate Conception Mean for Us Today?
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Prayer Experience: I Say, “Yes,” My Lord (10 minutes)
Gather
Invite the participants to gather around the prayer table. Sing “Immaculate Mary.”
Prayer Leader: (begin with the Sign of the Cross)
Father,
the image of the Virgin
is found in the Church.
Mary had a faith that your Spirit prepared
and a love that never knew sin,
for you kept her sinless
from the moment of her conception.
Trace in our actions
the lines of her love,
in our hearts her readiness of faith.
Prepare once again a world for your Son
who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
(From the former Sacramentary for the feast day)
Listen
Invite the reader to proclaim Luke 1:26-38. Allow a few moments of quiet after the
reading.
Respond
Prayer Leader:
We want to let this feast be part of our daily life not just our Advent journey.
We pause to give thanks for God's love for us.
We thank God for the inspiring role of Mary,
for the way she completely says "yes,"
that we might know God's love more completely.
No matter our faith tradition, we can pause today
to say, with great meaning, our prayer to Mary:
All: Hail Mary, full of grace…
Go Forth
Prayer Leader:
Mary Immaculate, we entrust our lives to you. Inspire us to lead lives of gratefulness
and praise. May we cooperate with God’s life of grace in us as you did so that we
may joyfully say yes to whatever God asks of us for the building up of the Kingdom.
Inspire us to act justly and to revere all God has done and made. Root peace firmly
in our hearts and in our world. Amen.
Hail Mary Full of Grace: What Does the Immaculate Conception Mean for Us Today?
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Announcements and Refreshments (5 minutes)
Thank the youth for their participation in tonight’s session. Make any needed
announcements about upcoming programs and events. Invite everyone to enjoy some
refreshments.
Websites and links in this session were accessed successfully on August 17, 2012.
This session was written by Leota Roesch, Director of Faith Formation at Resurrection
Parish in Tempe, Arizona. Fr. Roy Shelly, Ph.D., pastor of St. Joseph Parish in Spreckels,
California, served as theological consultant on this session.
Hail Mary Full of Grace: What Does the Immaculate Conception Mean for Us Today?
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Resource 1
Catechism of the Catholic Church
References for the Immaculate Conception
490 To become the mother of the Savior, Mary “was enriched by God with gifts
appropriate to such a role.” The angel Gabriel at the moment of the annunciation
salutes her as “full of grace”. In fact, in order for Mary to be able to give the free assent
of her faith to the announcement of her vocation, it was necessary that she be wholly
borne by God’s grace.
491 Through the centuries the Church has become ever more aware that Mary, “full
of grace” through God, was redeemed from the moment of her conception. That is what
the dogma of the Immaculate Conception confesses, as Pope Pius IX proclaimed in 1854:
The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace
and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human
race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin.
492 The “splendor of an entirely unique holiness” by which Mary is “enriched from
the first instant of her conception” comes wholly from Christ: she is “redeemed, in a
more exalted fashion, by reason of the merits of her Son”. The Father blessed Mary
more than any other created person “in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the
heavenly places" and chose her “in Christ before the foundation of the world, to be holy
and blameless before him in love”.
493 The Fathers of the Eastern tradition call the Mother of God “the All-Holy”
(Panagia), and celebrate her as “free from any stain of sin, as though fashioned by the
Holy Spirit and formed as a new creature”. By the grace of God Mary remained free of
every personal sin her whole life long.
494 At the announcement that she would give birth to “the Son of the Most High”
without knowing man, by the power of the Holy Spirit, Mary responded with
the obedience of faith, certain that “with God nothing will be impossible”: “Behold, I
am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be [done] to me according to your word.”
Thus, giving her consent to God's word, Mary becomes the mother of Jesus. Espousing
the divine will for salvation wholeheartedly, without a single sin to restrain her,
she gave herself entirely to the person and to the work of her Son; she did so
in order to serve the mystery of redemption with him and dependent on him, by God’s
grace:
As St. Irenaeus says, “Being obedient she became the cause of salvation for herself and for the
whole human race.” Hence not a few of the early Fathers gladly assert. . .:
“The knot of Eve’s disobedience was untied by Mary’s obedience: what
the virgin Eve bound through her disbelief, Mary loosened by her faith.” Comparing her
with Eve, they call Mary “the Mother of the living” and frequently claim:
“Death through Eve, life through Mary.”
