Isaiah 66:10-14 / John 2:1-11 (2020)
Today the Church celebrates the memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes. The title of "Our Lady of Lourdes" is a rather recent title of Mary given to her in honour of the Marian apparitions at Lourdes in France.
It was on the 11th February 1858 that the Blessed Virgin Mary made her first apparition to Bernadette (later canonized as a saint on the 8th December 1933), a 14-yr-old peasant girl and her sister at a grotto.
Over the following two weeks, there were more apparitions. Bernadette's parents tried to bar her from going but the young girl was determined and went secretly to the grotto of the apparition.
On the 24th February, Bernadette related that the apparition asked for prayer and penitence for the conversion of sinners. It was then that the apparition asked her to dig in the ground and drink from the spring she found there.
It was muddy at first and made Bernadette a mess, but this act revealed the stream that soon became a focal point for pilgrimages.
Soon the stream became increasingly clean. As word spread, this water was given to the sick and those with disabilities and many reports of miraculous cures followed. The Church has recognized more that 70 miraculous cures.
Yes, Lourdes has become a place of pilgrimage and healing. Yet it is also a place for the renewal of faith for the people as well as for the Church.
Today is also the World Day of Prayer for the Sick. We pray for the sick at Mass. And we are also reminded that the Church must also continue the healing ministry of Jesus and to pray for sick that they will bear their illness with faith so as to unite their sufferings with Jesus on the cross.
Also through St. Bernadette, our Blessed Mother has brought about the healing grace of God through the waters at Lourdes.
Let us continue to pray with our Blessed Mother for the sick and for their healing, both physically and spiritually.