57 CHAPTER 3 Signs of the Mystery of the Immaculate Conception in the Life and Work of St. Stanislaus Papczyński Exploring the mystery of the Immaculate Conception of Mary in the light of the theology of the Paschal mystery allows it to be clearly stated that the Immaculate Conception is a relational and personalistic mystery. The Immaculate Conception is primarily the Person of the Holy Spirit so strongly united with the Virgin of Nazareth that she can exist as Full of Grace and become the Mother of the Word. That is why the exclamation: Immaculata Virginis Mariae Conceptio sit nobis salus et protectio (translated as “May the Virgin Mary’s Immaculate Conception be our salvation [not health] and our protection!”), which is so dear to the tradition of the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception, is fully justified. This salvation and protection is the fullness of the Holy Spirit, Who lives in Mary and makes her His temple. It is also the Paschal Christ, from Whom Mary receives life in the order of grace as the New Eve. However, the Immaculate Conception is also the person of Mary herself, the Mother of Christ, in her relationship with the Triune God, Who does not act and reveal Himself through abstract concepts or theological ideas, but only through and in living persons. He does not live in buildings or any other works of human hands. God manifests Himself through man and lives in man, created in His image and likeness as His sign in the world. However, God, being not a “single person” but the Community of Persons, creates and reveals Himself through a community: firstly through a man and a woman who are called to make a family and through the Church — a family of Christ’s disciples not based on blood ties but on a relationship of faith and Christian love. In the mystery of her Immaculate Conception, Mary is the sign, the beginning, and the personification of this community. A relationship of mutual being is a sign here. On the one hand, Mary, in the mystery of the Immaculate Conception, represents and embodies the Church because the Church exists in and as a person through her. Many years ago, Pope Benedict XVI, while still Cardinal Ratzinger, wrote about this concept, explaining a proper
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