In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen  In the Franciscan Order, we celebrate Our Lady of Lourdes as a feast day. And Lourdes, of course, holds a special place in all of our hearts, in which we remember in 1858, Our Blessed Mother appeared to Bernadette Soubirous in the little town of Lourdes in a grotto, which was a place where pigs were kept and where garbage had been dumped. And first of all, that just is a symbol of transformation, that wherever Our Lady goes, or wherever Our Blessed Mother is, transformation occurs. And we can almost look at it as the grotto’s transformation, as our own spiritual life’s transformations with Mary’s help, that we may be down in the dumps, we may be in the mire of sin and darkness, but with Our Lady’s help, we can be transformed to return to Her Son and to follow Him with renewed hearts and fidelity.
And Bernadette was about 14 years old when Our Lady appeared to her, and her family was very poor. It’s recorded that she recorded that even they were so poor and her brothers were so hungry, sometimes they would eat the wax in the church, of the candle wax in the church; they were so hungry. And of course, the family was staying in a former jail, which was found unfit for prisoners, criminals, but the Soubirous family stayed there because that was all they could afford, was to stay there in this very damp place. Our Bernadette struggled with her studies; she was not considered to be very bright, but this is the instrument that Our Lady chose to appear to when she appeared to Bernadette.
Our Lady appeared, of course, wearing a white dress, a white veil with a blue sash and golden roses on her feet, that symbolizing that she is the new Eve, the new Eve. Bernadette said that when she saw Our Lady, Our Lady was also holding a rosary and would pray the rosary with her. She would do the Glory Be; she would not pray the Our Father or the Hail Mary, but would pray the Glory Be with her and would move the rosary through her hands.
Several things that Our Lady said to Bernadette are important for us to reflect upon on this day. First of all, Our Lady told Bernadette, “I do not promise you happiness in this world, only in the next,” reminding us that our true home is not here on earth, on this earth, but in heaven, and that we must not seek to make the material things of this world or anything else, such as power or fame or fortune or pleasures of whatever they may be, as our happiness, as the center of our life, but that we must remember that we are on pilgrimage and that our true home is in heaven. Our Lady, by this, also reminds us that our sufferings are but means by which we conform to Christ and are united to Her Son, and also that they purify us and prepare us for heaven. They prepare us for heaven. Our Lady doesn’t say, so Our Lady doesn’t take away our sufferings, but she helps us with her maternal assistance to carry them and to persevere for love of Her Son, who died for us.
She also told Bernadette, “Penance, penance, penance, pray for poor sinners.” And so she repeated penance three times, reminding us how important penance is to atone for sins, to make satisfaction before God for our sins, and to also offer them up for the sins of the world as well. But our own daily conversion being marked by our penances and atoning for our sins and offering them for poor sinners, and this was re-echoed by our Blessed Mother, of course, at Fatima when she said, “Many souls go to hell because there’s no one to pray for them, to pray for them or do penance for them.” And so it’s just a reminder how important our daily prayers are, and our sacrifices to save poor sinners. Our Lady is a mother who does not want any of her children to be lost, and as if she’s calling us to assist her to help save poor sinners from going to hell, she’s depending on us to help save poor sinners, and stressing this by this message.
She also requested that Bernadette go to the priest and to have a chapel built and processions. The chapel, of course, being a transformation in which Christ would be present through the Holy Mass and that God would be glorified through the Holy Mass and through prayers, and also that processions in which this is continued to this day in Lourdes. There’s a nightly procession with candlelight, a beautiful procession in which the faithful process of praying the rosary, praying the rosary, and this continues in which we give honor to God’s mother, who is our mother, and that we want to honor her in this way.
And of course, perhaps one of the most significant messages was when Our Lady appeared to Bernadette the last time on March 25; it was the Annunciation. Bernadette had been asking Our Lady her name the whole time; Our Lady never revealed it to her until this last apparition in which she said to her, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” Bernadette describes Our Lady when she said this, that she had her hands folded looking up to heaven, and then she put her hands down like she is on the Miraculous Medal, and then Bernadette said she could detect a slight tremble in Our Lady’s voice when she said, “I am the Immaculate Conception,” a tremble in her voice, just an indication of Our Lady’s great humility, but also that this was a confirmation of the dogma that had just been declared four years previously of the Immaculate Conception, that Our Lady was conceived without sin from the moment of her conception, being freed from the stain of original sin.
Again, this just gives the wonderful, wonderful proof of the Holy Spirit guiding the Church and continuing to guide the Church.
One of the other things that Our Lady asked Bernadette to do was to drink from the stream. Bernadette didn’t know what that meant at first; she thought it was the river, but Our Lady gave her an indication to go to within the grotto and to dig, and Bernadette dug there in the grotto, and at first it was just muddy water and only a few drops of clear water, but eventually we know that this water came forth from the hole in which Bernadette dug. And first of all, the water, of course, symbolizes cleansing, purity, symbolizing baptism, renewal through confession, but also this water has brought many, many healings, both physical and spiritual, and the waters of Lourdes are renowned throughout the world for its healing properties, and the Church has recorded over 70 authenticated miracles of people who are miraculously cured with no explanation. There was just one recently approved just in the past week, actually, of a miracle of healing, and it’s just, first of all, Our Lady, as a mother, wanting to console and give strength to her children and to assist them, but assist them. I know that I’m not the only one, but I know that I was privileged to go into the baths several times, and it was just a remarkable experience in which you feel a spiritual force around you of either physical or spiritual healing, and it’s just a wonderful reminder, again, of that transformation of grace, the water also being a symbol of grace, a purity of healing.
Many miracles have happened also at Lourdes through the Eucharistic processions that are held daily. In the winter, they hold the Eucharistic procession in the underground basilica. In the spring and summertime, it’s on the grounds of the shrine of Our Lady, in which there have been many healings as well through the benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.
At Lourdes, above all, is a reminder to us of our Blessed Mother, a mother calling her children to be renewed in grace, to be renewed through prayer and penance, to remember that our true purpose and destination is heaven, and that we are called also to imitate her in striving to become immaculate, free from sin.  May our Blessed Mother today fill us with great joy on this feast day in which we remember her apparition, and that we may hearken to her request in being faithful to a life of prayer and penance, and to keep our hearts always pure for God.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen