There is the Immaculate Conception of the Holy Spirit, who is the UNCREATED Immaculate Conception. And there is also, the CREATED Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin.
Tradition explains how Saint Peter was martyred…
I have been reflecting on the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin in Lourdes.
This is one of the more well-known Marian apparitions. In 1858, between February 11 and July 16, the Blessed Virgin appeared eighteen times to a young, fourteen-year-old girl named Bernadette Soubirous at a grotto in Lourdes, which is small town located in the foothills of the Pyrenee mountains of southern France.
Bernadette Soubirous, who is now called Saint Bernadette, who was a sickly child and had trouble learning due to her learning difficulties. And yet, the Immaculate Virgin chose to reveal a truth that changed the way that the Virgin is perceived.
When Saint Bernadette asked the Blessed Virgin who she was, the Blessed Virgin replied, “I am the Immaculate Conception”. And this was the whole problem from a theological perspective. You see, the Blessed Virgin did not say, “I was Immaculately Conceived”, which would imply that at one moment in time she was conceived without Original Sin in her mother’s womb. Instead, the Blessed Virgin spoke in the PRESENT TENSE. And what she said was, “I am the Immaculate Conception”.
Michael Gaitley writes in “33 Days to Morning Glory” at page 52, “This seems to be a problem. After all, Mary was immaculately conceived. In other words, through a special grace from God, she was conceived in the womb of her mother, St. Anne, without any stain of original sin by the foreseen merits of her Son. So why does she speak so strangely? Why does she make the grace she received at her conception her very name? Doesn’t this almost seem as if she were making herself divine? Clearly, Mary is not God.” Saint Maximillian Kolbe considered this “divinity problem” for decades, and came up with an elegant solution… The Immaculate Conception is divine. But it is two-fold. There is the Immaculate Conception of the Holy Spirit, who is the UNCREATED Immaculate Conception. And there is also, the CREATED Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin.
And I have been thinking about this today, as I have been considering the work of God. You see, God allowed the Blessed Virgin to reveal this staggering truth to a little girl who was sickly and had trouble learning new things at school. And to HER – this little girl with all her limitations, such a magnanimous truth was revealed. And then later – Much, much, much later, a priest thought and thought and thought about it and finally figured it out.
And I have been thinking about that today, as I consider everything that overwhelms me in my life. Because it has become apparent to me that God provides all the answers – and He provides them in HIS time. And knowing that, I know that I have nothing to fear, because – at the end of the day – I have everything that I need for right now. And, if I did not, well, then God would give me the rest…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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