Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.
On today's Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, I'd like to speak of the fourth apparition of Our Lady, which took place on the 19th of February, because something really interesting happened during that apparition. St. Bernadette, as usual, fixed her gaze on Our Lady, went into ecstasy, and she prayed, absorbed in prayer for at least 30 minutes.
But then Bernadette, later on, told some people that during this ecstasy, during this encounter with Our Lady, she could hear from behind her, from the bowels of the earth, infernal voices, a cacophony of hell, voices yelling at each other, fighting with each other, the cacophony of the hatred that exists in hell. St. Bernadette says she could hear that behind her, and then one voice from among this crowd of demons yelled out, "Get away from here." "Get away from this place."
At that point, Our Lady simply looked up, looked in the direction of the voices, frowned, and that was the end of that. The demons were silenced, never bothered Bernadette again. Subsequent to the Lourdes apparitions, there was a lot of demonic activity in that area. And a lot of people who came to pray to that grotto were very much bothered by the devils attacking them. Bernadette was never bothered again. All it took on the part of Our Lady was just one glance, one frown, and that was it.
So I say this because I know there's a place in the Church, obviously for exorcisms, also for prayers of deliverance and binding prayers and everything in that genre. There is a place for that. These things are blessed by the Church, but we should never become fixated on these things because that's a devil, that's a demonic tact. He wants us. He wants us to have anxiety about him. He wants us to pay attention to him. He wants us to be afraid of him.
But the spiritual battle is fought not by having any anxiety about the devil, rather it is fought by having confidence in Our Lady. How do we even know that Our Lady frowned? Because Bernadette kept her eyes fixed on Our Lady. With all of hell breaking loose, behind her, Bernadette just looked at Our Lady, confidently saw her look up, frowned, and that was it.
So we must remember that. The spiritual battle is a battle of confidence. Confidence in who? In the woman to whom God has promised victory. God promised victory to Our Lady. Genesis 3:15, Our Lady was one foot, and frequently Our Lady is barefoot in these images, one bare foot crushes the head of the serpent without even looking. Frequently, Our Lady is just looking up at God. That is the essence of the spiritual battle. It's a battle for confidence. Confidence in Our Lady, looking at her, like a child in its mother's arms, sleeping, not worrying about anything.
So that's what happened on the 19th of February, 1858, during the fourth apparition, and I hope it inspires us to confidence in Blessed Our Lady. Because, yeah, I mean, the devil, terrible beast. He hates us. He wants the perdition of our souls and our destruction, but he's powerless to do so if we have confidence in Our Blessed Lady. And all it takes from her is one look, one glance, one frown, and he's defeated.
Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.