I am the Immaculate Conception

On March 25, 1858 at Lourdes in France in response to a young girl who had asked her, the Beautiful Lady replied to the question of her name, saying,

"I AM THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION".

Less than four years prior, the Holy Father had issued an encyclical:

THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION Apostolic Constitution Ineffabilis Deus

December 8, 1854 Bl. Pope Pius IX

God Ineffable-whose ways are mercy and truth, whose will is omnipotence itself, and whose wisdom "reaches from end to end mightily, and orders all things sweetly" -having foreseen from all eternity the lamentable wretchedness of the entire human race which would result from the sin of Adam, decreed, by a plan hidden from the centuries, to complete the first work of his goodness by a mystery yet more wondrously sublime through the Incarnation of the Word.

This he decreed in order that man who, contrary to the plan of Divine Mercy had been led into sin by the cunning malice of Satan, should not perish; and in order that what had been lost in the first Adam would be gloriously restored in the Second Adam. From the very beginning, and before time began, the eternal Father chose and prepared for his only-begotten Son a Mother in whom the Son of God would become incarnate and from whom, in the blessed fullness of time, he would be born into this world.

Above all creatures did God so love her that truly in her was the Father well pleased with singular delight. Therefore, far above all the angels and all the saints so wondrously did God endow her with the abundance of all heavenly gifts poured from the treasury of his divinity that this mother, ever absolutely free of all stain of sin, all fair and perfect, would possess that fullness of holy innocence and sanctity than which, under God, one cannot even imagine anything greater, and which, outside of God, no mind can succeed in comprehending fully.

Bl. Pope Pius IX would not be the only Holy Father to write about the Immaculate Conception, more recently another encylical and other writings of the Servant of God, Pope John Paul II included:

According to the belief formulated in solemn documents of the Church, this "glory of grace" is manifested in the Mother of God through the fact that she has been "redeemed in a more sublime manner." By virtue of the richness of the grace of the beloved Son, by reason of the redemptive merits of him who willed to become her Son, Mary was preserved from the inheritance of the original sin.

In this way, from the first moment of her conception-which is to say of her existence-she belonged to Christ, sharing in the salvific and sanctifying grace and in that love which has its beginning in the “Beloved”, the Son of the Eternal Father, who through the Incarnation became her own Son.

Consequently, through the power of the Holy Spirit, in the order of grace, which is a participation in the divine nature, Mary received life from Him to whom she herself in the order of earthly generation gave life as a mother. The liturgy does not hesitate to call her "mother of her Creator"…  (“Mother of the Redeemer”)

+

The Holy Father also said in a talk given in February 1981 at Nagasaki: 

 Was it not for our encouragement that God chose to come to us through the Immaculate Virgin, conceived without sin? From the first moment of her existence she was never under the power of sin, while we are called to be cleansed of sin by opening our heart to the merciful Redeemer whom she brought into this world. There is no better way to approach her Son than through her. 

 Many Saints have written and spoken of the Immaculate Conception including this thought from St. Maximilian Kolbe, a Franciscan called the 'Saint of our difficult (20th) century' :

At Lourdes the Immaculate did not say, "I am immaculately conceived" but rather, "I am the Immaculate Conception." In like manner she describes not only the fact itself of the Immaculate Conception, but also the way that privilege was bestowed upon her. She herself is the Immaculate Conception.

(and still we ask) Who are you? 0 Immaculate Conception!

Not God, for God has no beginning. Not an angel, directly created from nothing. Not Adam, made from the dust of the earth. Not Eve, drawn from Adam's body. Nor is she the Incarnate Word who already existed from all eternity and who was conceived, but is not really a "conception." Prior to their conception the children of Eve do not exist, hence they can more properly be called "conceptions"; and yet you, 0 Mary, differ from them, too, because they are conceptions contaminated by original sin, whereas you are the one and only Immaculate Conception.

And saints yet to be canonized also have written much on Our Lady's Immaculate Conception including this from Archbishop Fulton Sheen:

This special purity of hers we call the Immaculate Conception. It is not the Virgin Birth. The word "immaculate" is taken from two Latin words meaning "not stained". "Conception" means that, at the first moment of her conception, the Blessed Mother in the womb of her mother, St. Anne, and in virtue of the anticipated merits of the Redemption of her Son, was preserved free from the stains of Original Sin.

I never could see why anyone in this day and age should object to the Immaculate Conception; all modern pagans believe that they are immaculately conceived. If there is no Original Sin, then everyone is immaculately conceived. Why do they shrink from allowing to Mary what they attribute to themselves? The doctrine of Original Sin and the Immaculate Conception are mutually exclusive. If Mary alone is the Immaculate Conception, then the rest of us must have Original Sin.

The Immaculate Conception does not imply that Mary needed no Redemption. She needed it as much as you and I do. She was redeemed in advance, by way of prevention, in both body and soul, in the first instant of conception. She received the fruits of redemption in our soul at Baptism. The whole human race needs redemption. But Mary was separated from that sin-laden humanity as a result of the merits of Our Lord's Cross being offered to her at the moment of her conception.

If we exempted her from the need of redemption, we would also have to exempt her from membership in humanity. The Immaculate Conception, therefore, in no way implies that she needed no redemption. She did! Mary is the first effect of redemption, in the sense that it was applied to her at the moment of her conception and to us in another and diminished fashion only after our birth.

She had this privilege, not for her sake, but for His sake. That is why those who do not believe in the Divinity of Christ can see no reason for the special privilege accorded to Mary. If I did not believe in the Divinity of Our Lord -which God avert- I should see nothing but nonsense in any special reverence given to Mary above the other women on earth! But if she is the Mother of God, Who became Man, then she is unique, and then she stands out as the new Eve of Humanity-as He is the new Adam.

Immaculate Mary, thy praises we sing;
Who reignest in splendor with Jesus our King.
Ave, ave, ave, Maria! Ave, ave, Maria!

We pray for our Mother, the Church upon earth,
And bless, dearest Lady, the land of our birth.
Ave, ave, ave, Maria! Ave, ave, Maria!