MARY, OUR MOTHER

Saint Bernadette remains incorrupt.

OUR LADY OF LOURDES

During the year 1858 our Blessed Lady appeared eighteen times from February 11 to July 16 to Bernadette Soubirous, the fourteen-year-old daughter of a destitute day laborer of Lourdes in France. Through this humble child, the Mother of God announced to the world her sublime title of the Immaculate Conception and a special message of penance and love.

Mary of the Immaculate Conception is the national patron of the Church in the United States of America, and so we should develope a special interest and zeal in helping to fill the treasury of graces that our compassionate Mother distributes so freely for the sick, the poor and the conversion of sinners.

Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum.

Benedicta tu in mulieribus

et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus.

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei,

ora pro nobis peccatoribus

nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.

Description of the Virgin by St. Bernadette

"She has the appearance of a young girl of sixteen or seventeen. She is dressed in a white robe, girdled at the waist with a blue ribbon, which flows down all along her robe. She wears upon her head a veil which is also white; this veil gives just a glimpse of her hair and then falls down at the back below her waist. Her feet are bare but covered by the last folds of her robe except at the point where a yellow rose shines upon each of them. She holds on her right arm a Rosary of white beads with a chain of gold shining like the two roses on her feet."

Messages of Our Lady

Bernadette: "She said to me, 'I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next.'" (February 18, 1858)

Bernadette: "The Lady, looking away from me for a moment, directed her glance afar, above my head. Then, looking down upon me again, for I had asked her what had saddened her, she replied, 'Pray for the sinners.' I was very quickly reassured by the expression of goodness and sweetness which I saw return to her face, and immediately she disappeared." (February 21, 1858)

Bernadette: "Penitence... penitence... penitence!" (February 24, 1858)

Bernadette: "While I was in prayer, the Lady said to me in a serious but friendly voice, 'Go, drink and wash in the fountain.' As I did not know where this fountain was, and as I did not think the matter important, I went toward the Gave. The Lady called me back and signed to me with her finger to go under the grotto to the left; I obeyed but I did not see any water. Not knowing where to get it from, I scratched the earth and the water came. I let it get a little clear of the mud, then I drank and washed." (February 25, 1858)

The Virgin: "Go, and kiss the ground in penance for sinners." "Go and tell the priests to have a chapel built here." (February 27, 1858)

Bernadette (to Abbé Peyramale): "The Lady has ordered me to tell you that she wishes to have a chapel at Massabieille and now she adds 'I wish people to come here in procession.'" (March 2, 1858)

Bernadette (to Abbé Peyramale): "She smiled when I told her that you were asking her to work a miracle. I told her to make the rose bush, which she was standing near, bloom; she smiled once more. But she wants the chapel." (March 3, 1858)

Bernadette: "While I was praying, the thought of asking her name came to my mind with such persistence that I could think of nothing else. I feared to be presumptuous in repeating a question she had always refused to answer and yet something compelled me to speak. At last, under an irresistible impulsion, the words fell from my mouth and I begged the Lady to tell me who she was."
"The Lady did as she had always done before; she bowed her head and smiled, but she did not reply."
"I cannot say why, but I felt myself bolder and asked her again to graciously tell me her name; however, she only smiled and bowed as before, still remaining silent."
"Then once more, for the third time, clasping my hands and confessing myself to be unworthy of the great favor I was asking of her, I again made my request."
"The Lady was standing above the rose bush, in a position very similar to that shown on the Miraculous Medal. At my third request, her face became very serious, and she seemed to bow down in an attitude of humility. Then she joined her hands and raised them to her breast. She looked up to Heaven."
"Then slowly opening her hands and leaning toward me, she said to me in a voice vibrating with emotion: 'I am the Immaculate Conception' (Que soy era Immaculado Conceptiou). She smiled again, spoke no more, and disappeared smiling." (March 25, 1858)

Excerpted from the text 'God Sent', Crossroad, 2000 by Roy Varghese.