The Apparitions of Mary Immaculate at Lourdes According to the Liturgical Calendar
Fr. Higgins • February 11, 2024
The Apparitions of Our Lady at Lourdes to Bernadette Soubirous in 1858 can be best understood by correlating them to the liturgical calendar then in use. There we can see how well they align with the Patristic Church’s Easter Baptismal Catechesis. Here follows an outline:
1st Apparition: Thursday in Shrovetide (February 11th, 1858), the Night Office for this day presents the Covenant of God with Noah after the Great Flood and the Rainbow in the heavens as the sign of God’s reconciliation. The waters of the Great Flood prefigure the waters of Christ’s Baptism and Noah’s Ark the Ark of Christ’s Catholic Church—the Ark of Salvation.
2nd Apparition: Shrove Sunday (February 14th)
3rd Apparition: Thursday after Ash Wednesday (February 18th): The Vision addresses Bernadette for the first time and asks the girl to visit her there for a fortnight.
The Fortnight: Weeks I & II of Lent
4th Apparition: Friday after Ash. Also, the Feast of the Sacred Crown of Thorns, the Third in the series of seven particular Feasts of the Passion which were said on designated days in Septuagesima and Lent. In 1858, these were observed in the diocese to which Lourdes belonged. (February 19th)
5th Apparition: Saturday after Ash (February 20th) Lenten Gospel Lesson: Jesus walks on the water and calms the storm. Mark 6:47-56
6th Apparition: First Sunday in Lent. The Gospel Lesson is of the Temptation of Christ in the Desert. Matt. 4:1-11 (February 21st)
Monday of the First Week in Lent, the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter at Antioch (February 22nd): No Apparition to Bernadette.
7th Apparition: Tuesday of the First Week in Lent (February 23rd). Lenten Gospel Lesson: Jesus cleanses the Temple on Palm Sunday, Matthew 21:10-17.
8th Apparition: Ember Wednesday in Lent (February 24th). During her ecstasy Bernadette is heard to say: “Penance … Penance … Penance.” Lenten Gospel Lesson: Jesus tells the Pharisees the only sign that will be shown them is the “Sign of Jonas” (i.e., His own death and Resurrection from the Tomb). Matthew 12:38-50.
9th Apparition: Thursday of the First Week in Lent (February 25th) The Apparition commands Bernadette to “Go and drink at the spring and wash yourself in it.” Bernadette digs in the dirt where the Vision indicates. Only on her 4th attempt is she able to drink a little muddy water. Lenten Gospel Lesson: The Canaanite mother who begs Christ to deliver her possessed daughter. Matthew 15:21-28.
Ember Friday in Lent (February 26th) and the Feast of the Holy Lance and Nails. The Beautiful Lady does not appear to Bernadette, but the people of Lourdes are amazed to find water gushing from the side of the great rock, from the very place were Bernadette had been digging in the dirt the day before. This is the first Sign given to the people: the water gushing from the side of the rock is a symbol of the water and blood flowing from the side of Christ on the Cross, John 19:35.
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In the Year 1858, a 14 year-old girl named Bernadette Soubirous, from the Pyrenean mountain town of Lourdes, received 18 APPARITIONS of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Blessed Virgin appeared to her in the cleft of a great rock known to the local people as the “Massabielle”. Bernadette received a total of 18 Apparitions. The first occurred on February 11th which has since become the Feast-day of Our Lady of Lourdes. That year it was the Thursday before Ash Wednesday, the first day of Shrovetide. According to the Liturgical Calendar of that Year, the Apparitions corresponded to the following days: First Apparition: Thursday of Shrovetide 2nd Apparition: Shrove Sunday 3rd Apparition: Thursday after Ash Wed. Apparitions 4-15, “The Fortnight” — From Friday after Ash to Thursday of the Second Week in Lent. Apparition 16: March 25th, the Feast of the Annunciation. Also, that year: Thursday in Passion Week. 17th Apparition: Easter Wednesday 18th Apparition: July 16th (Mt. Carmel) THE TWO GREAT SIGNS GIVEN TO THE WORLD AT LOURDES: THE FIRST SIGN: THE SUDDEN APPEARANCE OF THE FRESH SPRING OF WATER OUT OF THE SIDE OF THE GREAT ROCK OF THE MASSABIELLE, FEBRUARY 25th, at the NINTH APPARITION, A CLEAR SYMBOL OF THE WATER FLOWING FROM CHRIST’S SIDE ON THE CROSS AND THE BAPTISMAL REGENERATION. THE SECOND SIGN: MARY IDENTIFIES HERSELF WITH HER SINGULAR PRIVILEGE OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. SHE SAID TO BERNADETTE: “I AM THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION”. THIS OCCURRED AT THE 16th APPARITION, ON THE FEAST OF THE ANNUNCIATION ITSELF, MARCH 25th. THE MYSTERY OF MARY’S FULLNESS OF GRACE IS INDICATED IN THE ANGEL GABRIEL’S GREETING: “HAIL, FULL OF GRACE, THE LORD IS WITH THEE.”
Prayer of Saint Francis de Sales: Do not look forward to what may happen tomorrow. The same everlasting Father who takes care of you today will take care of you tomorrow and every day. Either He will shield you from suffering or He will give you unfailing strength to bear it. Put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations and say continually, “The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart has trusted in Him and I am helped. He is not only with me, but in me, and I in Him.”
