This is my homily at Our Lady
of Lourdes for the Feast Day of Our Lady of Lourdes – Father Jim Ferry
7 February 2016
Our Lady of Lourdes, West Orange
[__01__] Build a church.
This
Sunday, we observe the Our Lady of Lourdes Feast Day at our Sunday Masses.
At
Lourdes, in Frances, after the visions of Saint Bernadette of Soubirous a
chapel, church, and Basilica were constructed.
From
the beginning, Bernadette – the visionary young girl – at 14 years of age – had
help and helpers in this construction process.
[__02__] On February 11, 1858, Bernadette was sent with her younger sister and a friend to gather firewood and saw the vision of a beautiful lady in a grotto (cave) near Massabielle.
Bernadette
was told to drink of the water and that a chapel should be built. Build a
chapel. Build a church.
Certainly,
this construction objective was achieved. The Basilica de Notre Dame de Rosaire
(Our Lady of the Rosary) receives many thousands of visitors per year, one the
most visited shrines in the world. Thousands of people with illness, disease,
disability go to bathe in the waters of Lourdes.
Bernadette
did not go into the wildnerness alone. She had help and helpers. And, God also
met her there through this vision of our
Blessed Mother.
[__03__] Our first community of builders of Lourdes
also had help and helpers, also to build the church.
Wasn’t
this true for our first pastor, Monsignor Nicholas Marnell and for those
parishioners at our first building and groundbreaking on 3 November 1914.
In
one example from this day,
“the work of
excavation was done by volunteers and in this way a considerable amount of
money was saved. As stormy weather came about the middle of the month, the work
was suspended for more than ten days. The excavating was finished and the first
brick of the foundation was laid on December 1.” (Parish
of Our Lady of Lourdes, 14 Jan 1915, Vol: 1914-1920, The Heritage Room).
In
many ways, you also sacrifice to build the Church.
However,
we not only build the church here but also at home.
We
build the church at the altar of our own table, at the pulpit of our own cell
phones and computers, at the kneeler at our own bedside and in the private chapel
of our own rooms where our heavenly Father sees us in secret. (cf. Matthew 6).
The
Church is the Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of our Savior.
We
are called to take this Body and Blood, this Corpus Christi, and this living water home, so that we may also
sacrifice generously for others and to do so joyfully.
[__04__] Building often involves some digging, excavation. It did for Father/Monsignor Nicholas Marnell…
on November 3, 1914.
Some
of us had to rebuild our lives or sidewalks or driveways, digging out from
24+plus inches of snow on January 23rd.
Bernadette
dug her hands into the mud to find the first Lourdes water.
Volunteers
helped Father Marnell spiritually and physically to uncover spiritually and
physically the strong foundation of our church and community.
Thank
you – you also help me and our parish, to dig, to go below the surface, by your
prayers, by your gifts, by your questions.
REMEMBER
… you do not cause inconvenience to a priest, to me, Father Zack, to Father Bob
Suszko, Father Jim Chern or any of us by asking us to hear your confession, to
answer a question, to pray with you.
Even
if one of us were to appear busy, I assure you we need your calls, your words,
your prayers to reach us so that we can build a church.
[__05__] It can be costly to build a church. The
auditors and accountants cannot measure or quantify everything. And, there are still visible and invisible
contributions which many of you make to Our Lady of Lourdes.
By
confession of our faith, by profession of our faith, we build the church.
By
confession of our sins, we also build the church, and by sacramental forgiveness,
by receiving God’s grace and acknowledging that Christ died for us, we improve
our vision of who we truly are, and we discover the goodness in ourselves or
others which sin, sinfulness, brokenness can be block …or muddy the waters …
Jesus
said, and St. Paul affirms this …
·
Pray for your enemies
·
Pray for those who persecute you.
·
If someone insults you, do not return
insult for insult but return a blessing, a prayer instead.
Sharing
this vision, we build a church, by praying for each other, friends and
adversaries.
Sometimes,
sharing a vision or being honest about what we see, is costly, unpopular.
The
young Bernadette did not go out intentionally to find the Blessed Mother or the
acclaim which resulted. At first many –
though not all --- did not believe her and did not believe that she could know
the words, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”
Then,
when her vision became known and authentic, she spurned the celebrity, the
attention.
[__06__]
Build
a church with joy, with a smile … again even if we are in sorrow or
persecution.
Pray
for those who persecute us or make life difficult.
Return
a blessing, a smile, instead.
Pope
Emeritus Benedict XVI wrote this about Our Lady of Lourdes.
Benedict
XVI visited Lourdes on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the
apparitions in 2008. This was the sesquicentennial of the apparitions. We just
had our parish centennial of 100 years. Our sesquicentennial year is 2064. Mark
your calendar; there are no meetings scheduled yet…
Benedict
XVI reminded us that Bernadette’s vision included the beauty of the lady in her
face and facial expression, the animation of gladness of one who always
proclaims and magnifies the greatness of the Lord:
Benedict
XVI wrote and spoke in 2008 at Lourdes:
In the course of the apparition
of Wednesday 3 March 1858, Bernadette contemplated this smile of Mary in a most
particular way. It was the first response that the Beautiful Lady gave to the
young visionary who wanted to know who she was.
[…]
In the very simple
manifestation of tenderness that we call a smile, we grasp that our sole wealth
is the love God bears us, which passes through the heart of her who became our
Mother. To seek this smile, is first of all to have grasped the gratuitousness
of love; it is also to be able to elicit this smile through our efforts to live
according to the word of her Beloved Son, just as a child seeks to elicit its
mother’s smile by doing what pleases her. And we know what pleases Mary, thanks
to the words she spoke to the servants at Cana: “Do whatever he tells you.” (cf. John 2:5). (Benedict XVI, Lourdes, 15
September 2008)
Build
a church.
Our
Lady of Lourdes, Pray for Us.
 |
| Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto, West Orange, New Jersey - 23 January 2016 |
[__fin__]
Thanks. Great thoughts. Re-reading now... a lot to take in at first reading.
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