The Immaculate Conception, Joachim and St. Anne Meet Beneath the Golden Gate



The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich




II. THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION



1. JOACHIM AND ST. ANNE MEET BENEATH THE GOLDEN GATE.

It was a warning from on high that had led Joachim into the Holy Place, and it was by a similar inspiration that he was brought into a subterranean passage which belonged to the consecrated part of the Temple and ran under it and under the Golden Gate. I have been told what was the meaning and origin of this passage when the Temple was built, and also what it was used for, but I have no clear recollection of this. Some religious observance relating to the blessing and reconciliation of the unfruitful was, I think, connected with this passage. In certain circumstances people were brought into it for rites of purification, expiation, absolution, and the like. [32] Joachim was led by priests near the slaughtering-place through a little door into this passage. The priests turned back, but Joachim continued along the passage, which gradually sloped downwards. Anna had also come to the Temple with her maidservant, who was carrying the doves for sacrifice in wicker baskets. She had handed over her offering and had revealed to a priest that she had been bidden by an angel to meet her husband under the Golden Gate. I now saw that she was led by priests, accompanied by some venerable women (among whom I think was the prophetess Anna), through an entrance on the other side into the consecrated passage, where her companions left her. I had a very wonderful view of what this passage was like. Joachim went through a little door; the passage sloped downwards, and was at first narrow but became broader afterwards. The walls were of glistening gold and green, and a reddish light shone in from above. I saw beautiful pillars like twisted trees and vines. After passing through about a third of the passage Joachim came to a place in the midst of which stood a pillar in the form of a palm tree with hanging leaves and fruits. Here he was met by Anna, radiant with happiness. They embraced each other with holy joy, and each told the other their good tidings. They were in a state of ecstasy and enveloped in a cloud of light. I saw this light issuing from a great host of angels, who were carrying the appearance of a high shining tower and hovering above the heads of Anna and Joachim. The form of this tower was the same as I see in pictures, from the litany of the Blessed Virgin, of the Tower of David, the Tower of Ivory, and so forth. I saw that this tower seemed to disappear between Anna and Joachim, who were enveloped in a glory of brightness. I understood that, as a result of the grace here given, the conception of Mary was as pure as all conceptions would have been but for the Fall. I had at the same time an indescribable vision. The heavens opened above them, and I saw the joy of the Holy Trinity and of the angels, and their participation in the mysterious blessing here bestowed on Mary's parents. Anna and Joachim returned, praising God, to the exit under the Golden Gate: towards the end the passage sloped upwards. They came into a kind of chapel under a beautiful and high arch, where many lights were burning. Here they were received by priests who led them away. The part of the Temple above which was the hall of the Sanhedrin lay over the middle of the subterranean passage; above this end of it were, I think, dwellings of priests whose duty it was to look after the vestments. Joachim and Anna now came to a kind of bay at the outermost edge of the Temple hill, overlooking the valley of Josaphat, where the path could no longer go straight on but branched to right and left. After they had visited another priest's house, I saw Joachim and Anna and their servants starting on their journey home. On their arrival at Nazareth, Joachim, after a joyful meal, gave food to many poor people and distributed generous alms. I saw how full he and Anna were of joy and fervor and gratitude to God when they thought of His compassion towards them; I often saw them praying together with tears.

It was explained to me here that the Blessed Virgin was begotten by her parents in holy obedience and complete purity of heart, and that thereafter they lived together in continence in the greatest devoutness and fear of God. I was at the same time clearly instructed how immeasurably the holiness of children was encouraged by the purity, chastity, and continence of their parents and by their resistance to all unclean temptations; and how continence after conception preserves the fruit of the womb from many sinful impulses. In general, I was given an overflowing abundance of knowledge about the roots of deformity and sin.

....



