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The Message of Lourdes

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The Message of Lourdes The Message of Lourdes What Our Lady told Bernadette We call the “Message of Lourdes” the midst of our poverty and failures. The two worlds gestures and words that were Grotto is not only a place where exist on exchanged between the Blessed Virgin something happened – a geographical our earth. Mary and Bernadette Soubirous, at the place – it is also a place where God When Grotto of Massabielle, during the time of gives us a sign by revealing his heart Jesus, in the eighteen apparitions. This message and our heart. the can be heard as: God is love and he Gospel, It is a place where God leaves us a loves us as we are. invites us message, a message that is nothing to On February 11, 1858 Bernadette, her other than that of the Gospel. God discover sister Toinette and a friend of theirs, comes to tell us that he loves us – this the Jeanne, went looking for wood in the is the heart of the Message of Lourdes, Kingdom meadows and came to “the place where and he loves us as we are with all our of Heaven, the canal rejoins the River Gave”. They successes but also with all our wounds, he invites were in front of the Grotto of our weaknesses and our limitations us to Massabielle. Toinette and Jeanne ON FEBRUARY 18, 1858 : SOME discover in our world, as it is, “another crossed the icy water, crying out with EXTRAORDINARY WORDS world.” Wherever love exists, God is the cold; Bernadette hesitated to do present. this because of her chronic asthma. She During the third Apparition on February heard “a noise like a gust of wind,” but 18, The Virgin Mary spoke for the first GOD IS LOVE “none of the trees were moving.” time. To experience God is nothing other than Raising her head, she saw, in a hollow to experience love in this world. To of the rock a small young lady, who Bernadette held out a sheet of paper whoever knows how to discover this, looked at her and who smiled at her. and a pencil so that she might write Jesus makes the following promise: This was the first Apparition of the down her name, but the Lady replied: “You are not far from the Kingdom of Virgin Mary. “What I have to say to you does not have to be written down.” This was an God. That is: “you have known how to In Bernadette’s time the Grotto was a extraordinary statement. It meant that discover here below this Kingdom and dirty, hidden, damp and cold place. The the Virgin Mary wanted to enter into a you have lived out your life in this Grotto was called the “pigs’ shelter” relationship which is of the order of Love.” This is the promise of the Virgin because that was where the pigs love, at the level of the heart. The Mary to Bernadette. “I promise that you feeding in the area usually took shelter. heart, in the Bible, signifies the very will discover here below another world.” It was there that the Virgin Mary, center of the person, that which is the And, in spite of her poverty, her illness dressed in white, a sign of total purity, depth of the person. and her lack of education, Bernadette is the sign of the Love of God, in other always deeply happy. That is the words, the sign of what God wishes to Bernadette was right away invited to Kingdom of God, the world of real Love. accomplish in each of us, deigned to open the depths of her heart to this During the seven first Apparitions of the appear. There is a contrast between this Message of Love. Virgin Mary, Bernadette’s face was damp and obscure Grotto and the At the second statement of the Virgin radiant with joy, happiness and light. presence of the Virgin Mary, “the Mary: “Would you do me the kindness Between the eighth and twelfth Immaculate Conception.” It reminds us of coming here for 15 Apparitions all changed: her face of the Gospel: the meeting of the days?” Bernadette was overwhelmed. became hard, sad and sorrowful, and wealth of the goodness of God and the It was the first time that anyone had moreover, Bernadette did poverty of the human person. “Jesus addressed her in a formal way. incomprehensible things. She moved on goes to sit at the table of sinners,” Bernadette describes these words by her knees to the back of the Grotto. “because he came to search out that saying that the Virgin looked at her “as She kissed the dirty, disgusting ground which was one person looks at another person.” of the Grotto. She ate some bitter lost.” Human beings, created in the image grass. She scraped the ground three At Lourdes, and likeness of God, are persons. times trying to drink the muddy water, the fact that Bernadette felt that she was also at the back of the Grotto, she tried Mary had respected and loved, she also had the sucking in a little and then throwing it appeared in a experience of being a person. We are all away, she took mud in her hands and dirty and worthy of our dignity in the eyes of she smeared her face. Then the young obscure God. Because each of us is loved by girl turned to the crowd with her hands Grotto, in the God. apart. They all said: “She’s mad!” place called The third statement of the Virgin was: During four Apparitions, she carried out Massabielle, “I do not promise to make you happy in the same actions. What is happening? the Old Rock, this world but in the other.” We know a Nobody understands! We are at the tells us that world of violence, lies, sensuality, profit, heart of the “Message of Lourdes”. God comes to and war. But we know also a world of join us where charity, solidarity, and justice. These we are, in the MARY IMMACULATE immaculate from all stain of original In 1839 Mariano Spada (1796 - 1872), sin." Therefore, being always free from professor of theology at the Roman original sin, the doctrine teaches that College of Saint Thomas, published Esame from her conception Mary received the Critico sulla dottrina dell’ Angelico Dottore sanctifying grace that would normally S. Tommaso di Aquino circa il Peccato come with baptism after birth. originale, relativamente alla Beatissima Vergine Maria [A critical examination of The definition makes no declaration the doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas, the about the Church's belief that the Angelic Doctor, regarding original sin with Blessed Virgin was sinless in the sense respect to the Most Blessed Virgin Mary], of freedom from actual or personal sin. in which Aquinas is interpreted not as However, the Church holds that Mary treating the question of the Immaculate was also sinless personally, "free from Conception later formulated in the papal all sin, original or personal". The Council bull Ineffabilis Deus but rather the of Trent decreed: "If anyone shall say sanctification of the fetus within Mary's that a man once justified can sin no womb. Spada furnished an interpretation more, nor lose grace, and that therefore whereby Pius IX was relieved of the he who falls and sins was never truly problem of seeming to foster a doctrine justified; or, on the contrary, that not in agreement with the Aquinas' throughout his whole life he can avoid teaching. all sins even venial sins, except by a special privilege of God, as the Church Pius IX, at the beginning of his pontificate, holds in regard to the Blessed Virgin: let and again after 1851, appointed him be anathema." commissions to investigate the whole subject, and he was advised that the Virginal conception doctrine was one which could be defined The doctrine of the immaculate and that the time for a definition was conception is not to be confused with opportune. the virginal conception of her son Jesus. It was not until 1854 that Pope Pius IX, This misunderstanding of the term with the support of the overwhelming The Immaculate Conception, according immaculate conception is frequently met majority of Roman Catholic bishops, whom to the teaching of the Catholic Church, is in the mass media. Catholics believe that he had consulted between 1851–1853, the conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary Mary was not the product of a virginal promulgated the papal bull Ineffabilis Deus free from original sin by virtue of the conception herself but was the daughter of (Latin for "Ineffable God"), which defined foreseen merits of her son Jesus Christ. a human father and mother, traditionally ex cathedra the dogma of the Immaculate The Catholic Church teaches that Mary known by the names of Saint Joachim and Conception: was conceived by normal biological means Saint Anne. In 1677, the Holy See in the womb of her mother, Saint Anne, condemned the belief that Mary was We declare, pronounce but God acted upon her soul, keeping it virginally conceived, which had been a and define that the "immaculate". belief surfacing occasionally since the 4th doctrine which holds century. that the Blessed Virgin The Immaculate Conception is commonly Mary, at the first instant confused with the Virgin Birth of Jesus. Redemption of her conception, by a Jesus's birth is covered by the Doctrine of Another misunderstanding is that, by her singular privilege and Incarnation, while the Immaculate immaculate conception, Mary did not need grace of the Omnipotent Conception deals with the conception of a savior. When defining the dogma in God, in virtue of the Mary, not that of her son.
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