St. Maximilian Kolbe on Our Lady's Apparition at Lourdes

Our Lady of Lourdes, taken from Immaculate Conception Solemn High Mass at Mount St. Mary's

[The following is excerpted from an article written by St. Maximilian Kolbe for the first issue of Miles Immaculatae ("Militia of the Immaculate"), an international quarterly publication for priests, printed in January 1938. The original article was published in Latin. A translation of the full article can be found at Mary Personifies Man's Perfect Union with God.]

"At Lourdes the Immaculate Holy Virgin responded to Bernadette who was repeatedly asking who she was: 'I am the Immaculate Conception.' With these clear words she expressed the fact that she was not only the Woman Immaculately Conceived, but that she is, yes, Immaculate Conception Itself, in the same way as it is one thing to be something white, and another thing to be its whiteness; as it is one thing to be something perfect and another thing to be the perfection of that thing."

"In giving his own name God spoke thus to Moses: 'I am who am' (Ex. 3: 14). That is, it belongs to my essence that by my nature I always exist of myself: without any principle. The Immaculate Virgin, however, has her origin from God; she is a creature, she is a conception; still, she is the Immaculate Conception."

"What a profound mystery lies hidden in these words."


St. Maximilian Kolbe, taken from Belinda's Brain blog