O most Holy Virgin, who was pleasing to the Lord and became His mother, immaculate in body and spirit, in faith and in love, look kindly on me as I implore your powerful intercession. O most Holy Mother, who by your blessed Immaculate Conception, from the first moment of your conception did crush the head of the enemy, receive our prayers as we implore you to present at the throne of God the favor we now request. (State your personal intention here.)  O Mary of the Immaculate Conception, Mother of Christ, you had influence with your Divine Son while upon this earth; you have the same influence now in Heaven. Pray for us and obtain for us from Him the granting of my petition if it be the Divine Will. Amen.

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O Mary, ever Blessed Virgin, Mother of God, Queen of Angels and of Saints, we salute you with the most profound veneration and filial devotion as we contemplate your holy Immaculate Conception. We thank you for your maternal protection and for the many blessings that we have received through your wonderous mercy and most powerful intercession. In all our necessities, we have recourse to you with unbounded confidence. O Mother of Mercy, we beseech you now to hear our prayer and to obtain for us of your Divine Son the favor that we so earnestly request in this novena.  (State your personal intention here.) O Mary of the Immaculate Conception, Mother of Christ, you had influence with your Divine Son while upon this earth; you have the same influence now in Heaven. Pray for us and obtain for us from Him the granting of my petition if it be the Divine Will. Amen.

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O B lessed Virgin Mary, glory of the Christian people, joy of the universal Church and Mother of our Lord, speak for us to the Heart of Jesus, who is your Son and our Brother. O Mary, who by your holy Immaculate Conception, did enter the world free from stain, in your mercy obtain for us from Jesus the special favor which we now so earnestly seek. (State your personal intention here.) O Mary of the Immaculate Conception, Mother of Christ, you had influence with your Divine Son while upon this earth; you have the same influence now in Heaven. Pray for us and obtain for us from Him the granting of my petition if it be the Divine Will. Amen

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O Mary, Mother of God, endowed in your glorious Immaculate Conception with the fullness of grace; unique among women in that you are both mother and virgin; Mother of Christ and Virgin of Christ, we ask you to look down with a tender heart from your throne and listen to our prayers as we earnestly ask that you obtain for us the favor for which we now plead. (State your personal intention here.) O Mary of the Immaculate Conception, Mother of Christ, you had influence with your Divine Son while upon this earth; you have the same influence now in Heaven. Pray for us and obtain for us from Him the granting of my petition if it be the Divine Will. Amen

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O Lord, who, by the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, did prepare a fitting dwelling for Your Son, we beseech You that as by the foreseen death of Your Son, You did preserve her from all stain of sin, grant that through her intercession, we may be favored with the granting of the grace that we seek at this time. (State your personal intention here.) O Mary of the Immaculate Conception, Mother of Christ, you had influence with your Divine Son while upon this earth; you have the same influence now in Heaven. Pray for us and obtain for us from Him the granting of my petition if it be the Divine Will. Amen

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Glorious and immortal Queen of Heaven, we profess our firm belief in your Immaculate Conception preordained for you in the merits of your Divine Son. We rejoice with you in your Immaculate Conception. To the one ever-reigning God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three in Person, one in nature, we offer thanks for your blessed Immaculate Conception. O Mother of the Word made Flesh, listen to our petition as we ask this special grace during this novena. (State your personal intention here.)  O Mary of the Immaculate Conception, Mother of Christ, you had influence now in Heaven. Pray for us and obtain for us from Him the granting of my petition if it be the Divine Will. Amen

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O Immaculate Virgin, Mother of God, and my mother, from the sublime heights of your divinity, turn your merciful eyes upon me while I, full of confidence in your bounty and keeping in mind your Immaculate Conception and fully consncious of your power, beg of you to come to our aid and ask your Divine Son to grant the favor we earnestly seek in this novena, if it be beneficial for our immortal souls and the souls for whom we pray. (State your personal intention here.) O Mary of the Immaculate Conception, Mother of Christ, you had influence with your Divine Son while upon this earth; you have the same influence now in Heaven. Pray for us and obtain for us from Him the granting of my petition if it be the Divine Will. Amen

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O Most gracious Virgin Mary, beloved Mother of Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, intercede with Him for us that we be granted the favor which we petition for so earnestly in this novena. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, we feel animated with confidence that your prayers on our behalf will be graciously heard before the throne of God. O Glorious Mother of God, in memory of your joyous Immaculate Conception, hear our prayers and obtain for us our petitions. (State your personal intention here.)  O Mary of the Immaculate Conception, Mother of Christ, you had influence with your Divine Son while upon this earth; you have the same influence now in Heaven. Pray for us and obtain for us from Him the granting of my petition if it be the Divine Will. Amen

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O Mother of the King of the Universe, most perfect member of the human race, "our tainted nature's solitary boast," we turn to you as mother, advocate, and mediator. O Holy Mary, assist us in our present necessity. By your Immaculate Conception, O Mary conceived without sin, we humbly beseech you from the bottom of our heart to intercede for us with you Divine Son and ask that we be granted the favor for which we now plead. (State your personal intention here.) O Mary of the Immaculate Conception, Mother of Christ, you had influence now in Heaven. Pray for us and obtain for us from Him the granting of my petition if it be the Divine Will. Amen.

