Cardinal Seán has authorized a special emergency Second Collection this Sunday for the humanitarian relief efforts on behalf of the people of Ukraine, so beleaguered by the war of Russian aggression. The proceeds from this collection will be directed to Catholic Relief Services.
Within the prayers of our Sunday Mass today we remember the special intention of our Holy Father Pope Francis on the Ninth Anniversary of his Installation. Pope Francis was elected in the Conclave on March 13th, 2013 and installed on March 19th. Since March 19th is always the Feast of St. Joseph, the observance of the Pope’s Anniversary is perpetually transferred to March 20th.
(Given at the VIA CRUCIS, March 11, 2022)
The first National Pilgrimage to Lourdes was the “Pilgrimage of the Banners”, October, 1872. Its success inspired Père Emmanuel d’Alzon, the charismatic founder of a new religious order in France, the Assumptionists, to repeat the event and re-shape it according to his mind.
The Assumptionists, based in Paris, called for a second National Pilgrimage under their auspices, to be held between July 22nd-August 22nd (the Octave Day of Our Lady’s Assumption), 1873. In this Pilgrimage there were to be two national rallying points for loyal Catholics to gather in great numbers: La Salette in the southeast and Lourdes in the southwest. With better train access and a less anti-clerical spirit among the local population, Lourdes proved to be a more successful gathering spot for French Catholics.
Père d’Alzon and his religious order family had what we might call “une certaine idée de la France.” The France they wanted to see brought back to life was the France of Clovis, King of the Franks, whose Baptism together with his chieftains on Christmas Day, A.D. 496, by the Bishop St. Remy was behind the designation of France as the “eldest daughter of the Church”
(la fille ainée de l’Eglise). They longed for the France of Charlemagne (crowned Holy Roman Emperor in A.D. 800), the France of King St. Louis IX, the Crusader King (+1270). It was a mythic, romantic view of French identity, built upon the idealized images of Throne (royal kingly power) and Altar (the sacred power of the Catholic Church).
To this end they wanted to see three concrete things established, and they conceived of the National Pilgrimage of 1873 as a means of gathering Catholics together in great numbers in order to “storm Heaven” for their actualization.
The first was the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty’s rightful heir to the Throne of France. (In 1873, this was the Comte de Chambord, 53 years-old, who sought to be crowned as Henry V.) Only such could be the
legitimate King: all other would be claimants were usurpers. Hence, the political term
legitimistes (“legitimists”) was applied to those French who were Bourbon monarchists.
The second was the restoration of the temporal power of the Papacy. The Pope’s temporal sovereignty had been erased altogether when the Kingdom of Sardinia sent its troops into Rome in September, 1870.
The third was the harmonious re-establishment of the social order based upon the alliance of Throne and Altar. Royal power would protect the rights of the Church while Sacred Power would re-enforce the divine basis for Catholic Kingship.
The sufferings of the people caused by the disorders and miseries of Revolution and Napoleonic wars would thereby be redeemed, as France was granted a new dispensation of peace under a restored Christian commonwealth.
As we know, none of these things—so fervently prayed for by so many—ever came to pass. If anything, things went the other way! How to interpret?
In the midst of His Passion, Christ is asked by Pontius Pilate if He is a King. Christ answers Him: “My Kingdom is not of this world.” Nonetheless, we His followers have great difficulty in accepting the full implications of this. Even at the moment of Christ’s Ascension, after all they had just lived through, there are some who ask Him: “Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore again the Kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6) They have been promised the Kingdom of Heaven, but they’re still thinking in terms of a restored political Kingdom of Israel in this world.
They...we!...can’t help ourselves. We say that we believe in the Kingdom of Heaven not-of-this- world, but at the same time, after all, we
do expect some level of “wins” in the earthly sphere. And when it doesn’t happen, as we’re sure God
must want this too, then we become downcast and lose our fervor.
“Why pray? God doesn’t hear me anyways?”
We need to remember then that God has not promised us any level of the Kingdom in terms of this world. Christ’s words to Pilate are absolutely true:
“My Kingdom is not of this world.”
In terms of the this-world special intentions for which the Assumptionists first organized a National Pilgrimage to Lourdes in 1873, it was a total failure. None of it happened. But who would dare to say that God has not given unction to the Pilgrimage to Lourdes when He has shown so many other fruits, and so many other things of great moral and spiritual value which are still being realized in our day?
Father Higgins
Mary Immaculate of Lourdes is Newton and Needham Massachusetts' oldest Roman Catholic Parish. Founded as Saint Mary Parish in 1870, it was renamed "Mary Immaculate of Lourdes" when the new Church was dedicated on Thanksgiving Day, 1910. In addition to being a regular territorial parish of the Archdiocese of Boston it is also a "Mission Parish" since 2007 with a special apostolate for the Traditional Latin Mass (1962 Missal).
Mary Immaculate of Lourdes Church
270 Elliot Street
Newton, MA 02464
USA
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