What happened in Lourdes?
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Why did Mary come?
What was so important at this time in history, in this country?
It's easy in retrospect to understand the need for divine intervention in 1858.
In 1854, in the face of massive opposition, one of Mary's staunchest supporters, Pope Pius IX proclaimed to the world what had been believed down through the centuries, but had never been made a Dogma of the Church.
The Immaculate Conception was declared fact, and all Catholics were required to believe this. There had been a popular heresy spreading throughout Europe at this time, Pantheism, which claimed that man was equal with God. By this proclamation, Our Lord Jesus through the Pope declared that with the exception of Jesus, only Mary was conceived without Original Sin. The rest of the human race are heirs of Adam and Eve, and all that goes with it.
This proclamation caused more problems than it meant to solve.
Rumbling went on inside the Church, and outside in Protestant circles. It was outrageous, they said, to give this singular honor to a woman. The enemies of the Church claimed Mary was from Adam as we all are; that she came into the world with the same stain of sin that everyone else was born with. "It was one thing for the peasants, the uninformed, to believe in this superstition", they ranted. "How could the Church make this farce into dogma?"
Our Lady of Patience, my Mary, who has never given up on us in 2,000 years, waited. One year went by. The situation was bad. Two years went by. Not much change took place in the attitudes of her children towards the new Dogma of the Immaculate Conception. The third year passed. But still she waited. And then she did the predictable.
She found a remote town of no great importance, and within that speck on the earth, she chose a simple child of the poorest family in the region, and led her to a garbage dump. From that vantage point she was to send out a message to the world for all time, loud and clear, confirmation of Pope Pius' IX dogma, in the statement she made in the 16th Apparition on the Feast of the Annunciation,
"Que soy era Immaculada councepciou"
"I am the Immaculate Conception" Into this background, we bring Bernadette Soubirous, an illiterate, extremely unhealthy little 14 year old girl.
Bernadette was always a good girl, a holy girl, a humble girl. For someone as famous as she became, she had no exaggerated impressions of her self worth.
When asked how she felt about receiving such a special gift from Our Lady, she made the statement " What do you think of me? Don't I realize that the Blessed Virgin chose me because I was the most ignorant? If she had found anyone more ignorant than myself, she would have chosen her." She said of herself, "The Blessed Virgin used me like a broom. What do you do with a broom when you have finished sweeping? You put it back in its place, behind the door."
About the Author
Bob and Penny Lord are renowned Catholic authors and television hosts on EWTN, Global Catholic television. They are prolific writers about the Catholic faith, especially the Saints for which they have been dubbed "experts on the Saints." For more about the Apparition at Lourdes and other Marian Apparitions go to: http://www.apparitions-of-our-lady.com/our-lady-of-lourdes.html
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