So, why is the Immaculate Conception so important for Catholics? What is the big deal? Let’s try to unpack what it is all about.
Our Lady appeared to St. Bernadette Soubirous from February 11 until July 16, 1858 in the grotto of Lourdes, France. She asked for prayer, penance and that a chapel should be built in that place for people to come and pray. The parish priest of Lourdes instructed St. Bernadette to ask the Lady her name. Finally, on March 15, the Lady replied with great humility and awe, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” But what does that mean? Little Bernadette did not understand. It is a mystery that has been probed by saints and theologians for centuries.
In the twentieth century, St. Maximillian Kolbe sought to understand the reply of Our Lady of Lourdes. He asked her in prayer, “Who are you, O Immaculate Conception?”
This question summed up the great quest that inspired St. Maximillian Kolbe to live his life totally dedicated to God through Mary Immaculate. While he wrote extensively about the Immaculate Conception, it was through his relationship with the Mother of God that clarity came to him and, through him, to us.
We might phrase the question in this way: “Why are you important in our life, O Mary Immaculate?” To gain insight, we should begin by looking at the two great feasts we celebrate during the month of December—the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady on December 8 and the Birth of our Savior on December 25. At first glance, it seems that they are not closely related. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The great feast of the Immaculate Conception highlights the truth that the Blessed Virgin Mary “was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin” (Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus). The Second Vatican Council taught that Our Lady is “free from any stain of sin, as though fashioned by the Holy Spirit and formed as a new creature” (Lumen Gentium, 56). Pope Pius XII echoed this, teaching that “Mary remained free of every personal sin her whole life long” (Pius XII, Mystici Corporis).
Our belief in Our Lady’s freedom from sin is foundational for comprehending the profound love and veneration that both the Latin Church and the Eastern Church have held for her from the earliest times. Her Immaculate Conception is a gift given to her by God in anticipation of the redemptive work of her Son Jesus. She was conceived sinless and lived her entire life free from sin so that would be prepared to play a very important role in the salvation of us all.
The Eastern Fathers of the Church called Mary Panagia, meaning “the All Holy.” Her pervasive holiness made her the worthy vessel who could conceive in her virginal womb God Himself. We see, then, that her conception without sin is intimately related to the conception of Jesus, the Incarnate Word, within her. The first prepares for the second. Her freedom from sin throughout her entire life prepared her to become the Mother of God Himself.
That brings us back to the question, “Why are you important in our life, O Mary Immaculate?” We believe that Our Lord was sinless and His Mother, too. Sadly, we know that we are not sinless. Because of the original sin of our first parents, Adam and Eve, and our own sins, we are in need of redemption. We are in need of a Savior. Through Mary the Savior comes to us. Consequently, Mary assumes a special place in our life.
From the pages of the Gospel of John, we hear of the prominent role that Mary has and the intimate relationship that Jesus established between His Mother and us. Jesus established this relationship as He hung upon the cross. “Behold your son,” Jesus said to Mary. “Behold your Mother,” He said to St. John. How does St. John respond to these words from the lips of Jesus. “And from that hour the disciple took her into his home” (Jn 19:27). St. John does not simply take Our Lady into his physical home. Rather, he takes her into the intimacy of his heart. Jesus wants us to do the same.
Countless saints through the ages have done just that. St. John Damascene, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Bridget of Sweden, St. Louis de Montfort, St. Bernadette Soubirous, St. Catherine Labouré, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, St. Faustina Kowalska, St. Maximillian Kolbe, St. John Paul II, St. Teresa of Calcutta, Blessed Carlo Acutis and myriads of others have taken Mary into their lives. The saints know by the gift of God’s grace that this Woman, sinless from her conception, was very important in their lives and in their relationship with her Son. They knew that they were called to have an intimate, loving relationship with her. They knew that they must turn to her in their needs, their sorrows, their pain and their joy, because she who brought Jesus to them by His conception and birth also brought them to Jesus by her love and prayerful intercession. We are called to do the same.
The Church teaches that bringing Jesus to us and bringing us to Jesus is Our Lady’s “job description,” or, better yet, it is the reason she was conceived without sin and why the Lord gave her to us as our Mother, and us to her as her children.
When we follow the example of St. John, and take her into our “home,” into the intimacy of our heart, we find that she draws us to her own Immaculate Heart, where we find sure refuge, where we find our home, where we find the surest way to Jesus Himself.
That is why Mary’s conception and Jesus’ conception and birth are so profoundly related one to the other. That is why the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and the Feast of Jesus’ Birth gloriously proclaim God’s love for us and His desire that we should be with Him forever.
In answer to the question, “Who are you, O Immaculate Conception?” we might offer this response, “You, O Immaculate Mother, are the way that Jesus comes to us and the way we come to Jesus.” It is an answer that is utterly simple and, at the same time, as profound as God’s Word becoming One of us in the Incarnation of Jesus.
The home in which I grew up surely took Our Lady in, because her images were everywhere. Our home also took her in spiritually, because she was spoken of, praised, and spoken
to every day. We knew that her Immaculate Conception was the first dawn of the coming of her Son, the Savior. I pray that every home today will take her in and place themselves under her protection!
Most Reverend William J. Waltersheid
Auxiliary Bishop of Pittsburgh