„Immaculate Conception”: these words came out of the mouth of the Immaculate Herself; and so, they must indicate most precisely, most essentially, who She is.

If in general human words are not capable of expressing the things of God, likewise here the meaning of these words must be incomparably deeper, more beautiful, and more lofty than the things which are generally expressed by them or the knowledge thereof to which even the keenest mind could lead.

The words „no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor heart of man conceived” (1 Cor 2, 9) can be applied in fullness to this case. However we can and in fact must, at least to the extent of the ability of our mind and words, think and talk, write and read, about the Immaculate.

Who are you therefore, o Immaculate Conception?

Not God, who has no beginning, nor angel created directly from nothing, nor Adam formed out of the mud of the earth, nor Eve taken from Adam, nor the incarnate Word, which has existed through the ages and is something conceived rather than conception. The children of Eve did not exist before conception, so they can be called conception more fittingly, but You are different from all of them, because they are conceptions tainted by the original sin, but You alone are the Immaculate Conception.

Whatsoever is outside of God, because it comes from God and is totally and in all respects from God, carries outside itself and within itself a likeness of the Creator. And there is nothing in creation that does not have this resemblance, since everything is the result of this first cause.

It is true that words which signify created things can tell us about the perfection of God only in an imperfect, finite, analogous way. They are more or less a distant echo (as are the various creatures that they signify) of the attributes of God.

And is conception an exception to this? This is impossible, for there are no exceptions here. The Father begets the Son, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. In these few words is contained the mystery of the life of the Most Holy Trinity and of all perfections in creatures, which are nothing but a multifarious echo, a glorifying hymn in multicolored tones of this first most beautiful mystery.

Let the words taken from the vocabulary of creatures serve us, for we do not have any other, though we have to remember always that these are very imperfect words.

Who is the Father? What is His essence? Begetting, for He begets the Son, from ages to ages always begets the Son. Who is the Son? Begotten, always and from ages to ages begotten by the Father.

And who is the Spirit? The fruit of the love of the Father and the Son. The fruit of the created love is the created conception. Then the fruit of the love and the exemplar of this love is nothing else but also a conception. The Spirit, therefore, is uncreated eternal conception, an exemplar of all conception of life in the universe.

The Father, therefore, begets the Son, the Son is begotten, the Spirit is conceived and this is Their essence, with which they differ from each other. But they are unified by the same nature: Divine essential existence. The Spirit, therefore, is the most holy conception, infinitely holy and immaculate.

Everywhere in the universe we encounter action and its equal and opposite reaction, exit and return, moving away and getting closer, division and union. And division is always for the sake of union, which is creative. This is nothing else than the image of the Most Holy Trinity in the action of creatures. The union is love, creative love. And the action of God is no different on the outside; God creates the universe — this is, as if, a separation. Creatures, in turn, by the natural law given to them by God, perfect themselves, become similar to God, return to Him, and the rational creatures love consciously and by this love unite themselves more and more to Him, return to Him. Now the creature that is totally filled with this love, divinity — is the Immaculate without any stain of sin, who did not deviate in anything from the will of God. In an inexpressible way She is united to the Holy Spirit as His Beloved, but in a sense incomparably more perfect than this word (beloved) can express in creatures.

What is this union like? It is first and foremost an interior union of Her essence with the essence of the Most Holy Spirit. The Most Holy Spirit dwells in Her, lives in Her, from the first moment of Her existence, always and forever.

In what consists this life of His in Her? He Himself is love in Her, this is the love of the Father and the Son, with which God loves Himself, love of the whole Most Holy Trinity, love which is fecund — conception. In the realm of created similitudes the closest union is the union of love.

Holy Scripture says that the two will be in one body and Jesus emphasizes: „so they are no longer two, but one” (Mt 19, 60). In a way incomparably more tight, more interior, more essential, the Holy Spirit lives in the soul of the Immaculate, in Her essence, and fecundates Her, and that from the first moment of Her existence throughout Her whole existence, that is eternally. This Eternal Immaculate Conception, in the bosom of Her soul, Her, Immaculate Conception, immaculately conceives divine life. And the virginal womb of Her Body is reserved for Him and in Him conceives in time — as all that is material happens in time — also God’s life of God-Man.

And thus, the return to the Father is a movement equal and opposite to that of creation. In creation it is from the Father through the Son and the Spirit, and here through the Spirit the Incarnate Son becomes incarnate in Her womb and through Him the love returns to the Father. And She, woven into the love of the Most Holy Trinity, becomes from the first moment of Her existence and for ever and ever the complement of the Most Holy Trinity.

In the union of the Holy Spirit with Her, not only love unites these two beings, but one of them is the whole love of the Most Holy Trinity, and the other is the whole love of the creature, and thus in that union the heaven is united with the earth, the whole heaven with the whole earth, the whole Eternal Love with the whole created love; this is the summit of love.

And the Immaculate in Lourdes is not called any more the Immaculately Conceived, but, as St. Bernadette states herself, „The Lady stood at this time under the wild rose bush in the same pose in which she is shown on the Miraculous Medal. Upon my third question, Her face became very serious and at the same time, very humble… folding Her hands into prayer, She lifted them up to the level of Her breast… looked into heaven… after which unfolding her Hands and leaning towards me, she said with a voice, in which a slight trembling could be sensed: Qué soy ér Immaculada Councepsiou! (I am the Immaculate Conception!)”.

If in the order of creatures the beloved Bride receives the name of the beloved Groom because she belongs to him, unites herself with him, becomes like him, and in the union with him becomes the life giving factor, how much more the name of the Most Holy Spirit. Conception Immaculate is the name of Her, in whom He lives by the fecund love in the whole supernatural order.

Fr. Maximilian Maria Kolbe

Niepokalanów, 17th of February 1941, the day of the arrest

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