{"id":25321,"date":"2010-02-11T05:30:08","date_gmt":"2010-02-11T09:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2010\/02\/our-lady-of-lourdes\/"},"modified":"2010-02-11T05:30:08","modified_gmt":"2010-02-11T09:30:08","slug":"our-lady-of-lourdes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2010\/02\/our-lady-of-lourdes\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Lady of Lourdes"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\"our<\/a><\/p>\n

You have been blessed, O Virgin Mary, above all other women on earth by the Lord the most high God; he has so exalted your name that your praises shall never fade from the mouths of men.<\/i><\/font><\/p>\n


<\/font><\/p>\n

In the recent
\nweeks I’ve had to think more about the place of Mary, Mother of God (Theotokos)
\nin Catholic theology, worship and personal devotion. This was especially keen
\nwhen I took the negative position of a resolution on the worthiness of a
\nbeliever’s adherence to the phenomenon of Medjugorje. Marian piety is a strong
\nreality in Catholicism and no good Catholic can claim being in communion with
\nthe believing community of faith if there is no adherence to some form of
\ndevotion to the Mother of God, Mary the Virgin. Today, the Church honors the
\nBlessed Virgin Mary of Lourdes. Let me pose a points on what we believe viz.
\nMarian doctrine.<\/span><\/p>\n

We can begin thinking about the BVM in sacred Scripture,
\n(e.g., the Annunciation or at the cross) the Apostolic Fathers and beyond but I
\nwant to limit ourselves to the Second Vatican Council and a other notable
\nteachers of the Faith. Vatican II teaches us that Our Lady’s intercession
\nbefore the Throne of Grace is, in fact, long standing. Pope Paul VI speaks of
\nMary as the intercessor for unity among Christians and world peace, ultimately
\ngiving her the title of “Queen of Peace” (see the 1974 document Marialis
\ncultus<\/i>, 5 & 33).  <\/span>Developing
\nthe them of Mary’s maternity based on Vatican II thinking, Pope John Paul II in
\nhis encyclical 1980 Dives in misericordia<\/i> (no. 9) claims for us that Mary’s
\nmotherhood the eternal Word of God has a special place in our own redemption.
\nIn other places John Paul also speaks of Mary’s assistance in ecumenical work
\nas the “Mother of Unity” and he reaffirms Pope Paul’s “Queen of Peace” title.<\/span><\/p>\n

Catholics
\nalways make distinctions. We have “public revelation” and “private revelation”
\nwhen it comes to matters of faith and salvation. The teaching of the Church
\nsays that public revelation ended with the death of Saint John, the beloved
\ndisciple and evangelist. With John’s death revelation is said to be closed as
\nthere were no other direct witnesses to the Resurrection of Jesus from the
\ndead. Revelation, here, contains all that God has revealed to us in His Son,
\nJesus Christ. Since Christ established a Church to continue the ongoing work of
\nsalvation public revelation means that it is contained in sacred Scripture,
\nTradition and the Teaching of the Church: what has been handed down from Jesus,
\nto the Apostles to the bishops and to us. We believe, therefore, that Jesus
\nChrist is the fullness of revelation; He is the definitive revelation of God.<\/span><\/p>\n

Revelation
\nis considered private when something of the Paschal Mystery (the life, death,
\nresurrection and ascension) of the Lord is made known to a saint, to Mary, or
\nthrough contemplative prayer. While the Apostles were alive revelation
\ncontinued to reveal some specific about the Lord as it concerns our salvation
\nwhile private revelation does not add anything to what is already revealed in
\nthe public revelation. The contribution to our spiritual lives that a private
\nrevelation makes is a certain guidance, application, correction or exhortation.
\nAs examples of this would be the 14 Marian apparitions and saints like Faustina,
\nCatherine of Siena, Margaret Mary Alacoque and Catherine Labouré. While all of
\nthings these saints have revealed to us assist us in our faith they are
\nconsidered to be private revelation but with a prophetic quality to them. But
\nthe Church does not bind our consciences to believe these private revelations
\nbecause they are not part of the revelation given to us through the apostles.<\/span><\/p>\n

Private
\nrevelation, nonetheless, has a special place in theological reflection and must
\nbe considered sympathetically as there is an element of private revelation that
\nis prophetic. Saint Thomas Aquinas writes, “in every period there have always
\nbeen some who have the spirit of prophecy, not to set forth new teaching of the
\nfaith, but to give direction to human activities” (Summa theologiae II-II, 174,
\n6 ad 3).<\/span><\/p>\n

The feast of Our Lady of Lourdes leads us to recall the infallible doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. This feast reminds us of the extraordinary events in 1858 when the Virgin Mary identified herself to Bernadette Soubirous on the banks of the Gave River near Lourdes, France as the Immaculate Virgin. The apparition of the Immaculate Virgin Mary came four years after the Church promulgated the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.<\/span><\/o:p><\/p>\n

There were 18 apparitions with the last one on July 16, 1858.<\/font><\/p>\n

The message given to Bernadette at Lourdes is a Gospel message: Mary calls all people to believe in the Gospel and always keeping in mind that God loves and cares for each of us. It is a “Prodigal Son” message of calling back sinners to a loving Father. This road of conversion to Christ is a personal, intimate encounter with the Lord. It is lived in the faith community of the Church. This is a message of healing of the heart and not only physical healing, which is one way of manifesting a spiritual healing. God’s healing of the heart goes to the deepest places where we are often unaware.<\/font><\/p>\n

Our prayer, then, is what the Church prays at Mass:<\/font><\/p>\n

God of mercy, we celebrate the feast of Mary, the sinless mother of God. May her prayers help us to rise above our human weakness.<\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

The story of Lourdes can be viewed here<\/a>.<\/font><\/p>\n

The story of the 67 miracles of Lourdes can heard here<\/a>.<\/font><\/p>\n

About the<\/a> documentary of Lourdes.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You have been blessed, O Virgin Mary, above all other women on earth by the Lord the most high God; he has so exalted your name that your praises shall never fade from the mouths of men. In the recent weeks I’ve had to think more about the place of Mary, Mother of God (Theotokos) … Continue reading Our Lady of Lourdes<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[32088],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25321"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25321\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}