Our Lady of Lourdes

As a kid, I enjoyed the 1943 movie "The Song of Bernadette" starring Jennifer Jones as Bernadette Soubirous.

Yesterday, On February 11th, we celebrated Our Lady of Lourdes at mass.

On 11th. February 1858 Bernadette, her sister Toinette and a friend of theirs, Jeanne, went looking for wood on the meadows and led towards "the place where the canal rejoins the River Gave". They were in front of the Grotto of Massabielle. Toinette and Jeanne crossed the icy water, crying out with the cold; Bernadette hesitated to do this because of her chronic asthma. She heard "a noise like a gust of wind", but "none of the trees were moving". "Raising her head, she saw, in a hollow of the rock a small young lady, who looked at her and who smiled at her. This was the first Apparition of the Virgin Mary

During the third Apparition on 18th. February, The Virgin Mary spoke for the first time. Bernadette held out a sheet of paper and a pencil so that she might write down her name, but the Lady replied: "what I have to say to you does not have to be written down". This was an extraordinary statement. It meant that the Virgin Mary wanted to enter into a relationship which is of the order of love, at the level of the heart. The heart, in the Bible, signifies the very centre of the person, that which is the depth of the person. Bernadette was right away invited to open the depths of her heart to this Message of Love.

At the second statement of the Virgin Mary: "Would you do me the kindness of coming here for 15 days?" Bernadette was overwhelmed. It was the first time that anyone had addressed her in a formal way. Bernadette describes these words by saying that the Virgin looked at her 'as one person looks at another person'. Human beings, created in the image and likeness of God, are persons. Bernadette felt that she was also respected and loved, she also had the experience of being a person. We are all worthy of our dignity in the eyes of God. Because each of us is loved by God.

14th ApparitionWednesday 3rd. March: A smile From 7 o'clock in the morning, in the presence of three thousand people, Bernadette arrives at the Grotto, but the vision did not appear! After school, she heard the inner invitation of the Lady. She went to the Grotto and asked her again for her name. The response was a smile. The Parish Priest told her again: "If the Lady really wishes that a chapel be built, then she must tell us her name and make the rose bush bloom at the Grotto."

On 25th. March 1858, the day of the sixteenth Apparition, Bernadette went to the Grotto, and on the instigation of the Parish Priest, Abbé‚ Peyramale, asked the Lady for her name. Three times Bernadette asked the question. On the fourth request, the Lady responds in dialect "Que soy era Immaculada Conception". ("I am the Immaculate Conception"). Bernadette does not understand immediately the meaning of these words. The Immaculate Conception is, as the Church teaches, "Mary, conceived without sin, thanks to the merits of the Cross of Christ". (The definition of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception 1854) She goes to the Parish Priest to tell him the Lady's name. He understands that it is the Mother of God who has appeared at the Grotto of Massabielle. Later the Bishop of Tarbes, Monseigneur Laurence, confirms this.


THE TESTIMONY OF BERNADETTE.

The first argument of the Bishop was that Bernadette did not wish to deceive: she was sincere and her testimony gives all the guarantees that we could wish for. "Who could not admire, on meeting her, the simplicity, the openness, and the modesty of this child? She only spoke when she was spoken to. She spoke without exaggeration and with a touching naivety. To the many questions asked of her, she gave clear and precise answers always to the point, without hesitation and stamped with a strong conviction." The Bishop underlined that Bernadette was not shaken by threats or tempted by generous offers by saying : "Always in control of herself, she has, in the many different interrogations to which she was submitted, constantly maintained what she said, with nothing added, nothing retracted. The sincerity of Bernadette is, thus, unquestionable." But the Bishop goes further in his argument: sincere, Bernadette is not mistaken : "But if Bernadette does not want to deceive, was she not deceived herself? How could she believe to see and hear what she did not see and hear? Was she not the victim of hallucinations? How could we believe her? The wisdom of her answers reveals in this child a spirit of goodness, a quiet imagination, good sense beyond her years. Religious feelings never showed in her a spirit of exhalation; nobody could prove in the young girl neither intellectual disorder, nor change of mind nor unusual personality nor morbid feelings which would allow her to give way to a creative imagination." And the Bishop added that Bernadette saw not once but eighteen times, suddenly, when nothing was prepared there and that there were other times when she waited and saw nothing. He notes that her expression changed during the Apparitions and that she heard in a language that she did not always understand, but which she always remembered. "These circumstances put together do not allow us to believe in a hallucination, the young girl has truly seen and heard a being calling herself the Immaculate Conception. And this phenomenon cannot be explained naturally, we have good reason to believe that the Apparition is supernatural".

