FEAST OF OUR LADY OF LOURDES
Troubled
thoughts and FEAR of heart are theirs
and anxious foreboding until death.
Life is a journey that is full of joys and miseries. Every person, high or low, is burdened from birth to death with fears, anxieties, and troubles, by day and often by night, the time appointed for rest. For sinners, the suffering is much greater. What they gained by violence and injustice is quickly destroyed; but righteousness will prevail. In the end they will meet the mother of all the living things and return to the earth. Listen to the words of King David on his death to Solomon.
“I am going the way of all flesh. Take courage and be a man. Keep the mandate of the LORD, your God, following his ways and observing his statutes, commands, ordinances, and decrees as they are written in the law of Moses, that you may succeed in whatever you do, wherever you turn, and the LORD may fulfill the promise he made on my behalf when he said, ‘If your sons so conduct themselves that they remain faithful to me with their whole heart and with their whole soul, you shall always have someone of your line on the throne of Israel.’” (1Kg. 2:2-4)
Today marks the first apparition of
the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1858 to fourteen-year-old Marie Bernade (St.
Bernadette) Soubirous. Between February 11 and July 16, 1858, the Blessed
Virgin appeared eighteen times, and showed herself to St. Bernadette in the
hollow of the rock at Lourdes. On March 25 she said to the little shepherdess
who was only fourteen years of age: "I am the Immaculate Conception."
Since then Lourdes has become a place of pilgrimage and many cures and
conversions have taken place. The message of Lourdes is a call to personal
conversion, prayer, and charity.
The
Message of the Virgin of Lourdes[2]
One
of the better-known apparitions of Our Lady took place in Lourdes, France in
1858. This shrine continues today to be one of the most popular Marian shrines
in the world. Thousands of people visit this shrine every year, a special place
of devotion to Our Lady, where many miracles have occurred.
Beginning
with her first apparition of February 11, 1858, Mary appeared eighteen times to
Bernadette Soubirous, a girl of only fourteen years of age. When Bernadette
asked the Lady who She was, she received the reply, "I am the Immaculate
Conception." Less than four years before, on December 8, 1854, Pius IX had
raised the teaching about the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady to be dogma of
faith with these words:
By the
authority of Our Lord Jesus Christ, of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, and
our own authority, we declare, pronounce, and define: the doctrine which hold
that the Most Blessed Virgin Mary was from the first moment of her conception,
by the singular, grace and privilege of almighty God, and in view of the merits
of Christ Jesus the Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain
of original sin, is revealed by God and therefore, firmly and constantly to be
believed by all the faithful. (The Christian Faith #709).
It
is under the title of the Immaculate Conception that Our Lady is especially
honored in our own country.
This
message can be summed up in the following four points:
1.
It is a heavenly confirmation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception that
had just been defined by the Church a few years before.
2.
It is an exaltation of the virtues of Christian poverty and humility that are
perceived in Bernadette.
3.
The spiritual message is that of personal conversion. Our Lady tells Bernadette
that the important thing is to be happy in the next life. To attain this, we
must accept the cross in this life.
4.
Mary stresses the importance of prayer, especially the rosary. Our Lady
appeared with a rosary hanging from Her right arm. Penance and humility are
also part of the message, as well as a message of mercy for sinners and
compassion for the sick.
Things
to Do
·
Watch “The Song of Bernadette”, a
masterpiece filmed in 1943.
·
Obtain some Lourdes holy water and give the
parental blessing to your children.
·
Give extra care to the sick in your community —
cook dinner for a sick mother's family, bring your children to the local
nursing home (the elderly love to see children), send flowers to a member of
your parish community who is ill.
·
Today’s
recipes:
o
Minced
Chicken (or Turkey) a la King
National Marriage Week-Marriage Retreat[3]
Here
is a virtual Marriage Retreat. Join us by taking a few moments
each day, together with your spouse, to reflect and pray. This retreat will
help you further reflect on what makes marriage unique as established by God,
between a man and woman, as the basis for family and society. For more
instruction or inspiration, visit foryourmarriage.org or
marriageuniqueforareason.org.
·
Plan
to do the retreats weekly; perhaps on the day of the week you were married.
·
Enjoy
a good home cooked meal together after your retreat; use a recipe for the saint
of the day. Available at Catholicculture.org. Say Grace together and ask to the
saint of the day’s intervention.
Catechism of the Catholic Church
PART THREE: LIFE IN CHRIST
SECTION TWO-THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
Chapter 2 “You shall love your neighbor as
yourself.
Article 6-THE SIXTH
COMMANDMENT
I. "Male
and Female He Created Them . . ."
2331 "God is love and in himself he lives a mystery of
personal loving communion. Creating the human race in his own image . . .. God
inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity
and responsibility, of love and communion."
"God
created man in his own image . . . male and female he created them"; He
blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and multiply"; "When
God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created
them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created."
2332 Sexuality affects all aspects of the human person in the
unity of his body and soul. It especially concerns affectivity, the capacity to
love and to procreate, and in a more general way the aptitude for forming bonds
of communion with others.
2333 Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his
sexual identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity
are oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life.
the harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the way in which
the complementarity, needs, and mutual support between the sexes are lived out.
2334 "In creating men 'male and female,' God gives man and
woman an equal personal dignity." "Man is a person, man and
woman equally so, since both were created in the image and likeness of the
personal God."
2335 Each of the two sexes is an image of the power and
tenderness of God, with equal dignity though in a different way. the union of
man and woman in marriage is a way of imitating in the flesh the Creator's
generosity and fecundity: "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother
and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh." All human
generations proceed from this union.
2336 Jesus came to restore creation to the purity of its
origins. In the Sermon on the Mount, he interprets God's plan strictly:
"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I
say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed
adultery with her in his heart." What God has joined together, let
not man put asunder.
The tradition of the Church has understood the sixth commandment as
encompassing the whole of human sexuality.
Daily Devotions
·
Unite in the work of the Porters of St. Joseph by joining them
in fasting: Today's Fast: End
Sex Trafficking, Slavery
· Saturday Litany of the Hours Invoking the Aid of Mother Mary
·
Offering to
the sacred heart of Jesus
· Rosary
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