Immaculate Conception! These words fell from the lips of the Immaculata herself. Hence, they must tell us in the most precise and essential manner who she really is.
Since human words in general are incapable of expressing divine realities, it follows that the meaning of these words [“Immaculate” and “Conception”] must be much deeper, incomparably more profound, more beautiful and sublime than usual: a meaning beyond that which human reason at its most penetrating could give them.
The words of St. Paul [quoting Isaiah 64:4] can be applied here fully: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man what things God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Cor. 2:9).
Nonetheless, we can and should reflect on the mystery of the Immaculata; we should read and speak and write about it to the extent that our understanding and our words are capable of doing so.
What Mary is not…
Who then art Thou, O Immaculate Conception? Not God, because He has no conception [beginning]. Not an angel, who was created directly out of nothing. Not Adam, formed out of the dust of the earth, nor the Incarnate Word, who existed before all ages, and of whom we should use the word “conceived” rather than “conception”. The children of Eve, however, did not exist before their conception, and so we might call them [created] “conceptions”. But you, O Mary, are different from all other children of Eve, too. For they are conceptions stained by original sin,
whereas you alone are the Immaculate Conception.
Everything which exists, outside of God Himself, bears upon and within itself some resemblance to its Creator, since it is utterly and entirely from God and depends on Him in every way; there is nothing in any creature which does not have this resemblance, because everything is an effect of that First Cause.
What are our human words to express what is divine…
It is true that the words we use to speak of created things can express the divine perfections, but only imperfectly, by analogy and in a limited way. Nevertheless they are a more or less distant echo of the divine attributes, as well as definitions of various created realities. Since there are no exceptions to this rule, what we have just said is true also for the word “conception”.
The Father begets the Son; the Ghost proceeds from Father and Son. These few words sum up the mystery of the life of the Most Holy Trinity and of all the perfections in creatures, since the latter are nothing but a manifold echo, a hymn of praise, a many hued depiction, of that primordial and most wondrous of all mysteries. And so let us use the words taken from the dictionary of creation, for we have no others. But we must never forget that they are very imperfect words.
The Immaculate in the life of the Holy Trinity
Who is the Father? What is His essence? It consists in begetting, eternally: He begets the Son from the beginning, and forever.
Who is the Son? The Begotten One, forever, from all eternity He is begotten by the Father.
Who is the Holy Ghost? The flowering of the love of Father and Son. The fruit of created love is a created conception (of a new being). The fruit of Love itself, however, that prototype of created love, is pure Conception. The Holy Ghost is, therefore, the “uncreated, eternal Conception”, the prototype of all conception of new life throughout the universe.
The Father begets; the Son is begotten; the Ghost is the “conception” [that springs from Their love]; that distinguishes these Persons from one another, whereas the same
nature unites Them, namely their divine essence. The Ghost is, then, the most-holy, infinitely holy, undefiled and Immaculate Conception.
Creation is an image of the life of the Holy Trinity
Everywhere in the universe we find action and reaction. The reaction is equal to the action but opposite: departure and return; going away and coming back; division and reunion. This is nothing but an image of the Most Holy Trinity in the activity of creatures.
Union means love, creative love. Divine activity, outside the Trinity itself, follows the same pattern. First, God creates the universe; that is something like a “separation”. Creatures, by following the God-given natural law, reach their perfection and become like Him. Intelligent creatures love God consciously and in this love they unite themselves more and more closely with Him, and “return to Him”.
The Immaculata, perfect image of the uncreated Conception
Now the creature that is completely filled with this love for God is the Immaculata, the one who is without the slightest stain of sin, who never deviated in the least from God’s will. In an ineffable manner she is united to the Holy Ghost as His spouse, but “spouse” in an incomparably more perfect way than can be predicated of any other creature.
Now what does this union consist of? It is first of all an interior union of her essence with the essence of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost dwells in her, lives in her, from the first moment of her existence, always and for all eternity.
