It was on Thursday, March 25, 1858, at the 16th apparition of Our Lady to Bernadette Soubirous in Lourdes that she revealed herself, saying: “I am the Immaculate Conception.”
God, who is all-knowing, already knew about the Fall of Man; but God still carried out His plan of creation and created man; not only because He wanted to give them human life, but more importantly, to offer him eternal life; i.e., to share in the Life of the Holy Trinity.
God created man with a free will – the freedom to choose God or not to choose God. God did not want to force man to love Him; rather, He wanted man to choose to love Him in response to His love. But since man fell into sin, there needed to be a Mediator between God and man, and quite fittingly, that the Mediator was someone who is both human and divine.
Therefore, the Son of God, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, in His love and obedience to the Father, was made incarnate as man. For that to happen, the Eternal Word needed a human mother, and God chose Mary. The incarnate Word is true God and true man; His divinity was eternally begotten from the Eternal Father and His human flesh came from Mary, His Mother. From all the women on earth; past, present and future, Mary was chosen to be the Mother of His Son. God chose that the human flesh of His Son would come from Mary. Because of that, God preserved Mary from original sin at her conception. God made Mary to be sinless and “full of grace.”
Holy Mass will be offered on the feast day of Our Lady of Lourdes, February 11 at 12:00 noon.