1 Kings 10:1-10 / Mark 7:14-23
One of the basic needs of mankind is food. In fact, it may even be the most fundamental need of all creatures. Flowing from that need, food has also become a sign of communion. Hence, there are such things like communion sacrifices or ritual food.
Our partaking of Holy Communion is a profound example of a communion sacrifice and a ritual food in which we come into communion with the Lord Jesus. But many religions also have dietary laws in which some types of food are forbidden and hence, would render a practitioner of a particular religion ritually unclean. This was the context of the discussion about food in today's gospel. Yet Jesus also made a very radical teaching about food. He pronounced all foods clean. He also pointed out that what is really unclean is actually what comes out from the heart.
As Jesus said, it is from within, from men's hearts, that evil intentions emerge: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, malice, deceit, indecency, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within and make a man unclean.
As we participate in the Eucharist, we also prepare ourselves to come into communion with Jesus. So what is the state of our hearts? If there is sin, have we gone for the Sacrament of Reconciliation so as to receive forgiveness and healing and be in a state of grace to receive Jesus the Lord. Let us remember that God and sin cannot exist together in our hearts.
Apparition of Our Lady at Lourdes
Introduction
On February 11, 1858, our Lady appeared at Lourdes to a simple girl, Bernadette Soubirous. Since then, millions of pilgrims have flocked to this town, experiencing a renewal of their faith and, for some, their health. Pilgrimages are a sacred tradition for God’s pilgrim people; many of these journeys are to Marian sanctuaries, where many seek the restoration of their health and faith. The greatest miracle of Lourdes lies perhaps not so much in its spectacular cures but in the atmosphere of the trusting prayer of the pilgrims and in the unity of faith of the poor and the rich, the healthy and the sick.
Opening Prayer
Lord our God, The Mother of Jesus was one with her Son in the mystery of pain when he saved people by his suffering, his death and resurrection. Through her prayers help those who journey to her sanctuaries because their bodies are racked with pain and their hearts are pierced with a sword. Give them the courage of faith to keep hoping in you, our God forever and ever.
Prayers of the Faithful
– For those who restlessly seek to encounter God more deeply, that they may experience God’s nearness in prayer and in good people, we pray:
– For our Christian families, that husbands and wives may take Christ as their companion through life and show their children the way to the Lord, we pray:
– For the sick and all those who suffer, that in their suffering they may be aware that God knows and that Jesus is near to them, we pray:
– For all of us, that we may remain all throughout life pilgrims on the way to God and one another, we pray:
Prayer over the Gifts
Our compassionate God, with these gifts of bread and wine we come to the table of your Son to express our faith and trust in you. through the prayers of Mary. May those who flock to her find faith and health of mind and body, strength in their weakness and joy in your love. We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Prayer after Communion
God, our Father in your kindness you hear the prayers of all who entrust to you with faith their cares and their needs. We unite ourselves in prayer with her whom you chose to be the mother of your Son. Let her prayers lead us nearer to him who came to bring us home in the kingdom of your justice now and for ever and ever.
Blessing
When we go on life’s pilgrimage to our permanent land and home, we are sure to arrive safely if we journey with the faith and spirit of service of Mary, and we may count on the blessing of almighty God: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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REFLECTIONS
from January 11–July 16, 1858 Patron Saint of the sick, asthma sufferers
Bernadette Soubirous was the eldest of nine children born into a poor family in Lourdes, France on January 7, 1844. All eleven members lived in a relative’s one-room basement, a former prison or dungeon. Bernadette spoke the local Occitan dialect and learned some French as a teenager. Frequently ill, she received a simple education from the Sisters of Charity and Christian Instruction.
At age fourteen, Bernadette, her sister, and a friend were gathering firewood to heat the Soubirous home. Bernadette fell behind as they searched for wood near a rock grotto. Hearing the sound of rushing wind, she saw only a wild rose moving. Then, from within the grotto, she saw a dazzling light and the figure of a small young lady in white with yellow roses on her feet. When Bernadette’s sister told their mother about what Bernadette reported seeing, their mother punished the girls for lying and forbade them to return to the grotto.
