Perhaps the most remarkable fact about the apparitions of Our Lady at Lourdes (1858) is that the Church, from 1907 on, has honored that event with the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes celebrated each February 11. The story of the appearances is always worth retelling. Bernadette Soubirous, aged 14, was the child of a very poor family of Lourdes, a town in the Pyrenees Mountains of southern France. On February 11, 1858, she saw a lovely lady in the nearby river side grotto of Massabielle. That day Bernadette was picking up sticks for firewood. She had two younger girls as companions; but only she had the vision. The Lady was clothed in a white veil and dress and a blue sash; and she carried a rosary on her forearm. She persuaded Bernadette to recite the rosary while she herself fingered its beads; but that day she said nothing. When Bernadette told her story at home, she met mixed reactions. But she returned to the grotto three days later and saw the vision once more. On February 18, the Lady, still not identifying herself, asked Bernadette to come back there every day for a fortnight. She also told her on that occasion that she could promise her happiness only in heaven; not in this life. Future events would bear out her assurance.

The apparitions continued until July 16, 18 in all. Larger and larger crowds accompanied Bernadette to the riverbank as time went on. The Lady was now talking with Bernadette while the young girl was in a trance; but nobody else saw what Bernadette saw or heard what she heard. On February 21 the Visitor revealed to Bernadette a spring at the bottom of the cave. This spring, at first a mere trickle, soon began to pour forth thousands of gallons each day. On March 1, a cure took place at the grotto: the first of hundreds to come. On March 2, the Lady said she wanted a chapel built on that spot. Then, on March 25, the feast of the Annunciation, she finally declared her identity: “I am the Immaculate Conception.” Just four years earlier, in 1854, Pope Pius IX, after consulting all Catholic bishops, had defined as a dogma of faith the immaculate conception of Mary; that is her sinlessness from the first moment of her existence. Bernadette had never heard of the term nor of the dogma. But the local priests now knew that the Lady who spoke was Mary.

After careful study, the local bishop declared in 1862 that the appearances reported by Bernadette were credible and that the spot might be visited by pilgrims. Now the young girl’s task was over. She had already suffered much at the hands of the incredulous. Eventually she entered a religious order, and lived out the rest of her life in seclusion and pain, and died far away from her home village. Appearances of Our Lady had been reported before 1858, and still more have been reported since then. Only rarely have these apparitions been in cities (e.g., to St. Catherine Laboure in Paris, and to Father Alphonsus Ratisbonne in Rome). Most of them have taken place in remote country places (perhaps because they resembled Mary’s own home-village of Nazareth?). On each occasion the Lady has appeared in varying styles. On each reported occasion, too - even when the claims of visions have been authenticated (Lourdes, Fatima, LaSalette, Beauraing, Guadalupe, etc.), the appearances have become the subject of strong controversy. One even wonders why Mary continues to appear, considering the sometimes unsavory battles that spring up in connection with her visitations. But surely she must have good reasons. Perhaps Jesus permits this sort of confusion (no doubt attributable in part to Satan), in order to bring her message to the attention of a wide audience, once the outcry has ceased.

It is most important that in the face of any alleged apparitions, Catholics suspend any final judgment until the Church has made a careful study of the case and announced its conclusion. The basic criteria used are: Can these events be explained in other than a supernatural way? Do they in any manner run counter to revealed faith and morals? We can be sure that it is Mary who appeared if her basic advice is the same one that she gave to the waiters at Cana: “Do whatever He tells you” (John, 2:5).  --  Father Robert F. McNamara

Scripture (Isa 66:10-14c)

 

We are celebrating the 33^rd World Day of the Sick in the Jubilee Year 2025, in which the Church invites us to become “pilgrims of hope”.  The word of God accompanies us and offers us, in the words of Saint Paul, an encouraging message: “Hope does not disappoint” (Rom 5:5); indeed, it strengthens us in times of trial. These are comforting words, but they can also prove perplexing, especially for those who are suffering.  How can we be strong, for example, when our bodies are prey to severe, debilitating illnesses that require costly treatment that we may not be able to afford?  How can we show strength when, in addition to our own sufferings, we see those of our loved ones who support us yet feel powerless to help us?  In these situations, we sense our need for a strength greater than our own.  We realize that we need God’s help, his grace, his Providence, and the strength that is the gift of his Spirit (Catechism 1808).  Let us stop for a moment to reflect on how God remains close to those who are suffering in three particular ways: through encounter, gift and sharing.

