Our Lady of Lourdes Feast Day (2022-02-11)

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Homily – Feb. 11, 2022 /   Our Lady of Lourdes Feast Day

● Prophet Isaiah   ● Psalm ●  + John 2:1-11 ●

[__00-a_]    It’s nice that the 1964 construction of our church was delivered with the mosaic over our altar and helpful visual aid for Our Lady of Lourdes Day of February 11

          We on the left-hand side  – in white / blue the appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and on right-hand side,  praying and kneeling young girl, Bernadette holding her rosary. I hope this image helps us to help you to pray today and always and to remember the love of Mary the mother of God, not only for the people of our Lourdes (southwestern France) in the Pyrenees Mountains but also for you the people of Lourdes of West Orange and South Mountain.

From the beginning, the water of Lourdes was believed to have healing properties and any miracles associated with Lourdes must go through a rigorous examination.

Yet, Lourdes and the apparitions from the beginning were really an invitation not to physical healing but spiritual healing by accepting God’s grace and doing penance for our sinfulness. Nevertheless, the healings are a sign of God’s goodness.

[__00-b_]      In 1902, there was a particular healing that took place of a woman who had also woman on her way to Lourdes who was also encountered a very skeptical scientist and doctor on the train.    The woman's name is Marie Bailly.  

Marie suffered from was suffering greatly from her illness, and she was placed in the waters of Lourdes. And what is well documented by the witnesses and by this physician is that she was immediately cured and satisfactorily cured over the long term and there was no other explanation.

This is the definition of a miracle that there's no other explanation known.

The physician himself who observed this was in a difficult position, because he wasn't a believer. He had been raised Catholic, but he wasn't really a believing Catholic at that time. So this created a difficult position for him in his career and his status. And he was asked by other scientists in France and England to reject the miracle, cure to disavow this, but he could not and would not. And as a result, he suffered a major professional setback, he was thrown out of the university faculty where he taught, he was he experienced what Jesus says in the Gospel, Blessed are you when they insult you and exclude you. Your reward will be great in heaven, so the doctor had to endure this exclusion.

Fortunately for him, his career was NOT over.  He was hired at a university in New York City called Rockefeller University, he did was given a 2^nd chance did continue working, and he actually went on to win a Nobel Prize for his work, work in science and medicine.

So there's at least one scientific Nobel Prize winner who testifies to the miracles of Lourdes.

 [__00-c_]   It's a reminder to us that to turn to God in faith and trust.

In what manner and what way do I turn to God for help?

Sometimes, I am inclined to turn to God and turn the prayer into a negotiation. Children do this with their parents too.  The child may believe that he can earn his mother’s or father’s love. But though your father or mother gave you rules to follow, I believe they gave you the rules because the rules would be good for you to follow, of your own free will, not to prove your love to your mother or father.

It’s also been true that my mother / father loved me even when I did not follow the rules.

Nevertheless, the rules – or commandmments – Gods’ Word are there for my salvation.

 But, we often negotiate with God just as we negotiated with our parents or with someone else…

I do something for you. You do something for me, okay. I wake up early, you make the day good for me. I behave, you do something good for me.

I fast for 40 days and 40 Nights, you do something good for me. This is how we look at it. This is how I look at things this way.

Maybe if you don't look at things this way. Good.  Because it's not the right way to look at it.

But for example, looking ahead to Lent, which is just a couple of weeks away when we begin our Lenten fasts, our Lenten fast.

One way we enter into that fast as we'd like, I'm going to do something this Lent and it's good to give something up.

It’s good to abstain from something we'd like abstain from some media we like abstain from some food, we'd like abstain from sweets, abstain from some drink, we like or cut back on something.

But the paradox is that we fast from or give up these things not to PROVE our love to God, but to prove to ourselves that material things cannot save us or be our true comfort.

All those are good things. But that's not because we're negotiating with God to give us something in return.

We're giving it up because we don't have any other answers. We give up – for example – in Lent fro the same reason that the servers in the wedding feast at Cana are asked to turn to our Lord and Savior.

They do not have any other answer but Christ.

We're giving it we're giving something up because we know we're not giving it up to persuade God we're giving it up to realize that we have no other choice but to turn to God.  

We are reminded to have hope and God when we are hungry, and to have hope and God when we need healing. And this was also the message to Marie Bailly at Lourdes and to the physician – Alexis Carrel -- who witnessed the miracle and healing who fortunately did regain his career, but even more importantly, he regained his Catholic faith. He did go he was raised a Catholic the physician and he ultimately died a Catholic as a result of witnessing this healing as well.

So we pray for the intercession of Our Lady of Lourdes for our own spiritual healing and strength as well. Notre Dame de Lourdes priez pour Nous.  Our Lady of Lourdes. Pray for us.  [__fin_]