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O Mary, Virgin most powerful and Mother of mercy, Queen of Heaven and Refuge of sinners, we consecrate ourselves to thine Immaculate Heart.

We consecrate to thee our very being and our whole life; all that we have, all that we love, all that we are. To thee we give our bodies, our hearts and our souls; to thee we give our homes, our families, our contry.

We desire that all that is in us and around us may belong to thee, and may share in the benefits of thy motherly benediction. And that this act of consecration may be truly efficacious and lasting, we renew this day at they feet the promises of our Baptism and our first Holy Communion.

We pledge ourselves to keep the commandments of God and His Church, in particular to keep holy the Lord's Day.

We likewise pledge ourselves to make the consoling practices of the Christian religion, and above all, Holy Communion, an integral part of our lives, in so far as we shall be able so to do.

Finally, we promise thee, O glorious Mother of God and loving Mother of men, to devote ourselves wholeheartedly to the service of thy blessed cult, in order to hasten and assure, through the sovereignty of thine Immaculate Heart, the coming of the kingdom of the Sacred Heart of thine adorable Son, in our own hearts and in those of all men, in our country and in all the world, as in heaven, so on earth.  Amen

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The Ark of the Covenant was a sumptuously adorned chest housing the Jews' most sacred objects: the tablets of the Ten Commandments, a pot of manna, and Aaron's staff. Before its disappearance, the Ark was the centerpiece of the Holy of Holies, the mysterious chamber lying behind the curtain in Jerusalem's Temple. ONly the high priest dared to enter this sacred chamber. Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant. She is not a gold-encrusted trunk filled with artifacts but the flesh-and-blood person whose womb nurtured Jesus Christ. Today's feast celebrates Mary's own stainless conception, the remote preparation that formed her into the vessel of honor where the living Word first sprang to life. God prepared Mary from her first instant for this great purpose--to be the perfect edicie to carry, birth, and mother the Son of God, one to whom any taint of sin would be repugnant.

Mary was conceived in the natural human way by her parents, Joachim and Anne. But God had a plan and was eager to give Mary an utterly unique gift that could not wait until her childhood or adolescence to be unwrapped. The gift of the Immaculate Conception was given contemporaneously with Mary' microscopic sparking to life. If we had the chance to choose our own mother, we would not select a selfish, disordered, mean, and sinful woman. We would lovingly accept such a mother but not deliberately choose her. God could choose His own mother, though, and so logically choose a perfect one. As the author of creation, He crafted a pristine soul incapable of sin or moral disorder. Alone among all creation, Mary reaped the spiritual rewards of her Son's resurrection before its historical occurence, saving her from death and bodily corruption, sin's cruelest punishments. Mary was simply flooded with God's grace in her very origins and has never ceased to be united with Him after that.  When she is just a fetus, a woman has as many eggs as she will ever have. The ovaries of a femal fetus are saturated with eggs whose numbers will only decrease over time. So half of the genetic material necessary to form an embryo has waited, latent, inside of that embryo's mother since the time that mother was herself in utero. The unbroken chain of human life is unfathomably beautiful. Grandmother, mother, and grandchild are, in a certain sense, bound together, united, in every woman expecting a daughter. When Mary was conceived in the womb of Saint Anne, then, the DNA of Jesus of Nazareth was already present in the embryonic Mary. This is a biological fact, not a statement of faith. At the Annunciation, when Mary miraculously conceived Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit, that "Lord and Giver of Life" spoke through the words of the Archangel Gabriel and sparked Christ to first stir with humanity deep inside the body where His genes had long been waiting. Everything new is experienced as a miracle--a new dawn, a new baby, a new house, a new marriage. The Immaculate Conception is celebrated with the greatest solemnity around the world because it commemorates a new, pivotal moment. In Stain Anne, God was readying the fairest flower of Israel, her most modest daughter and humble rose, for Himself. Mary' virtues of humility and obedience would straighten the path twisted by Eve's sins of pride and disobedience. By God's own choice, Mary along would escape the grip of Adam's sin. She would be the New Eve, that Spiritual Vessel, House of Gold, and Morning Star whose Immaculate was the first flicer of a great Light to come.

Mary of the Immaculate Conception, may your purity, virtue, and obedience be a perennial model for all the faithful of the humble and narrow pathways which alone lead to God. Be at our side to encourage and inspire us as we try to be ever nearer to your Son, Jesus.

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