The Blessed Virgin Mary: Feast Days, Patronage & Prayers

Feast day: January 1 (Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God); also the Immaculate Conception (December 8), the Assumption (August 15), and many other feasts.

Patron of: All Christians; Mother of the Church; principal patroness of the United States under the title of the Immaculate Conception.

About the Blessed Virgin Mary

Mary of Nazareth is the woman God chose to be the Mother of His Son. Preserved from all stain of original sin from the first moment of her conception, she answered the angel Gabriel with humble faith: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word." Through her yes, the eternal Word took flesh, and the Church has honored her since the Council of Ephesus in 431 with the title Theotokos, Mother of God.

The Gospels show her pondering the mysteries of her Son's childhood, prompting His first miracle at Cana, standing faithfully at the foot of the Cross, and praying with the apostles as they awaited the Holy Spirit. At the end of her earthly life she was assumed body and soul into heaven. Jesus gave her to the beloved disciple as his mother, and Christians have always understood that entrustment as meant for them too. Every Marian prayer, from the Hail Mary to the Rosary, leads back to her Son, for her whole life says what she told the servants at Cana: "Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye."

Prayers to the Blessed Virgin Mary on Daily Catholic Prayers

• Act of Reparation to the Sacred Heart

• Hail Mary

• How to Pray the Rosary

• Joyful Mysteries

• Litany of Loreto

• Litany of the Blessed Virgin (Short Form)

• Prayer Before Confession

• Prayer for New Grandparents

• Prayer for the Feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

• Prayer to Mary Help of Christians

• Prayer to Our Lady of Lourdes for Healing

• Prayer to Our Lady of Mount Carmel

• Prayer to St. Anne

• Prayer to St. John the Evangelist

• Prayer to the Immaculate Conception

• Prayers of St. Francis of Assisi in His Own Words

• St. Andrew Christmas Novena

• Sub Tuum Praesidium

• The Thirty Days' Prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary (Opening)

• The Three Hail Marys Devotion

• Which Rosary Mysteries to Pray Each Day

Learn more: “The Blessed Virgin Mary” in the Catholic Encyclopedia (New Advent)

Browse every saint in our Catalog of Saints A–Z.

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