Today is the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. But there are plenty of misconceptions about what this day is actually celebrating.

Not to be confused with another mysterious and miraculous event, the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus, the Immaculate Conception is about how God acted in an extraordinary way in the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary, so that from even the first moment of her own conception, she was “preserved immune from all stain of original sin.”