Every feast day which we celebrate is in some way a celebration of the mystery of our salvation in Jesus. Mary was created to be the Mother of Jesus. From the moment of her conception she was preserved from the stain of original sin through the redemption which Jesus won for us by his self-sacrificing love on the cross. This mystery of Mary's Immaculate Conception we celebrate on December 8th, but it is also important to recall Mary's Immaculate Conception today, for it provides the deep theological reason for celebrating a feast of her Nativity. Conceived and born without sin, in her birth she was the first of the redeemed and was God's initiation of the mystery of the incarnation. Because of Mary's birth, Jesus like all of us in all things except for sin had a human mother in this world, a Mother whose sinlessness brought her to stand beside the Cross of Jesus, where she received another extraordinary and graceful mission, to be the mother of the Church and of all humanity.