Taken from: http://www.ecatholic2000.com/anne/lom9.shtml

"I am the Immaculate Conception"



THE DOGMA OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

Excerpted and compiled from, IMMACULATE CONCEPTION AND THE HOLY SPIRIT:

The Marian Teachings of Fr. Maximilian Kolbe, Fr. H.M. Manteau-Bonamy, O.P.

"I Am the Immaculate Conception."

A few hours before his second and final arrest, on February 17, 1941, Fr. Kolbe had time to put on paper his thoughts about her, who for a quarter of a century, day after day, had never ceased to occupy his priestly and apostolic mind and heart. This text, is therefore, of the highest importance. He could not have written it during his captivity at Pawiak near Warsaw, nor during his detention in the death camp at Auschwitz, even though he delivered many spiritual sermons on the Immaculata. In these lines we find the gist of his Marian doctrine ---- based on several sketches of text from a projected book of his, dating back mostly to the years 1939--41.

This last writing of Saint Maximilian Kolbe constitutes his spiritual testament. Let us follow the line of his reasoning, taking care to be faithful to his thought:

IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. These words fell from the lips of the Immaculata herself. Hence, they must tells us in the most precise and essential manner who she really is.

Since human words are incapable of expressing Divine realities it follows that these words: "Immaculate," and "Conception" must be understood in a much more profound, much more beautiful and sublime meaning than usual: a meaning beyond that which human reason at its most penetrating, commonly gives to them . . . However, we can and should reverently inquire into the mystery of the Immaculata and try to express it words provided by our intelligence using its own proper powers.

Who then are you, O Immaculate Conception?

Not God, of course, because He has no beginning. Not an angel, created directly out of nothing. Not Adam, formed out of the dust of the earth. Not Eve, molded from Adam's rib. Not the Incarnate Word, Who exists before all ages, and of Whom we should use the word "conceived" rather than "conception."

Humans do not exist before their conception, so we might call them created "conceptions." But you, O Mary, are different from all other children of Eve. They are conceptions stained by Original Sin; whereas you are the unique, Immaculate Conception.

Everything which exists, outside of God Himself, since it is from God and depends on Him in every way, bears within itself some semblance to its Creator; there is nothing in any creature which does not betray this resemblance, because every created thing is an effect of the Primal Cause.

It is true that the words we use to speak of created realities express the Divine perfections only in a halting, limited and analogical manner. They are only a more or less distant echo----as are the created realities that they signify ---- of the properties of God himself. Would not "conception" be an exception to this rule? No, there is never any such exception. The Father begets the Son; the Son proceeds from the Father and the Son. Theses few words sum up the mystery of the life of the Most Blessed trinity and of all the perfections in creatures which are nothing else but echoes, a hymn of praise of this primary and most wondrous of all mysteries.

We must perforce use our vocabulary, since it is all we have; but we must never forget that our vocabulary is very inadequate.

Who is the Father? What is His personal life like? It consists in begetting, eternally because He begets His Son from the beginning and forever.

Who is the Son? He is the Begotten-One, because from the beginning and for all eternity He is begotten by the Father.

And Who is the Holy Spirit? The flowering of the love of the Father and the Son. If the fruit of created is a created conception, then the fruit of Divine love, that prototype of all created love, is necessarily a Divine "conception." The Holy Spirit is, therefore, the "uncreated, eternal conception," the prototype of all the conceptions that multiply life throughout the whole universe.

The Father begets; the Son is begotten; the Spirit is the "conception" that springs from their love; there we have the intimate life of the Three Persons by which They can be distinguished from one another. But They are united in the Oneness of Their Nature, of Their Divine existence. The Spirit is, then, this thrice holy "conception," this infinitely holy Immaculate Conception . . .

The creature most completely filled with this love, filled with God Himself, was the Immaculata, who never contacted the slightest stain of sin, who never departed in the least from God's will. United to the Holy Spirit as His spouse, she is one with God in an incomparably more perfect way than can be predicated of any other creature.

What sort of Union is this? It is above all an interior union, a union of her essence with the "essence" of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit dwells in her; lives in her. This was true from the first instance of her existence. It was always true and it will always be true.

