Our Lady of Lourdes

 Candlelight procession, Lourdes, France

Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes/ Message for World Day of the Sick

Shortly after I converted to Catholicism I worked a "stage" in Lourdes: three weeks as a volunteer helping the usual staff accommodate the huge summer crowds. One week I peeled potatoes at one of the hospice-hotels where pilgrims stay -- on a team of ladies peeling about 600 lbs a day, using hand graters just like at home.  Another week I served meals and accompanied people to and from the grotto. The third week I worked in the baths, lowering the sick and other pilgrims into the waters.

It was difficult, spiritually. The humble work I didn't mind. I was still coasting on baptismal grace and it seemed wonderful to do something hidden that could be offered as an absolutely pure, un-self-interested offering to God. We'd be exhausted at the end of the day, but when you do physically hard work in the service of others you have the satisfaction of accomplishment and sleep the sleep of the just, which is a good not to be underestimated. 

What was hard was that I was a fresh-minted Catholic and only intellectually reconciled with the Marian doctrines. Mary as a spiritual mother still didn't resonate with me, and to be thrown into the saccharine core of Marian devotion with its endless tacky souvenir stands on the approach to the grotto was troubling to the point of scandalous to me. Plus, people go to Lourdes who are the forgotten of the earth. I saw deformity and decrepitude and physical and emotional suffering there the likes of which I'd never imagined: a 12-year-old boy with his face contorted into a snout, his natural features looking something like a gas mask you might see in a sci-fi movie; a woman with liver disease that had turned her literally green. So many bizarre cases to make the gaunt cancer sufferers and palsied children in their pallets seem lucky.

If there was ever a place exemplifying Shaw's contemptuous complaint of the tackiness and ugliness and noise of the Church, Lourdes is it. 

Its beauty sneaks up on you, or sinks into you, quietly. In the grotto, the abandoned crutches testify to 67 bona fide miracles over the years --and the power of God to heal us if he wills it. What touched me more was the simple goodness all around me. The generosity of the care-givers who accompany sick pilgrims. The tireless patience and devotion of the year-round staff at Lourdes. People reconciled with the faith and with their own crosses -- almost everyone leaves having seen suffering in another they can't imagine bearing and grateful for their own lives. The mysterious sense of Christ's being with you, carrying his cross beside you, in the nightly Eucharistic procession. Life, even with its crosses, gradually makes its goodness felt.  I had a profound experience of Christ's presence at mass there one day, and was inspired with a little private prayer to say upon receiving communion that I've prayed every single day since. 

When I came upon this little poem the other day, I didn't at first like it. Reading it a second time more carefully, I found it captures the spirit of the place well.  

Lourdes

Gerard A. Lessard, OP (1981) 

Poor silent wheeled about
The stone and marble route
Form queues to bathe and quench
Both foreigners and French.

Stone kissed and touched grown worn
As surely dreams are born.
A peaceful atmosphere
Remembering the seer.

Our Lady mystery
Makes sweet the misery.
God’s gift of life received
Makes us purely conceived.

Candle streams afire
Vanquishing the dire.
Angel’s Salutations
Rise with expectations.

Weathered faces shielding
Pilgrim’s faith unyielding.
Bodies of all races
Filled with heavenly graces.

Unsympathetic fiends
May stand to judge the scene
Yet tears of joy and pain
Change hearts to hope in gain.

Saints of Christmas: Mary, Mother of God

BONFIGLI, Benedetto, Annunciation

From Pope Paul VI in the Apostolic Exhortation Marialis Cultis:

The Church's reflection today on the mystery of Christ and on her own nature has led her to find at the root of the former and as a culmination of the latter the same figure of a woman: the Virgin Mary, the Mother of Christ and the Mother of the Church. And the increased knowledge of Mary's mission has become joyful veneration of her and adoring respect for the wise plan of God, who has placed within His family (the Church), as in every home, the figure of a Woman, who in a hidden manner and in a spirit of service watches over that family "and carefully looks after it until the glorious day of the Lord.

Isn't that lovely? Commenting on today's specific feast, he writes:

This celebration, assigned to January 1 in conformity with the ancient liturgy of the city of Rome, is meant to commemorate the part played by Mary in this mystery of salvation. It is meant also to exalt the singular dignity which this mystery brings to the 'holy Mother . . . through whom we were found worthy . . . to receive the Author of life.' It is likewise a fitting occasion for renewed adoration of the newborn Prince of Peace, for listening once more to the glad tidings of the angels, and for imploring from God, through the Queen of Peace, the supreme gift of peace. For this reason . . . we have instituted the World Day of Peace...

