Mass schedule announced for Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception
Five Masses will be celebrated on campus for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, a holy day of obligation for Catholics. The solemnity is celebrated on Friday, Dec. 8.
- Mass will be offered at 5 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 7, in St. Mary's Chapel. Archbishop Harry Flynn will be the presider.
The following is the Mass schedule for Dec. 8:
- 7 a.m. in the Chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas
- 11:35 a.m. in St. Mary’s Chapel, St. Paul Seminary
- Noon in the Chapel of St. Thomas More at the UST School of Law on the Minneapolis campus
- 12:05 p.m. in the Chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas
In the Catholic Church, this solemnity commemorates the belief that Mary, mother of Jesus, was conceived without sin and was filled with grace from the beginning of her life.
This solemnity originated in the seventh century feast of the "Conception of Mary by St. Anne." In 1846, eight years before Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, American bishops at the Sixth Provincial Council of Baltimore proclaimed the Blessed Virgin Mary patroness of the United States.