And in what does this life of the Spirit in Mary consist? He Himself is uncreated Love in her; the Love of the Father and of the Son, the Love by which God loves Himself, the very love of the Most Holy Trinity. he is a fruitful Love, a "Conception." Among creatures made in God's image, the union brought about by married love is the most intimate of all. In a much more precise, more interior, more essential manner, the Holy Spirit lives in the soul of the Immaculata, in the depths of her very being. He makes her fruitful, from the very first instance of her existence, all during her life, and for all eternity.

This eternal "Immaculate Conception" [which is the Holy Spirit] produces in an immaculate manner Divine life itself in the womb or depths of Mary's soul, making her the Immaculate Conception, the human Immaculate Conception. And the virginal womb of Mary's body is kept sacred for Him; there He conceives in time the human life of the Man-God.

And so the return to God [which is love], that is to say the equal and contrary reaction, follows a different path from that found in creation. The path of creation goes from the Father through the Son and by the Holy Spirit; this return trail goes from the Spirit through the Son back to the Father; in other words, by the Spirit the Son becomes incarnate in the womb of the Immaculata; and through this Son love returns to the Father.

And she the Immaculata, grafted into the Love of the Blessed trinity, becomes from the first moment of her existence and forever after the "complement of the Blessed Trinity." In the Holy Spirit's union with Mary we observe more than the love of two beings; in there is is all the love of the Blessed trinity; in the other, all of creation's love. So it is that in this union Heaven and earth are joined; all of Heaven with the earth, the totality of eternal love with the totality of created love. It is truly the summit of love. At Lourdes, she did not say that she was conceived immaculately, but as St. Bernadette repeated it, "Que soy era immaculata councepiou:" "I am the Immaculate Conception."

THE DOGMA OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION: LOURDES

Mary's affirmation at Lourdes: "I am the Immaculate Conception" refers not only to her spiritual "I," but to the total, personal "I:" to her body united to her soul as to its vital principle, both making up her personal reality:

Our Heavenly Father is the source of all that is; everything comes from the Blessed Trinity. We cannot see God, and so Jesus came to this earth, to Him known to us. The Most Blessed Virgin is the one in whom we venerate the Holy Spirit, for she is His spouse. The Third Person of the Blessed trinity never took flesh; still, our human word "spouse" is far too weak to express the reality of the relationship between the Immaculata and the Holy Spirit. We can affirm that she is, in a certain sense, the "incarnation" of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit that we love in her; and through her we love the Son . . .

....

Taken from: http://www.catholictradition.org/Mary/conception.htm#2

How did the AMAIC come about?

The seeds of the AMAIC were sown in the 1970s from the determination of a group of Australian Catholics to counteract widespread doctrinal and moral error and to uphold the light of truth. The notion of Academy was already in the minds of members due to their associations with schools, colleges, seminaries, and other academic institutions, also through philosophy (e.g. Plato’s Academy), and the Thomistic influence of the famous Aquinas Academy of Dr. Austin Woodbury (S.M.), in Sydney. The cherished phrase, Marian Academy , to which we added our national designation, Australian, was inspired by St. Maximilian Kolbe, who had said: “If the Immaculata wants it, we shall found a Marian Academy to study, teach and publish for the entire world what the Immaculata is – an Academy even with a doctorate in Mariology”. We owed this last piece of information to Kolbe Missionary and former Legionary of Mary, Josephine Mary Nethery, of Sydney Australia, who had provided us with E. Piacentini ’s “Panorama of the Marian Doctrine of Bl. [now Saint] Maximilian Kolbe”.

Finally, as already noted, His Eminence Cardinal Deskur invested our Academy with the concluding phrase of our title, of the Immaculate Conception.

....

Saint Maximilan Kolbe on "Marian Academy" and Marian Consecration

Consecration and Transubstantiation into the Immaculate

Written by Fr. Peter Damian Fehlner, F.I.

