THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION of the Blessed Virgin Mary forms a cornerstone of God's plan for our salvation. Christ receives his human body from His Mother, who herself, by a singular gift from God, comes into this world without original sin. This exemption is God's gift to the woman who would freely choose to be His Mother. The gift highlights the extraordinary nature of the mission of the Mother of God-no one else would ever have the relationship that God in Christ has to the Blessed Virgin Mary. This retreat guides us to a deeper knowledge of how the Immaculate Conception of Our Blessed Lady lies at the dawn of our salvation in Christ. Through devotional, historical, doctrinal and spiritual reflections in a series of four Conferences, Fr Cadoc leads his listeners to a deeper perception of the place of the Mother of God in our lives. This publication is offered as a memorial to the life and ministry of Fr Cadoc.

FR CADOC DOUGLAS AULD LEIGHTON was born in Glasgow in 1950. Educated at Rutherglen Academy, Glasgow, he worked as the librarian for the Scottish National Opera Company. After meeting some Norbertines from the abbey of Kilnacrott, he entered the abbey himself; professed in 1977 on the Feast of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, and ordained priest in 1983.

His academic career was built at Maynooth, Dublin, and the University of Cambridge, where he obtained his doctorate in 1990. Fr Cadoc taught for two years St Norbert's College, De Pere, Wisconsin, and was visiting Professor of History at the University of Chicago. After two years at Maryvale College in Birmingham, he served for the next twenty-two as Professor of History at the University of Bilkent in Ankara. On his return to the United Kingdom he was parish priest of Camborne and Redruth in Cornwall, and proud to be a member of the Cornish Gorsedh. He died on the first day of the Marian month of May, 2020.