1.  Encounter.  When Jesus sent the seventy-two disciples out on mission (cf. Lk 10:1-9), he told them to proclaim to the sick: “The kingdom of God has come near to you” (v. 9). He asks them, in other words, to help the sick to see their infirmity, however painful and incomprehensible it may be, as an opportunity to encounter the Lord.  In times of illness, we sense our human frailty on the physical, psychological and spiritual levels. Yet we also experience the closeness and compassion of God, who, in Jesus, shared in our human suffering. God does not abandon us and often amazes us by granting us a strength that we never expected, and would never have found on our own.  Sickness, then, becomes an occasion for a transformative encounter, the discovery of a solid rock to which we can hold fast amid the tempests of life, an experience that, even at great cost, makes us all the stronger because it teaches us that we are not alone. Suffering always brings with it a mysterious promise of salvation, for it makes us experience the closeness and reality of God’s consoling presence.  In this way, we come to know “the fullness of the Gospel with all its promise and life” (St. John Paul II, Address to Young People; New Orleans, 12 September 1987).

2.  This brings us to the second way that God is close to the suffering: as gift. More than anything else, suffering makes us aware that hope comes from the Lord. It is thus, first and foremost, a gift to be received and cultivated, by remaining “faithful to the faithfulness of God”, in the fine expression of Madeleine Delbrêl (cf. La speranza è una luce nella notte, Vatican City 2024, Preface). Indeed, only in Christ’s resurrection does our own life and destiny find its place within the infinite horizon of eternity. In Jesus’ paschal mystery alone do we attain the certainty that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God” (Rom 8:38-39). This “great hope” is the source of all those small glimmers of light that help us to see our way through the trials and obstacles of life (cf. Benedict XVI, Spe salvi, 27, 31). The risen Lord goes so far as to walk beside us as our companion on the way, even as he did with the disciples on the road to Emmaus (cf. Lk 24:13-53). Like them, we can share with him our anxieties, concerns and disappointments, and listen to his word, which enlightens us and warms our hearts.  Like them too, we can recognize him present in the breaking of the bread and thus, even in the present, sense that “greater reality” which, by drawing near to us, restores our courage and confidence.

3. We now come to God’s third way of being close to us: through sharing.  Places of suffering are frequently also places of sharing and mutual enrichment. How often, at the bedside of the sick, do we learn to hope! How often, by our closeness to those who suffer, do we learn to have faith! How often, when we care for those in need, do we discover love! We realize that we are “angels” of hope and messengers of God for one another, all of us together: whether patients, physicians, nurses, family members, friends, priests, men and women religious, no matter where we are, whether in the family or in clinics, nursing homes, hospitals or medical centres. We need to learn how to appreciate the beauty and significance of these grace-filled encounters. We need to learn how to cherish the gentle smile of a nurse, the gratitude and trust of a patient, the caring face of a doctor or volunteer, or the anxious and expectant look of a spouse, a child, a grandchild or a dear friend. All these are rays of light to be treasured; even amid the dark night of adversity, they give us strength, while at the same time teaching us the deeper meaning of life, in love and closeness (cf. Lk 10:25-37).

Dear brothers and sisters who are ill or who care for the suffering, in this Jubilee you play an especially important part. Your journey together is a sign for everyone: “a hymn to human dignity, a song of hope” (Spes non confundit, 11).  Its strains are heard far beyond the rooms and beds of health facilities, and serve to elicit in charity “the choral participation of society as a whole” (ibid.)  in a harmony that is at times difficult to achieve, but for that very reason is so comforting and powerful, capable of bringing light and warmth wherever they are most needed.

The whole Church thanks you for this! I do as well, and I remember you always in my prayers. I entrust you to Our Lady, Health of the Sick, in the words that so many of our brothers and sisters have addressed to her in their hour of need:

We fly to your protection, O Holy Mother of God.
Do not despise our petitions in our necessities,
but deliver us always from all dangers, O glorious and blessed Virgin. (Pope Francis)