Friday, 24 June 2011 00:00

Taken from: http://www.motherofallpeoples.com/Articles/General_Mariology/consecration-and-transubstantiation-into-the-immaculate.html Page 1 of 2 The following is excerpted from Fr. Peter Damian Fehlner's St. Maximilian M. Kolbe, Martyr of Charity: Pneumatologist, His Theology of the Holy Spirit (New Bedford, MA: Academy of the Immaculate, 2004). --Asst. Ed. Transubstantiation into the Immaculate   This usage, to many curious, of a term from Eucharistic dogma and doctrine by St. Maximilian, once in a letter and once in a conference, far from being the dangerous formula some see in it, is an original, yet deeply traditional insight of St. Maximilian. It describes very exactly the Marian mode of Eucharistic communion, or better the Eucharistic dimension of Marian mediation in the soul, precisely because it is the mediation of the Immaculate. The first known instance of the saint’s use of this phrase occurs in a letter to Fr. Vivoda (1) where he is discussing total consecration to the Immaculate in a context clearly Trinitarian, where total consecration makes us property of the Immaculate, just as being Immaculate, Spouse of the Holy Spirit, makes her property of the Father (viz., Daughter and Handmaid) and Mother of the Father's Son. In some ineffable way by becoming her property we share in the Trinitarian life and in the missions of the Son and Holy Spirit. Being her property he defines as our being annihilated in Her, changed into Her, transubstantiated into Her, so as it were to be Her. We are her possessions as She is God s and as She comes to give birth to the Son of God, so transubstantiated into Her we come to give birth to the same Son in the hearts of belong to or will belong to the Immaculate. Divinizatio hominis usque ad Deum-hominem per Dei-hominis Matrem. A few years later in a radio address on the twentieth anniversary of the M.I. he summarized the same notion of total consecration as "transubstantiation" into the Immaculate thus: The Militia of the Immaculate is a global vision of Catholic life under a new form, consisting of our bond with the Immaculate, our universal Mediatrix with Jesus (2). By this "transubstantiation" into the Immaculate St. Maximilian means expressly a personal or spousal union of love with the Immaculate on the part of those totally consecrated to her, a spousal union whose exemplar is the spousal union of the Immaculate with the Holy Spirit, which in a conference of 1938 (3) he describes as her transubstantiation into the Holy Spirit, whose name is later declared Immaculate Conception. It is this merging of personality and name which constitutes the "new form" for the life of grace and mission. The choice of terminology is interesting, seemingly inspired from on high. For it pinpoints the Marian mode of our incorporation into the Body of Christ and of our communion with Him, above all in the Eucharist. The miracle of consecration of bread and wine via their total conversion or transubstantiation into the Body and Blood of Christ at Mass is the basis for our total transformation or analogically "transubstantiation" into Christ, a "conversion" which remains imperfect until it is fully activated in a Marian way, viz., analogically via transubstantiation into the Immaculate, so that the Church might be "immaculate": sine macula, sine ruga. The personality of the Church as distinct from that of Christ her head is precisely the personality of the Immaculate. And so it must also be for each member, actual and potential. Whence we may speak not only of a kind of presence of the Holy Spirit in the Body of Christ, but also of a Marian presence, whereby every aspect of the Church, including the hierarchical and Petrine is animated. Pope John Paul II often spoke of this presence (4). To promote this Marian presence in the Church is to "incorporate" the mystery of the Immaculate into the Church and into the whole of creation (5). To come under the influence of that presence is to be "transubstantiated" into the Immaculate, as by her Immaculate Conception she was "transubstantiated" into the Holy Spirit, becoming as it were one "personality" with that divine Person, so in relation to the Father enjoying the privilege of being Mother of God, with the Son Handmaid and Coredemptrix, Instrument of the Father for the redemption of the world, effected in the Church by the sanctificatory mission of the Holy Spirit-Immaculate Conception. Thus the mystery of the Immaculate is at the heart both of a Christian cosmology, but