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Our Lady of Lourdes
February 11th is the Feast Day of Our Lady of Lourdes. On February 11th, 1858, the Virgin Mary appeared to a young woman named Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes, France. This was the first of a succession of apparitions. Today, Lourdes is a major pilgrimage site, featuring a number of churches and a holy spring from which healing water is drawn.
The story of the Lourdes' apparition, and of the life of Bernadette, is one that I personally find very moving. Three things that I want to note about it here:
1. The Virgin appeared to a young woman from a peasant or working class background. This is very often her habit, appearing to a child or group of children, usually simple people. If she has ever appeared to a king or a United States president, or a pope for that matter, I am unaware of it.
2. The result of the apparition was the establishment of a healing spring; you can purchase Lourdes water to this day for the purpose of aiding healing and recovery from illness. This is magic, and some of our misguided Protestant friends might view it as "paganism." They are wrong-- this is the real Christianity: not a destruction of the pagan world, but its healing and reintegration.
3. All of this took place in modern times. Indeed, 1858 was in a sense more modern than 2022-- the 19th century was the height of Western civilization. We ourselves have grown up in the aftermath of its suicide, which took place between the years 1914 and 1945. The point, here, is that the idea that miracles, myth and magic are a thing of the ancient world, lost to us now, is wrong. Miracles happen, magic happens, new myths are singing themselves alive everyday.
Watch Old Things
For those who enjoy visual media-- I do-- it's a very helpful activity to watch movies and television made before you were born, for the same reason that it's helpful to read books written before you were born. In another era, The Song of Bernadette, a dramatization of the events at Lourdes, was an Oscar-winning hit film. Note that the events depicted in the film took place less than a century earlier. If you have a spare two and a half hours, the whole
A Story
Some time ago my wife, Jenn, was applying for a job at an institution named for Saint Bernadette. I wanted to help her. While she was doing her job interview, I went out beside a stream, opened my mind to Saint Bernadette and Our Lady of Lourdes, and asked for their intercession. I spent the rest of the time praying the rosary, and then went online and made a large donation to the Lourdes shrine in France. At no time did I focus on wanting the job, or expecting to be rewarded with it. I simply took steps, spiritual, mental, and physical, to align my energies with those of St Bernadette and Our Lady; made a specific request; and let them take care of the rest. She got the job the next day.
Personal Practice and the National Shrine
Not far from where I live in Northern Maryland, there is a shrine dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes. It features a close replica of the Grotto in France, a rosary walk, stations of the cross, chapels and many small shrines dedicated to various saints and titles of Our Lady. If you ever have a chance to visit, I recommend it; in the meantime, if you'd care to support them, today is a good day. Remember that almsgiving is a magical act; by giving, we unite ourselves to the object of our charity, and allow its energies to manifest in our own life. If there was ever a time to align yourself with the healing energies of Lourdes, this is it!
Either way, you might consider making a special devotional practice to Our Lady of Lourdes today, using the methods I've already presented here. If you do so, you might use the following prayer:
