The Lady of the Spring
Today there appeared in church a bowl full of what purported by the sign to be 'Lourdes Water.' [thought i would mention it in the event the PTB - powers that be-didn't think anyone paid attention to what was lying around the church.] It stopped me in my tracks.
What is the big deal about Lourdes water? A Dominican Friar Brother Hugh tries to explain in his article in http://www.godspy.com/ (he has a longer fancier title but you have to go to the site and read the article and find it---)
This Dominican Friar should start writing books because he is an excellent writer. Google him- if you are lucky you will get him to talk to your church.
I visited Lourdes and thought I should share my experience. Really, you should go and share your experience. Maybe my experience will encourage you to go. I have a whole photo-album in storage full of shots of the place. I took special artsy angle shots of the Way of the Cross walk up the hill where life sized bronze figures of Jesus lined the trail. Don't make me find them. OK-make me find them but you have to help.
When you get to the town of Lourdes you think you landed in the Shrine gift-shop where streets are lined with plastic glow- in- the- dark Virgin Mary shaped bottles and every tacky souvenier you imagined the French could invent to keep a town in tourist industry solvency. I am sure entire families survive off the mark up of fake limogue knock-off porcelaine Madonnas. My Protestant sister would say I landed in "chatchki heaven" and please don't bring any home, it's not on my Christmas List.
I settled into a quiet small two star hotel, the Saint Etienne (Saint Stephen), right off the main street into the gated holy park with amenities about up to par of a convent, complete with metal cot, small old wooden desk, closet without a door, bathroom without tub and a shower with an unmanageable crazy spirol fosset head that flooded the room if I took more than five seconds. I recommend it. It's right on the main evening candle-light procession route into the round driveway leading up to the main Basillica.
I went there mostly to pray for a wayward relative-a troubled brother as I was ignoring whatever ailed me and wasn't sure anything did too much- although that cough that kept me up all night for a few weeks wasn't anything I wanted to be concerned with.
The mountain air did me good. The mountain air will do you good. It's in the heart of the Pyraneese in a beautiful place by a river-the River Greve. I decided I needed a routine; a discipline even. So I decided I would drink every morning and night an entire large
water bottle of Lourdes water (with lemon in the morning), walk the Way of the Cross every day, visit the Adoration tent, pray more or less all day, and do whatever else the Spirit moved me to do. I went alone so nothing annoying would distract me. So every morning I went to the outdoor fossets and filled up my water bottle. Then I started to pray. All day. I went to Masses in French, English, Italian and Galic (I don't understand Gallic- I just love the way it sounds and I look like the people). Only later did I realize I crashed the Masses of about five different pilgrimmages-but no one seemed to mind.
I had a week. I went to volunteer to help the really sick people, but they said I needed to get a letter or some sponsorship from a priest or someone-I couldn't just show up alone and volunteer. That was a good policy I thought- what if I am a crazy person who gets off on traveling a few thousand miles to roll around tragically sick people in homemade blanket covered ancient rickety wheel-chairs? They suggested I just enjoy my first time and take in the sights and sounds and suggested I come back to volunteer. I tried to journal but there was too much going on and I was compelled to do more praying than writing.
This blog is too short to explain everything that happened at Lourdes-the things I saw, the people I met, prayed with and spoke with, the Masses I attended, the events I witnessed. There are, however, a few noteworthy things worth mentioning, some more subtle than others. I will relay some personal experiences. You have to believe that this happened because I am a lawyer and we aren't allowed to lie.
I followed the procession into the underground Basillica where I was surprised to see a display of saints including one of my favorite -Saint Therese of Lisieux whom I discovered had the title Patron Saint of Missions. I had been on Protestant Missions and didn't even know one of my favorite Saints was watching me then (actually I knew she was watching other times but that's for another day)
I watched lines of white robed priests whom I later learned must have been Dominicans process with the Monstrance in the underground crypt as volunteers wheeled in rows and rows of very sick people in wheelchairs. They are called the "malades" which just means sick folk in french. Some of these people were visibly badly palsied, twisted and crippled, others obviously very ill, possibly terminally ill. This really was the cruise to the Last Resort (I think Br. Hugh might have mentioned that line first and it's very apropos).