above all a Christian angelology and anthropology. Another word to describe this promotion of the cause of the Immaculate is marianization, or the Fiat, which with that of the Creator effects the re-creation or new creation. In this context Mary Immaculate qua Immaculate is the new creature, the measure of every new creation made "in the sanctity and justice of truth" (Eph 4:24) (6). This doctrine is best understood, organized and communicated in the context of the Marian pneumatology and pneumatological Mariology of St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe, an aspect of that larger spirit of Marian prayer and devotion to which all things temporal should be subject—or perfected in the triumph of the Immaculate Heart. The use of this term suggests one other avenue of reflection. Kolbean usage is at once Marian and pneumatological. Could this not furnish a very fruitful means of understanding correctly the oriental stress on epiklesis of the Holy Spirit in the celebration of the Mass and the equally prominent stress of the Virgin Mother of God in the traditional Roman Canon? In the light of the mystery of the Immaculate Conception, created and uncreated, there would seem to be here a marvelous convergence instead of opposition (7). Fifth conclusion or axiom (of a Franciscan-Scotistic-inspired pneumatology): to invoke or call upon—epiklesis—the Holy Spirit (Veni, Sancte Spiritus; Veni, Creator Spiritus) is to invoke or call upon Mary Immaculate and to invoke Mary Immaculate is to call upon the Holy Spirit in every moment of Christian life, from Baptism to the Eucharist, and in every circumstance. This invocation or epiklesis is at the heart of the new creation and is closely related to the mystery of the Ecclesia or Church (i.e., the "called out of" by Christ through Mary), the Body of Christ, whose members, like their Head, are to be crucified with Him in being totally transformed into Him. That transformation: dying to self (the old man or personality) in living to Him in the Spirit and in Mary, entails a process analogous to that of the transubstantiation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus and bound up with it. Communion: Marian Pneumatology and Ecclesiology The use of the term "transubstantiation" to describe the ultimate perfection of the union of love between divine and human will known as the Immaculate Conception recalls a pane rei the connection between the mystery of Mary on the one hand (and derivatively any type of Mariology, whether "Christo" or "ecclesio" typical) and that of the Eucharist, whether in reference to the Head of the Church or in reference to the members of the Body of Christ perfectly incorporated into that Body (8). The transubstantative action whereby the Eucharistic sacrifice and presence is realized, a sacrifice and presence directed to the perfect communion of the member of the Church and so to the realization of a Church sine macula et sine ruga (Eph 5:27), is by the will of God linked to the mediation of the Mother of God and to the virginal maternity of the preeminent member of the Church, the Immaculate Virgin. That link is not only per Mariam in the sense that without a devotion to her and without her mediation we will not be properly and/or sufficiently disposed to be fully incorporated or transformed into Christ as members of His Body, but also in Maria, in the sense that when our participation in the mystery of the Eucharist as Sacrifice and Sacrament is all that it should be, then the communion of the members with the Head and with each other is Marian in mode. What St. Bonaventure calls the Marian mode of the Incarnation and Redemption (9), applied to the Church as its realization, might be called the Marian personality of the Church (10), or the triumph of the Immaculate Heart, effectively the transubstantiation of all the members of the Church into the Immaculate so as to share in the Spirit of the Father and the Son, to be one as they are one (cf. Jn 17), a transformation in this life consummated in the Eucharist (11). It is by intensifying this Marian mode, an effort called by St. Maximilian "incorporation" or "implanting" of the mystery of the Immaculate into the life of the Church and of all mankind (12), that the missionary goals both of personal conversion to Christ through incorporation into the Church and of ecumenical union in the Church of the separated brethren will be reached. Downplaying that Marian mode will always be counterproductive. The Marian presence in the