Hail Mary Full of Grace: What Does the Immaculate Conception Mean for Us Today?
Copyright © Center for Ministry Development, 2012.
Page 13
Resource 2
Moravian Cookies for the
Feast of the Immaculate Conception
Also Called: Gingerbread; Moravian Spritz; Kolachi; Moravian Love Cakes
Cloves and cinnamon and nutmeg, which are poetic picture words in the Bible, mean
something when your nose is enjoying their “pleasant odor.” Some cultures make
Moravian cookies on December 7, the vigil of the Virgin’s feast day, because of the
passage in the Book of Sirach 24:20-21 which we ascribe to Mary:
I gave a sweet smell like cinnamon and aromatical balm; I yielded a sweet
odor like the best myrrh; and I perfumed my dwelling as store, and
galbanum, and onyx, and aloes, and as the frankincense not cut, and my
odor is as the purest balm.
These cookies give out wonderful smells of spices!
For centuries, bakers in Catholic homes in Austria and Germany have taken a spice
dough, rolled it to medium thickness, and cut it into heart shapes — sometimes seven
or eight inches wide. Then they ice the hearts with great care and delicacy. Religious
and liturgical symbols, pictures and quotations appear among the scrolls on the
gingerbread. Each family competes to make theirs more decorative each year. When the
hearts stand shining in their sugar and gilt, they are taken a gift from the heart of one
family to another. They are expressions of love and charity. They bring the religious
meaning of the Incarnation, with all its stupendous import, into a concrete, visible form
which neighbors can understand. The gingerbread with all its careful decoration is a
work of love in honor of Christ who loved us and his Mother who’s “yes” prepared for
his coming.
Cookies
Directions
Mix butter, molasses and sugar. Add sifted dry ingredients. Chill until hard (preferably overnight). Roll
very thin. Bake in a moderate oven (375°) for six minutes. Cookies may be iced using a simple powdered
sugar frosting recipe.
Ingredients
 ¼ cup melted butter
 ½ cup warm molasses
 ¼ cup brown sugar
 1-7/8 cups flour
 1/3 teaspoon soda
 1/3 teaspoon salt
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1/3 teaspoon ginger
1/3 teaspoon cloves
1/3 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon allspice
Hail Mary Full of Grace: What Does the Immaculate Conception Mean for Us Today?
Copyright © Center for Ministry Development, 2012.
Page 14
Powdered Sugar Frosting
Ingredients




2½ cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon corn syrup
1 tablespoon softened butter
 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
 food coloring to tint
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 0 minutes
Total Time: 5 minutes
Directions
Combine powdered sugar, water, butter, corn syrup and vanilla in mixer bowl, and mix until moist. Beat on
medium speed until smooth. Add more water, if needed. Color with food coloring, if desired.
Yield: 100 cookies
Prep Time: 1 hour
Hail Mary Full of Grace: What Does the Immaculate Conception Mean for Us Today?
Copyright © Center for Ministry Development, 2012.
Page 15
Resource 3
Titles of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Our Lady of Charity
Our Lady of Consolation
Our Lady of Copacabana
Our Lady of Fatima
Our Lady of Good Counsel
Our Lady of Good Help
Our Lady of Grace
Our Lady of Guadalupe
Our Lady of Knock
Our Lady of La Leche
Our Lady of La Vang
Our Lady of LaSallette
Our Lady of Lebanon
Our Lady of Loreto
Our Lady of Lourdes
Our Lady of Mount Carmel
Our Lady of Perpetual Help
Our Lady of Pilar
Our Lady of Prompt Succor
Our Lady of Providence
Our Lady of Ransom
Our Lady of Sorrows
Our Lady of Tears
Our Lady of the Assumption
Our Lady of the Holy Rosary
Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception
Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal
Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary
Our Lady, Help of Christians
Our Lady, Mother of the Church
Our Lady of Victory
There may be other titles of which you are aware.
Hail Mary Full of Grace: What Does the Immaculate Conception Mean for Us Today?
Copyright © Center for Ministry Development, 2012.
Page 16