The ambiance was intense-intensely mystical and prayerful. Something was going on and I knew I could only see the tip of the iceberg. Truthfully, I didn't know what was going on.
I was still trying to process and take in everything that happened underground and decided to take a walk. It was a bit strange, but very beautiful. I walked across the river (there is a bridge- I wasn't that adept at walking on water...)
I was sitting on the other side of the river looking at the smallish Virgin Mary tucked in the cleff of the craggy grotto-side. I thought she would be bigger. I started talking to her. You are allowed to do this there- it's her house basically. If you don't talk to her in her house it's kind of rude. I realized that she is a Mother, like my Mother, with a Maternal heart- which is a very special kind of heart. No matter how mad I ever am at my mother, when I show up at her house, she instinctively does a few things without fail- she immediately wants to feed me-usually has a plate of something already ready if she is expecting me- she insists on taking my clothes and washing them (this sort of offends me sometimes because I don't think they are always that dirty, but she likes to clean everything, especially me)-
she asks about how I am feeling and does whatever she thinks she can if something is a bit off - do you need vitamins? Aspirin? A heating pad? What do you need?-She has an instinctive healing impulse. In my mother this may be even more pronounced because she is a licensed nurse and there are medical professionals in our extended family history.
The Blessed Mother is not just a nurse. She nursed the life of the Great Healer, the creator of all Wholeness, the Source of all Life. If you show up at her House, she wants to wash you clean, and she provides the water, even runs the tub for you-there are actually healing baths there you can go dunk yourself in. She wants to fix whatever is "off"- whatever ails you. If you show up at her House she won't let you be sick-whether you know you are sick or not.
So there I was talking to her. I won't get into what I was saying- but I will tell you that I started that annoying night-time coughing only in the middle of the day. And up I chucked some fuzzy
massive thing the size of a ping-pong ball that was festering in my lungs. Yuck. It was so gross and so large I threw it in the River and it audibly splashed. Yuck. People saw this and smiled. Like it happens all the time. I slept soundly thereafter and the cough disappeared. This won't make the annals of any medical journal because I didn't even know I was sick. But the Blessed Mother did-and she wasn't having it.
I processed around the Grotto as everyone does- I had my left hand on the Grotto wall and walked slowly around, and I felt a splash on the back of my legs. I looked back to see what bratty kid was dousing his water bottle on my ankles and there was nothing of the kind- just people processing in an orderly fashion behind me.
Now the Lourdes water is not the same as the River Greve water. The water of Lourdes comes from a Mountain source that is different from the River Greve that runs through the town and right by the Basillica. The Lourdes water is of a different mineral content. This stream was shown to Bernadette, a peasant girl of an age about not much younger than the Blessed Mother would have been when she had a visit from Gabriel by the Blessed Mother herself. Prior to this it was hidden. The Blessed Mother has a habit of showing people things previously hidden that can heal them.
When I returned I had to go get new glasses. I had my eyes examined and was pleasantly surprised to discover that I didn't need correction any more for a stigmatism that I had since birth. I had no stigmatism. My glasses dropped a .5 correction on the prescription. Your eyes are supposed to get worse as you get older. I am a lawyer and do a lot of reading and computer work. People my age were starting to complain they needed bifocals. But after I returned from Lourdes, my eyesight improved- markedly. Every pair of glasses I ever owned ever since I first wore glasses had correction for a stigmatism. Now I didn't need it.
I didn't ask for that either. But one of Jesus' favorite things to do is make people see more clearly. I think he especially likes it when he helps people see Him more clearly.
The brother I prayed for is still more than a bit wayward. So it's about time I went and volunteered to wheel around the really sick people.
My grandmother Mary Margaret Montgomery used to sign her name MMM. I called her M-cubed . Now I had additional meaning to add to M3-
Mother Mary Miracles.
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