Thus, B16's message for World Day of Peace, which addresses poverty in its material and spiritual forms:

every form of externally imposed poverty has at its root a lack of respect for the transcendent dignity of the human person. When man is not considered within the total context of his vocation, and when the demands of a true “human ecology” are not respected, the cruel forces of poverty are unleashed, as is evident in certain specific areas that I shall now consider briefly one by one.

Our Lady of Victory, Pray For Us

Our family's been praying the "Lepanto" rosary for weeks now. (Have I mentioned we take credit for the success of the Surge? The day the President announced it, we sat with our kids and said, "We have about 6 months to turn Iraq into a victory, or politics will require us to withdraw. This will harm our country, but worse, it will likely result in the deaths of millions of innocent Iraqis. We have to pray hard for victory." Then we added the St. Michael prayer to our nightly devotions for that intention. And voila! Victory! All because there's a pure and innocent young Michael in our family who's tight with the mighty Archangel.)

So: today begins the novena for the election. For consciences to be enlightened, for truth to out, for the gift of prudence to be poured out on our people...and may God's will be done. Fr. Corapi has prepared a reflection for the occasion. And the bishops have a recommended novena for the election, too. We'll forgive them for making evil pdf files.

Curtsy: Faith & Family

¡Fiesta!

Am I not here, who am your mother?

--words of Our Lady of Guadalupe to St. Juan Diego.

• Admiral Doria, who defeated the Muslims at Lepanto, had an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe mounted in his cabin before going into battle.
• On this day in 2000, the Florida election was certified, clearing the way for W., not Al Gore, to be President on 9/11.

So don't say she never did anything for you.

Found this from Fr. Paul Mankowski at Against the Grain. Dig the part in the 2nd graf about Christ and the strength of temptation!

The Blessed Virgin Mary lived her life in the state in which Adam and Eve lived before their sin. She was as capable of sin as they were; her life, to this extent like ours, was a series of choices between good and bad, self and other, God's will and her own. her glory, for which all generations will call her blessed, is that in every instance she said, "I am your servant. Let it be done to me in accordance with your word." She, who was full of grace, said, "Your will be done, not mine." When she praised God because He had looked on her in her lowliness, she was not feigning humility. She was uniquely aware that it was God's grace, and not her own merit, in virtue of which she had been set apart. And the consciousness of the gap between her humanity and God's power was uniquely acute in her case.

C.S. Lewis remarked somewhere that we are not to imagine that Jesus had an easier time with temptation than we. In fact, he said, Jesus Christ was the only one who ever felt the full strength of temptation, because He was the only one who never gave in to it. He said by way of explanation something like this: "After all, you don't discover the true strength of the German Army by laying down and letting it roll over you; but only by standing up to it and fighting it at every turn." If I might extend (and correct) C.S. Lewis here, I would say that the Virgin Mary is, apart from her Son, the only one who really knew humility, since it was she who, in every instance, chose obedience, who let God's will trump her own, who refused to be duped into trusting in her own resources.

Dare You To Speak Like That About The Haj

To encourage penance and a re-dedication to the way of the Gospel on the 150th anniversary of the Lourdes apparitions, the Pope has made a plenary indulgence available for pilgrims who visit this year (effective yesterday through Dec. 8, 2008) or who visit a Lourdes shrine elsewhere in the world during the Octave of Our Lady of Lourdes, Feb. 2- 11, 2008.

How shall we cover this news, religion reporters?
Right: BBC version, basic facts correct, not snide.
Wrong: Formerly Gray Lady version. How disrespectful can you be?

Here's the Lourdes jubilee site.

Catholic Pop Quiz

What does today's Solemnity, The Immaculate Conception, celebrate?

• The doctrine of the birth of Jesus from a virgin mother.
• The doctrine that the Virgin Mary, from the moment of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin.
• Terry Bradshaw's fortuitous "pass" to Franco Harris in a 1972 AFC playoff game.
  

Just checking. In high school that always threw everyone.

Fr. Cantalamessa's commentary.

the dogma of Mary Immaculate also tells us something very positive: God is stronger than sin and where sin abounds grace abounds even more (cf. Romans 5:20).Mary is the sign and guarantee of this. The whole Church, after her, is called to become "glorious, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, that she might be holy and immaculate" (Ephesians 5:27).