Three days later, Bernadette and the two girls received Bernadette’s mother’s reluctant permission to return. Thus began a series of trips to the grotto, with a growing number of townspeople joining the three. Only Bernadette, though, saw the lady. On the third appearance, the lady spoke to Bernadette for the first time, in Occitan, asking Bernadette to return for the next fourteen days.
During the next two weeks, the lady appeared to Bernadette twelve times. She instructed Bernadette to tell the priests they were to build a chapel there, that she should wash in the fountain, and that she was to pray for sinners. The lady also revealed three secrets to Bernadette, enjoining her silence.
Even as more people flocked to the grotto, many doubted Bernadette, criticizing her and her family. During the ninth vision, the lady asked Bernadette to drink from a spring of water in the cave. Finding and drinking from a small muddy puddle, Bernadette emerged with mud on her face and encountered the onlookers’ ridicule. Over the next two days, the little mud puddle turned into a flowing spring of clear water. After a woman with a paralyzed arm bathed her limb in the water and was cured, many began to believe that Bernadette was seeing and talking to the Blessed Mother, although the lady had not revealed her name.
Bernadette returned to the grotto on March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation. When she asked the lady’s name, the lady responded, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” Bernadette repeated the name to herself over and over so she wouldn’t forget. When she told the parish priest, he was stunned. Only four years prior, the pope had issued the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception. This fact, especially, convinced Church leaders that the apparitions were authentic.
Several years later, Bernadette entered religious life. She died in 1879 and was canonized in 1933.
Today, the waters in Lourdes continue to flow. The faithful have professed countless healings, and the Church has confirmed seventy healings through a rigorous scientific process. Millions of the sick flock to this holy grotto every year to seek a cure by bathing in or drinking the miraculous water, making Lourdes one of the most frequented pilgrimage sites in the world.
Dearest Mother, you chose the humble Bernadette to proclaim your universal message of repentance and your title as the Immaculate Conception. Please pray for me, that I may one day share in your glory in Heaven. Saint Bernadette, pray for me. Our Lady, the Immaculate Conception, pray for me. Jesus, I trust in You.
Feast day February 11
Each year over 2 million people make their way through the mountainous country of south-eastern France to Lourdes. They come seeking cures, hoping to find answers, believing, and praying. At Lourdes, people recall the Lady dressed in white, with a blue sash, yellow roses at her feet, and a Rosary on her arm—the Blessed Virgin Mary.
On February 11, 1858, Mary appeared to 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous. This was the first of 18 visits, many of them with 20,000 people present. When Bernadette asked the Lady’s identity, she replied, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” Just four years earlier, the pope had proclaimed it a dogma that Mary was conceived immaculate without original sin. The Blessed Virgin, through Bernadette, had come to call sinners to a change of heart. Her message was a request for prayer and penance. She also instructed Bernadette to tell the priests that a chapel was to be built on the site and processions held.
On February 25, 1858, the Lady told Bernadette to dig in the dirt and drink of the stream. Bernadette began to dig, and after several attempts, she was able to find the water to drink. The water continued to flow from where she had dug with her hands until it was producing over 32,000 gallons of water a day—as it still does. There have been over 5,000 cures recorded but less than 100 of them have been declared miraculous by the Church. Most of these have taken place during the blessing with the Blessed Sacrament.
Today we celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. We may never travel to Lourdes and join in the processions, but we can know always that we have a Mother to help us and lead us to her Son, Jesus. And so we pray to her:
Grant us, O merciful God, protection in our weakness, that we, who keep the Memorial of the Immaculate Mother of God, may, with the help of her intercession, rise up from our iniquities. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, One God, for ever and ever. Amen
