A gem of light, clarity and conciseness, this article was written originally in Latin by Fr. Maximilian and published in the first issue of his international Latin quarterly for priests MILES IMMACULATAE January 1938 

HOW MANY HAVE WRITTEN of you, O Immaculata, but all of them have humbly confessed they were unable to write anything worthy of you. This conviction alone consoled them, that you yourself would speak to souls with their words, and instruct the humble and chaste more richly than the writers themselves could have understood the things of which they wrote.

Please let me praise you, too, most holy Virgin, even if I know that I, too, who write of you am unworthy, and that no human intellect that comprehends your glory is really sufficient.

You are the Refuge of sinners, the Help of Christians, and Queen of apostles, of martyrs, of confessors, of all the saints and of the angels themselves, the Mother of Christ, the Mother of the Savior, the Mother of the Redeemer, the true Mother of God.

Here the inept human intellect that would grasp the infinity of God and consequently the dignity of the Mother of God is already deficient.

God is love. In the fullness of this life the Father generates the Son; the Spirit however proceeds from the Father and the Son.

But since God also loved the possible images of himself, he chose some of them and gave them real existence. These creatures perfect themselves by the force of reaction as it were, and so tend back to God from whom they proceed.

In fact, even men endowed with free will similarly tend back to God, but to what imperfections are they not subject, and how much do they not quarrel with the Divine Will, with the Godhead?

From eternity God foresaw a creature who would in no way, even in the least matter, ever swerve away from him; who would never waste any grace, or appropriate for herself any of the gifts she would receive from him. The Giver of grace, the Holy Spirit, has dwelt in her soul from the first moment of her existence. He took complete and absolute possession of her, and entered into her to such a degree that the title of Spouse of the Holy Spirit gives us only a remote, feeble, imperfect although true inkling of their relationship.

Nor did he permit the stain of Original Sin to defile her. And she was created as the woman conceived without sin, the Woman Conceived Immaculately.

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.

And just as everything in the natural and supernatural order comes down from the Father through the Son and the Spirit into creatures, so similarly all creatures also ascend back to the Father through the Spirit and the Son.

And yet the most perfect of creatures, the Immaculate Virgin is lifted above every creature, and in an unspeakable manner she is divine. For the Son of God descended from the Father through the Spirit and dwelt in her and was incarnate in her and she was made the Mother of God, the Mother of the God-Man, the Mother of Jesus. From that moment every grace coming from the Father through the Incarnate Son Jesus and the Spirit who dwells in the Immaculata - is dispensed through the Immaculata. And every sign of love from creatures is presented in God’s presence only after it has been cleansed of its imperfections through the Immaculata and elevated by Jesus to infinite value and therefore, made worthy of the majesty of our Heavenly Father.

The union between the Holy Spirit and the Immaculate Virgin is so set and sealed that the Holy Spirit, by his entering into the soul of the Immaculata, does not flow into other souls except in her presence. Whence she is the Mediatrix of all graces, whence she has been made also the true Mother of every divine grace. Whence she is the Queen of the Angels and Saints, the Help of Christians and the Refuge of Sinners.

O, how little known the Immaculate Virgin still is! When will the souls of men love the Divine Heart of Jesus with her Heart, and in the presence of His Heart love the Heavenly Father?

Blessings on the hand of women!
Angels guard its strength and grace,
In the palace, cottage, hovel,
Oh, no matter where the place;

Would that never storms assailed it,
Rainbows ever gently curled;
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

Infancy’s the tender fountain,
Power may with beauty flow,
Mother’s first to guide the streamlets,
From them souls unresting grow—

Grow on for the good or evil,
Sunshine streamed or evil hurled;
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

Woman, how divine your mission
Here upon our natal sod!
Keep, oh, keep the young heart open
Always to the breath of God!

All true trophies of the ages
Are from mother-love impearled;
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

Blessings on the hand of women!
Fathers, sons, and daughters cry,
And the sacred song is mingled
With the worship in the sky—

Mingles where no tempest darkens,
Rainbows evermore are hurled;
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

~by William Ross Wallace