May I suggest, as an appropriate feast day treat, chocolate-tangerine semifreddo? (Don't say I never did anything for you!)

A Very Mary Saturday

It's Mary's birthday, and B16 celebrated with a Mass at the Marian Shrine of Mariazell, which is celebrating its 850th anniversary this year. Here's the homily. There's this lovely exhortatory introduction:

Among the pilgrims of Jesus's genealogy there were many who forgot the goal and wanted to make themselves the goal. Again and again, though, the Lord called forth people whose longing for the goal drove them forward, people who directed their whole lives towards it. The awakening of the Christian faith, the dawning of the Church of Jesus Christ was made possible, because there were people in Israel whose hearts were searching -- people who did not rest content with custom, but who looked further ahead, in search of something greater: Zechariah, Elizabeth, Simeon, Anna, Mary and Joseph, the Twelve and many others.
[snip]
We too need an open and restless heart like theirs. This is what pilgrimage is all about. Today as in the past, it is not enough to be more or less like everyone else and to think like everyone else. Our lives have a deeper purpose.

The heart of what he wants to say is his favorite theme --truth-- but he says it in a particularly nice way, I think, as he addresses the question of reconciling truth with tolerance.

are we afraid that faith conflicts with tolerance? if we Christians call him the one universal Mediator of salvation, valid for everyone and, ultimately, needed by everyone, this does not mean that we despise other religions, nor are we arrogantly absolutizing our own ideas; on the contrary, it means that we are gripped by him who has touched our hearts and lavished gifts upon us, so that we, in turn, can offer gifts to others.

In fact, our faith is decisively opposed to the attitude of resignation that considers man incapable of truth -- as if this were more than he could cope with. This attitude of resignation with regard to truth, I am convinced, lies at the heart of the crisis of the West, the crisis of Europe. If truth does not exist for man, then neither can he ultimately distinguish between good and evil. And then the great and wonderful discoveries of science become double-edged: they can open up significant possibilities for good, for the benefit of mankind, but also, as we see only too clearly, they can pose a terrible threat, involving the destruction of man and the world.

We need truth. Yet admittedly, in the light of our history we are fearful that faith in the truth might entail intolerance. If we are gripped by this fear, which is historically well grounded, then it is time to look towards Jesus as we see him in the shrine at Mariazell. We see him here in two images: as the child in his Mother's arms, and above the high altar of the Basilica as the Crucified.

These two images in the Basilica tell us this: truth prevails not through external force, but it is humble and it yields itself to man only via the inner force of its veracity. Truth proves itself in love. It is never our property, never our product, just as love can never be produced, but only received and handed on as a gift. We need this inner force of truth. As Christians we trust this force of truth. We are its witnesses. We must hand it on as a gift in the same way as we have received it, as it has given itself to us.

Plus, tee-hee, The Curt Jester challenges Religion Reporters to interpret today's vestments.

Potpourri For Epiphany

It's not until Saturday or Sunday, depending on where you live, but I'll be in silence on retreat then, so here goes:

• The role call of martyrs for 2006. (And by martyrs I mean missionaries killed for their faith, not people who kill others by killing themselves.) 24 we know by name --one less than 2005.
• More on the plight of Iraqi Christians. Can't argue with this:

  it is unrealistic to expect to expect U.S. policymakers to design overall policy around the suffering of Iraqi Christians. However, argues Jacobson, "America has a moral obligation to help people who have come under jihadist attack because of their association with the U.S."

• Find L'osservatore Romano's photos of Midnight Mass here (that's where I got the shot of the blessing of the creche --nice and smoky, the way I like it).
• You can find the week's Angelus & Audience at Zenit, but I'm going to pass over them today to get right to...

B16's meditation on time for New Year's Eve. The Church, of course, considers it the Eve of the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, and the Pope's reflections spring from the intersection of those two celebrations.

In the last hours of every solar year we participate in some worldly "rites" which in the contemporary context are mainly marked by amusement and often lived as an evasion from reality, as it were, to exorcise the negative aspects and propitiate improbable good luck. How different the attitude of the Christian Community must be!
The Church is called to live these hours, making the Virgin Mary's sentiments her own. With her, the Church is invited to keep her gaze fixed on the Infant Jesus, the new Sun rising on the horizon of humanity and, comforted by his light, to take care to present to him "the joy and the hope, the grief and the anguish of the people of our time, especially of those who are poor or afflicted" (Gaudium et Spes, n. 1).