THE MARVELS OF GRACE.

To complement the testimony of Bernadette, the Bishop recalls "the marvellous things that have been happening since the first event. If one judges the tree by its fruits, we can say that the Apparition as seen by the young girl is supernatural and divine, because she has produced supernatural and divine results".The Bishop recalls how the crowds grew and gathered during the Apparitions and afterwards when the Apparitions had ended : "pilgrims came from faraway districts and neighbouring countries hurrying to the Grotto...to pray and ask favours from the Immaculate Virgin Mary. Souls already Christian are strengthened in virtue, people frozen into indifference have been brought back to the practice of their religion, obstinate pilgrims are reconciled with God after having Our Lady of Lourdes invoked in their favour. These wonders of grace, which have a universal and lasting character, can only have God as their author, do they not come, as a result, to confirm the truth of the Apparitions?" After the wonderful things that happened "for the good of souls", the Bishop moved on to the results produced by way of physical healing, especially among the sick who imitated Bernadette by drinking and washing themselves in the place pointed out by the Apparition, asks if this was not an indication of a supernatural power coming down upon the spring of Massabielle "In this way, sick try the water of the Grotto, and this is not without success, many were sick who did not respond to the most stringent of treatments, and who suddenly recovered their health. These extraordinary cures have had an immense effect...Sick people of all countries request the water of Massabielle...we cannot list here all the favours granted, but what we want to say is that it is the water of Massabielle which has cured those who were sick and who were abandoned or declared incurable. These cures have been obtained by using a water which in itself has no special curative qualities, according to those skilled in chemistry who have carried out rigorous tests." These cures are permanent, specifies Mgr. Laurence, who wonders what had caused them: "Science, which was consulted on this subject, responded negatively. These cures are thus the work of God." Because, the Bishop remarks, they are directly linked to the Apparition which is the point of departure and inspiration of the confidence of the sick."

THE JUDGEMENT OF THE BISHOP.

To conclude, the Bishop said : "There is thus a direct link between the cures and the Apparitions, the Apparitions are of divine origin, since the cures carry a divine stamp. But what comes from God is the truth! As a result, the Apparition, calling herself the Immaculate Conception, that Bernadette saw and heard, is the Most Holy Virgin Mary! Thus we write: the finger of God is here." And the Bishop making reference to the declaration of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception by Pope Pius IX at the end of 1854 states : "Then about three years afterwards, the Virgin Mary appeared to a child telling her: 'I am the Immaculate Conception...I want a church built here in my honour'. Does this not appear that she wants to confirm, by a monument, the infallible word of the successor of St. Peter?" Then, following the invoking of the Holy Name of God we have the text of the mandate carrying the official recognition of the Apparitions that we cited at the beginning.

THE APPARITIONS IN THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH.

This judgement of the Church is essential because the Apparitions add nothing to the Creed or the Gospel; they are a reminder for an age that had a tendency to forget them, they are indeed, a prophetic Visitation to our world. God does not want us focusing on the wonderful or the extraordinary; but through the Apparitions he gives us a sign that we should return to the Gospel which is the Word of his Son, the Word of Life. Faithfulness to the message of the Gospel, the authenticity of our life of witness, the results of holiness which flow out from it for the people of God are the criteria of an authentic Apparition in the Church. At Lourdes they are verified with a special clarity: the Church is not deceived in this.