School Community Celebrates Feast of Immaculate Conception

Posted December 9, 2013 / Last updated March 25, 2014

Print Print Email Email Share Share
Altar servers join Fr. Don Saunders, S.J. (left) and Fr. Nile Gross, an alumnus from the Class of 1995, after a Mass celebrating the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in the Chapel of the North American Martyrs.

Altar servers join Fr. Don Saunders, S.J. (center left) and Fr. Nile Gross (center right), an alumnus from the Class of 1995, after a Mass celebrating the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in the Chapel of the North American Martyrs.

On Monday morning, Dec. 9, students, faculty, and staff gathered for Mass in the Chapel of the North American Martyrs to celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and honor Mary, our Blessed Mother.

Mass was celebrated by Fr. Nile Gross, an alumnus from the Class of 1995. Concelebrating were Frs. Raymond Fitzgerald, Don Saunders, Norman O’Neil, William Farge, and John Brown, all members of the Society of Jesus. Fr. Gross, who teaches at Notre Dame Seminary, is assigned to the Archdiocese of New Orleans.

When the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) established a new high school in New Orleans in 1847, they placed it under the protection of our Blessed Mother. The Feast of the Immaculate Conception celebrates Mary’s conception, without sin, and is always on December 8. Since the date fell on a Sunday this year, the Mass for the Jesuit Community was pushed forward a day.