Church in pilgrimage, to which John Paul II so often referred in Redemptoris Mater, is the root reason for the all pervasive Marian character of any ecclesiology as it is also for the all pervasive character of any Christology. That presence, metaphysically speaking, rests on the grace of the Immaculate Conception and is made effective by the mystery of the Coredemption. This presence is absolutely fundamental to every other aspect of the Church, including the Petrine, as this Pontiff, elaborating on the title Mater Ecclesiae, frequently repeated (13). It defines, in other words, what has been rightly termed the mystical personality of the Church as Bride of Christ, without spot, without wrinkle, which defines the Virgin Mother's place in the Church as her "preeminent member" (LG 53) and the Church's fundamental character and dynamism as "virginal-maternal" (LG 63-65), that generic sacramentality which conditions every other dimension of the Church, especially the seven Sacraments and the hierarchical priesthood (14). It is this presence which explains why far from being directly and immediately involved in the sacramental-hierarchical dispensation of grace that dispensation never occurs, nor can it in the actual economy of salvation without her dynamic presence, a presence exquisitely engaging the notion of personal-dynamic-exemplary causality (15). To this St. Maximilian often alludes, in particular in the solemn formula of consecration to the Immaculate where he speaks of victory over Satan through the Immaculate, a reference that can only refer to the Marian dimension of Calvary and the Eucharist where the victory over Satan is definitively effected for the entire Church and all of her members, actual or potential; and where he also refers specifically to her direct involvement with the hierarchical Magisterium in guarding the Deposit of Faith—through her every heresy is crushed, that is, every deceit of the master liar and murderer (cf. Jn 8:44) is blunted and put to naught (16). The priority of the Marian to every other aspect of the Church, that is, the direct and immediate influence of her maternal mediation on every other aspect of the Church in such wise as to leave on each the imprint of her person, is surely present in this formula of consecration, which the saint regarded as a kind of synthesis of his thought and practice. Apart from any discussion of sources, it is this view which has been so trenchantly and repeatedly articulated by Pope John Paul II, without the slightest doubt a significant contribution to the progress of Marian and ecclesial reflection (17). To incorporate the mystery of the Immaculate, viz., the mystery of the created and uncreated Immaculate Conception, into the Church is but the practical formulation of what it means to be transubstantiated into the Immaculate by way of total consecration, to live by that same mystery of charity which constitutes the heart of communion and fellowship, the charity which is the distinctive feature of the Holy Spirit. We may say that the role of charity in the Church animating every other dimension of the mystical Body is to make real in all the members the personality of the Immaculate, that is, to make them her property and possession. Without this the Franciscan ideal of "repairing the Church" is impossible of attainment. For as St. Francis, anticipating Vatican II in deriving the virginal-maternal character of the Church from the dynamic presence of the Virgo Mater in her, says in his Salute to the Virgin the Virgin Mother is the Virgo Ecclesia Facta. She is that, as the Poverello says in the Antiphon for the Office of the Passion because she is the Spouse of the Holy Spirit, in her being and in her operation. To have the Holy Spirit and his holy operation (cf. St. Francis, Regula Bullata, ch. 10), above all that revealed in the Incarnation of the Word, is to have Mary Immaculate. And it is to the concrete, Marian character of this mystery of charity, the meeting point of divine and perfect created love, in the consummation of the redemptive Incarnation, on Calvary and on the Eucharistic Altar, that the Martyr of Charity gave witness with his death as with his life and for which he continues to labor "with both hands" from heaven (18). Sixth Conclusion or axiom (of a Franciscan-Scotistic-inspired pneumatology): a Marian pneumatology resting on the mystery of the Immaculate Conception provides the only secure basis both for missionary and for ecumenical endeavor. Prev 1 2 Next < Prev Next >