I never know whether to be amused or saddened at the fact that people who stand outside Christianity think it's a dour faith. Solemn, yes. Serious, yes. But see? While the unbeliever gets drunk to drown out the sorrow of the previous year and brace himself for the worst, the believer looks forward with hope. This brings the pope to a discussion of how we understand "time" --qualitiatively or quantitatively:

On the one hand, the solar cycle with its rhythms; on the other, what St Paul called the "fullness of time" (cf. Gal 4: 4), that is, the culminating moment of the history of the universe and of the human race when the Son of God was born in the world.

Two more little ideas I liked. On the fullness of time:

He did not fill time by pouring himself into it from on high, but "from within", making himself a tiny seed to lead humanity to its full maturation. God's style required a long period of preparation to reach from Abraham to Jesus Christ, and after the Messiah's coming, history did not end but continued its course, apparently the same but in reality visited by God and oriented to the Lord's second and definitive Coming at the end of time.

And that leads to a discussion of the significance of Mary:

We might say that Mary's Motherhood is a real symbol and sacrament of all this, an event at the same time human and divine.
In the passage from the Letter to the Galatians that we have just heard, St Paul said: "God sent forth his Son, born of woman" (Gal 4: 4). Origen commented: "Note well that he did not say "born by means of a woman' but "born of a woman.....'"
This acute observation of the great exegete and ecclesiastical writer is important: in fact, if the Son of God had been born only "by means of" a woman, he would not truly have taken on our humanity, something which instead he did by taking flesh "of" Mary. Mary's motherhood, therefore, is true and fully human.

On the feast itself, his homily continued this theme at first, and then concluded with a prayer for peace in the Middle East, including a citation from his own message for world peace day (the same day). An interesting choice of emphasis I thought:

people must recognize that these rights are not only based on human agreements but "on man's very nature and his inalienable dignity as a person created by God" (Message, n. 13).
Indeed, were the constitutive elements of human dignity entrusted to changeable human opinions, even solemnly proclaimed human rights would end by being weakened and variously interpreted.

"Consequently, it is important for international agencies not to lose sight of the natural foundation of human rights. This would enable them to avoid the risk, unfortunately ever-present, of sliding towards a merely positivistic interpretation of those rights" (ibid.).

Sounds like a call for UN reform to be based on the principles of natural law. And the actual message for World Peace Day confirms this --it's a meditation on natural law as what JPG called "the grammar of dialogue." There's too much there to comment meaningfully on here, but you should RTWT and study it. Let's just say it's no trite plea for everyone to be nice, and he issues a challenge to everyone --not just the "international community."

And finally, happy feast day to members of the Legion of Christ & Regnum Christi on the anniversary of their foundation. Make it Mexican tonight.

The Son in the Heavens

I was looking through Justin Torres' posts at his joint blog, The Thing Is, looking for an update on his sister-in-law, Susan. And ran into this very cool account of life --including spiritual life-- in space from one of the Space Station astronauts. Here, for example, is his description of receiving communion one Sunday.

Just over a week into the mission, one of us realized it was Sunday again, two weeks after Easter. Our shifts overlapped for a few hours, so during one orbital night Sid, Kevin and I gathered on the flight deck for a short Communion service.
Kevin, a eucharistic minister, carried the Blessed Sacrament with him, contained within a simple golden pyx. The three of us shared our amazement at experiencing the beauty of creation, and thanked God for good companions and the success achieved so far. Then Kevin shared the Body of Christ with Sid and me, and we floated weightless on the flight deck, grateful for this moment of comradeship and communion with Christ.
Our silent reflection was interrupted by a sudden burst of dazzling white light. The sun had risen (as it did 16 times each day) just as we finished Communion, and now its pure radiance streamed through Endeavour’s cockpit windows and bathed us in its warmth. To me, this was a beautiful sign, God’s gentle touch confirming our union with him.
I rolled away from my crewmates, unable to stem the tears evoked by that singular sunrise. My gaze turned to the overhead windows and the Pacific Ocean, the dawn lighting its surface in a rich, limitless blue. I called out to Kevin and Sid, “Look at that ocean—what an incredible color!” They both turned and drank in hues unmatched by the palette of any human artist. After a moment, Kevin said simply, “It’s the blue of the Virgin’s veil, Tom.” He was right. There were no other words for that vision out the window.