At Lourdes, the Immaculata no longer called herself “the Woman who is conceived immaculately”, but rather, as St. Bernadette tells it:

“The Lady was standing then on a wild rosebush, in the same attitude in which she is shown on the Miraculous Medal. When I asked the third time, her face took on a very serious expression full of deep humility. She folded her hands as though to pray, lifted them to her bosom, looked up to heaven, and slowly opened her hands, bent down towards me and said with a slightly trembling voice: ‘Que soy er’ Immaculada Councepciou’: ‘I am the Immaculate Conception.’”

If among [human] creatures the wife takes the name of her husband because she belongs to him, unites herself with him, becomes his equal and becomes, in union with him, the instrument through which new life is created, how much more true this is in the case of the Holy Ghost’s name. Immaculate Conception is the name of the Woman in whom He lives in that Love which is fruitful for the whole supernatural order. (February 17, 1941, Fr. Maximilian dictated this article to Brother Arnold.)

In Lourdes the Immaculate Virgin replied to St. Bernadette: “I am the Immaculate Conception.” With these words she clearly stated the fact that she is not only immaculately conceived, but IS the Immaculate Conception. Similarly a white thing is something different from being-white itself; a perfect thing is something different from perfection itself.

When God spoke about himself, He said to Moses, “I am who I am,” that is: it belongs to my essence that I always have my being in and of myself, without beginning. In contrast, the Immaculate Virgin has her beginning in God; she is a creature, is a conception. And yet she is the Immaculate Conception. (“Miles Immaculatae” 1, (1938), p. 8–9.)