John Paul II an Ideal Patron for the AMAIC

The 'Polish connection' as an inspiration for the name and the character of the

Australian Marian Academy of the Immaculate Conception (AMAIC)

 

is very strong. As explained below, our Marian Academy took part of its name from Polish St. Maximilian Kolbe's desire for a "Marian Academy", and part of it from the advice of Polish Cardinal Deskur. So why may we not also implore the patronage of the latters' good friend, Karol Wojytla?

....

Manifesto for an Australian Marian University

Contents:
 

1. What is the Australian Marian Academy of the Immaculate Conception (AMAIC)?
2. How did the AMAIC come about?
3. What are the Purpose and Function of the AMAIC?
4. What is Distinctive about the AMAIC?
5. What Subjects may be offered by the AMAIC?
6. What are the Resources and Tools of the AMAIC?
7. What are the Short-Term and Long-Term Goals of the AMAIC?

1.What is the Australian Marian Academy of the Immaculate Conception (AMAIC)? The Australian Marian Academy [AMA], as it was initially known, was formed in the early 1980s largely by a group of academics and teachers devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary, particularly under her title of Our Lady of the Rosary (at Fatima). In May of 1988 this was the description of the Australian Marian Academy written into our Constitution (p. 19):
As a recognized “aggregate of persons” [CJC Can. 115] the Academy “is a private association of Christ’s faithful striving with common effort to foster a more perfect life … and to promote Christian teaching” [Can. 298]. Its Constitution has been reviewed by the competent authority [Can. 299 §3]. It chooses to exercise its juridical personhood through an Executive of 7 members. [ Can. 115, §2]. On this solid footing we wish to affiliate with the mother Academy in Rome : the “Pontificia Accademia dell’Immacolata Concezione”, at the request of its present head, the Vice-President of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, Father Marino Maccarelli.
With reference to our Constitution, the Most Reverend John Jobst, Bishop of Broome ( Western Australia ), wrote:
“I welcome the establishment of the Australian Marian Academy which could be associated with the Marian Academy in Rome . One cannot but notice the role of the Mother of God in “crushing the serpent’s head” throughout the history of the Church …. [Pope John Paul II] has spoken out clearly and encouraged any efforts promoting the devotion to Mary the Mother of God. For these reasons the Marian Academy is very timely …. I can only say that the statements made in the Constitution are true and in keeping with the Church’s sound teaching …”.
And respected theologian and canon lawyer, Dr. Harry J. Jordan (MSC), of Sydney Australia, agreed with these “sentiments” expressed by Bishop Jobst:
“Yesterday’s postman brought me your ‘Reflections’ [first draft of the AMA Constitution] …. I do congratulate you and I concur with the sentiments of its worth from that valiant Bishop John Jobst”.
In 1990, in a meeting in the Vatican with Andrzej Maria Cardinal Deskur, a compatriot and very close friend of then Pope John Paul II – President of the Pontifical Academy of the Immaculate Conception (formerly President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications) – His Eminence insisted on our adding to the Academy’s title the phrase “of the Immaculate Conception”. Thus our Academy became: The Australian Marian Academy
of the Immaculate Conception

2. How did the AMAIC come about?

The seeds of the AMAIC were sown in the 1970s from the determination of a group of Australian Catholics to counteract widespread doctrinal and moral error and to uphold the light of truth. The notion of Academy was already in the minds of members due to their associations with schools, colleges, seminaries, and other academic institutions, also through philosophy (e.g. Plato’s Academy), and the Thomistic influence of the famous Aquinas Academy of Dr. Austin Woodbury (S.M.), in Sydney.
The cherished phrase, Marian Academy , to which we added our national designation, Australian, was inspired by St. Maximilian Kolbe, who had said:
“If the Immaculata wants it, we shall found a Marian Academy to study, teach and publish for the entire world what the Immaculata is – an Academy even with a doctorate in Mariology”.
We owed this last piece of information to Kolbe Missionary and former Legionary of Mary, Josephine Mary Nethery, of Sydney Australia, who had provided us with E. Piacentini ’s “Panorama of the Marian Doctrine of Bl. [now Saint] Maximilian Kolbe”.
Finally, as already noted, His Eminence Cardinal Deskur invested our Academy with the concluding phrase of our title, of the Immaculate Conception.

....