Hello St. Mary Magdalene,

On the 11th of February we celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. For me, this feast holds a special significance as it was through this apparition and studying it during my seminary formation that would lead me into a deeper Marian devotion. I’ve not yet been to Lourdes (but I will get there someday) but the story and background behind this apparition is amazing. Set in the backdrop of the French Revolution and a highly rationalistic environment where, if reason and/or science can’t explain something it’s not true, Mary appears to 14 year old Bernadette Soubirous, in 1858 under the name “I am the Immaculate Conception.”

This has a special meaning in the life of the Church as four years earlier (1854) Pope Pius IX definitively articulated the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in his letter Ineffabilis Deus (God Ineffable) as a divinely revealed Truth all Catholics must believe. In this letter he shows how his formal articulation flows from the witness of Scripture and Tradition as something present with the Catholic deposit of faith from the very beginning. So, why then did he have to articulate this for belief if it was already there? As so often happens in the Church, dogmatic proclamations often are not issued until there’s a challenge to be-lief and this is exactly what the rationalism of the French Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment were doing; casting a dark light on faith and dismissing it as a silly superstition of a bygone age. The Pope therefore was fighting for the relevance of faith amidst a culture that wanted nothing to do with faith.

How amazing then that four years later, Pius IX found a powerful ally in this fight as Our Lady herself came to the aid of the Church! Just as she did three hundred years earlier at Guadalupe (when the Church was under attack from the Protestant Reformation), Mary appears to reinforce faith in Christ and the Church. Since 1858, the apparition site at Lourdes has been one of the most popular pilgrimage destinations in the world and a site where many favors and miraculous healings are granted through the clemency and love of Christ! These healings are the result of a miraculous, ever-flowing spring of water that Bernadette dug the source for at Mary’s request.

Bernadette thought had no knowledge of what this revealed name of Our Lady meant as she herself had so little theological training that at the time of the apparitions, she had not yet even made her first Communion even though she was 14! This revelation then of the “Immaculate Conception” surprised the clergy in her diocese and, after some skepticism they came to see God’s hand at work and would support Bernadette in promoting these apparitions to all Catholics.

Now, St. Bernadette Soubirous has her own feast day (February 18) one week after the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes (February 11). She is also an incorruptible saint meaning that her body, even over 100 years after her death, has been preserved and is not in a state of decomposition (again, I’ve not been to see her relics but I want to!). Truly, to change the culture and preserve the faith, God chose this humble young woman to manifest his power. Let us never doubt that we too are instruments in God’s hands bringing forth His Divine Will!

St. Bernadette, and Our Lady of Lourdes…pray for us!

P.S. You can read Pius IX’s letter here: Ineffabilis Deus - Papal Encyclicals.  There is also some excellent content on Formed that you can watch for free!

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