# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1855_S20
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

20 The Latest Papist Council, etc.

the same. Thus, for example, Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153) writes to those canons at Lyon: “We are not a little astonished that at this time some of you have thought it good to alter so fair an appearance by introducing a new observance of which the practice of the Church knows nothing, which is justified by no reason, and which the tradition of antiquity does not commend.... In the Church and from the Church I have learned to regard the birth of the Virgin as unquestionably glorious and holy, steadfastly maintaining with the Church that she received grace in the womb to come into the world holy. For I also read of Jeremiah that he was sanctified before he was born (Jer. 1:5); nor do I believe otherwise concerning John the Baptist, who from within his mother’s womb perceived the Lord in the womb (Luke 1:41).—To what extent, moreover, this very sanctification was effective against original sin, either for this or that prophet, I do not wish to pronounce rashly.—What is known to have been granted to only a few mortals may rightly be regarded as not having been denied to so great a Virgin, through whom all that was subject to death was raised to life. The mother of the Lord, too, was without doubt holy before she was born. Nor indeed is the holy Church mistaken when it regards her birthday as holy and joyfully celebrates it every year throughout the world. For my part, I believe that an even richer blessing of sanctification descended upon her, which not only sanctified her birth but afterward also preserved her life from every sin—a gift considered to have been bestowed upon no other among those born of women. Holy, therefore, is the birth, because the immeasurable holiness issuing from her body sanctified it. What, then, do we think must still be added to these honors? It is said that the conception which preceded the birth worthy of honor should also be honored, because if the former had not preceded it, the latter, which is honored, would not have taken place. What if someone else, for the same reason, asserted that the honors of a feast should also be paid to both her parents? But then anyone could, on similar grounds, demand the same for her grandparents and great-grandparents; and so it would continue without end, and there would be no counting the feasts.... Yet, as is said, a writing based on a higher revelation is produced in support of it. As though anyone could not likewise produce a writing in which the Virgin appeared to command the same thing concerning her parents! It is not difficult for me to believe that people are not persuaded by such writings when neither a reason nor an authority supporting the matter is found in them. For what follows from the fact that, because the conception preceded a holy birth, it must therefore itself also be regarded as holy? It did indeed precede so that the birth might take place, but not so that it might be holy. For from where would the conception have derived the holiness that it imparted to the subsequent birth? Or was it not rather necessary, because the”