It’s the Feast of Apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Lourdes, 3rd Class, with the color of White. In this episode: the meditation: “God in Holy Scripture”, today’s news from the Church: “Bishop Strickland and the Consecrations: A Plea for "Apostolic Continuity"”, a preview of the Sermon: “Bishop Bernard Fellay on the Episcopal Consecrations”, and today’s thought from the Archbishop.
The Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes recalls a moment when heaven touched the ordinary life of a poor girl and quietly changed the spiritual landscape of the modern world. The story begins in 1858 in the small town of Lourdes, where a fourteen year old girl named Saint Bernadette Soubirous lived with her struggling family. Sickly, uneducated, and overlooked, Bernadette was gathering firewood near a rocky grotto when she encountered a beautiful lady who asked her simply to pray and return. Over the course of eighteen apparitions, the Lady revealed herself not with threats or demands, but with gentleness, patience, and silence. When she finally gave her name, it was a theological earthquake: “I am the Immaculate Conception,” confirming a dogma defined only four years earlier, one Bernadette herself could not possibly have invented.
At the heart of Lourdes is not spectacle, but humility. The Lady asked for prayer, penance, and processions, and directed Bernadette to dig in the dirt, where a spring of water emerged. That water, unimpressive at first glance, became the sign through which God would work. Healings followed, not immediately or universally, but steadily and carefully, always under scrutiny. Lourdes became a place where faith and reason met without fear. Claims of miracles were investigated rigorously, and only a small number were formally recognized,...
