By another reason, still stronger than the first, we are assured of the truth of the fact, that the Virgin is exempt from the Original stain, namely, the festival instituted by the universal Church in honor of her Immaculate Conception. And with regard to this I see, on the one hand, that the Church celebrates the first moment when her soul was created and infused into the body, as Alexander VII. declares in the bull above quoted, in which it is expressed that the Church prescribes the same veneration for the conception of Mary, as the pious opinion concedes to her, which holds her to be conceived without original sin. On the other hand, I know it to be certain that the Church cannot honor any thing unholy, according to the decrees of the sovereign pontiffs St. Leo[995] and St. Eusebius: “In the Apostolic See the Catholic religion has always been preserved pure from stain.[996]” And all the theologians, including St. Augustine,[997] St. Bernard, and St. Thomas, teach the same thing. The latter makes use of the argument of the festival of her birth, instituted by the Church, to prove that Mary was sanctified before birth; and therefore says: The Church celebrates the nativity of the blessed Virgin; but no feast is celebrated in the Church except in honor of some saint; therefore the blessed Virgin was sanctified in the womb.[998] Now if it is certain, as the angelic Doctor declares, that Mary was sanctified in the womb, because for this reason the holy Church celebrates her birth; why should we not then hold it for certain that Mary was preserved from original sin from the first moment of her conception, now that we know that in this sense the Church herself celebrates the festival of it?[999] In confirmation, too, of this great privilege of Mary, it is well known what numerous and remarkable graces our Lord has been pleased to dispense daily in the kingdom of Naples, by means of the little pictures of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception. I could relate many that took place under the eyes of the fathers of our own congregation; but I will relate only two, which are truly wonderful. EXAMPLE.