In the life of St. Gregory the Wonderworker (+270) we have the example of a Saint who fulfilled Christ’s words of the Gospel in a literal way: “ Amen I say to you that whosoever shall say to this mountain, Be thou removed and be cast into the sea and shall not stagger in his heart, but believe that whatsoever he saith shall be done: it shall be done unto him. (Mark 11:23) St. Gregory, the Bishop of Neocaesarea, performed great signs and wonders in the Name of Christ. As we read in the Roman Breviary: By his prayer he removed a mountain which was an obstacle to the building of a church. He also dried up a lake which was a cause of dissension between brothers. The River Lycus, which was inundating and devastating the fields, he restrained by fixing in the bank his stick, which immediately grew into a green tree, and served as the limit which the river henceforth never overpassed. The most powerful effect of St. Gregory’s prayers, however, was the graces of conversion for his city which he obtained: When he was dying, he asked how many infidels remained in the city of Neocaesarea: and on being informed that there were only seventeen, he gave thanks to God, and said: When I was made bishop, there were but seventeen believers. Indeed for anyone at all to be truly converted to Christ is the equivalent of a mountain being moved. And yet it does happens. May we be good instruments by prayer and good example.
During All Saintstide there is a Mass which may be said: F east Of The Holy Relics Preserved In The Churches Of The Diocese,or, All Holy Relics . This Mass draw our attention to the Mystery of the Resurrection. The relics of the Saints—fragments of their bones, ashes, clothes, or other objects used by them—yet “ work wonders on earth.” Just as divine power emanated from Christ and worked miracles for people, even if they so much as touched the hem of His Garments, so Christ in His Church continues to heal and work wonders through the relics of His Saints. These relics “ exorcise devils, heal the sick, restore sight to the blind, cleanse lepers, drive away temptations and bestow on all the excellent gifts which come from the Father of Light.” (Lessons of the Second Nocturn at Matins for the Feast of All Holy Relics) This mysterious divine power of relics is a pledge to us of the future Resurrection. If God can work through their ashes here and now, how can He not also bring this dust back into a glorified, resurrected body on the Last Day? The early Christians had the spiritual intuition to connect the remains of the martyrs with the Sacrifice of the Mass. This is why Mass was celebrated near the tombs of the martyrs in the Catacombs “ in order to show that these Saints had mixed their blood with that of the Victim of Calvary.” (Vespers Antiphon) After the Persecutions had ended the beautiful churches erected served as vast reliquaries to preserve the tombs of celebrated martyrs. The remains of those who had confessed their faith were placed under the Church’s High Altar, in the Conf essio . (For example, in St. Peter’s Basilica, the main altar is over the tomb of Peter. It is the Confession of St. Peter.) Related to this is the custom of placing martyrs’ relics in a small cavity of the altar stone called the “sepulchre” in the ceremony of the Dedication of a new Church. I can find no information on which particular martyrs’ relics are placed in the sepulchers of our parish altar stones, but we know that they are there. We also have our other visible reliquaries on the reredos over our High Altar. May the regular sight of them stir us to thoughts of Heaven and the Resurrection of the Body.
Thursday of this week, the Vigil of All Saints (All Hallows’ E’en) our new Archbishop, His Excellency Richard Henning formally takes possession of his Episcopal See of Boston with a Mass of Installation at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. This is an event of great significance for us as we receive our new Chief Shepherd. Our Thursday evening Mass at 5:30 PM will be offered for Archbishop Henning’s special intention.
Today we are observing theFeast of Our Lady of the Rosary as an “External Solemnity”. (The actual Feast-day is October 7th.) The Feast has its origins as a Feast of Thanksgiving for the deliverance of Christendom from an Ottoman Turk invasion by sea. As we read in the summary from Dom Guéranger’s Liturgical Year: The Turkish fleet had already mastered the greater part of the Mediterranean, and was threatening Italy, when, on October 7th, 1571, it came into action, in the Gulf of Lepanto with the pontifical galleys supported by the fleets of Spain and Venice. It was Sunday: throughout the world the Confraternities of the Rosary were engaged in their work of intercession. Supernaturally enlightened, St. Pius V watched from the Vatican the battle undertaken by the leader he had chosen, Don Juan of Austria, against the three-hundred vessels of Islam. The illustrious Pontiff, whose life’s work was now completed, did not survive to celebrate the anniversary of the triumph; but he perpetuated the memory of it by an annual commemoration of Our Lady of Victory. His successor, Gregory XIII, altered this title to Our Lady of the Rosary, and appointed the first Sunday of October for the new feast … It is to be emphasized here that the spectacular victory of the under-dog Christian navy against the invader was, on the higher, spiritual plane, a gratuitous gift of the Divine Mercy in answer to the earnest prayer of faith and so it was recognized by the people of that day. It was not in any way a matter of the Rosary as “spellcasting”, as if large numbers of people praying the same prayer could have generated a forcefield of energy to achieve the desired result. Our prayers, in and of themselves, are nothing. It is rather God compassionating our prayers that makes the difference. The clearer we are on this distinction, the stronger our prayer life will be and the greater our gratitude to God.
The Feast of St. Michael Archangel, also known as “Michaelmas” (Michael + Mass), is our gateway into the Mystery of the Holy Angels in God’s Plan of Redemption. In addition to being the Month of the Rosary, October is also the Month of the Holy Angels. October 2nd is the Feast of the Holy Guardian Angels. The two kinds of creatures of highest intelligence God created are Angels and Men (human beings). The Angels are pure spirits, of higher intelligence than us. We men are hybrids, with spiritual souls and physical bodies. In the beginning of creation, some of these pure spirits rebelled against God. “There was war in Heaven.” (Apoc. 12:7) The faithful Angels, led by Michael, “fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought, and his angels. And they prevailed not: neither was their place found anymore in Heaven. And that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, who seduceth the whole world. And he was cast unto the earth: and his angels were thrown down with him.” (ibid, vv. 7b-9) As best we can understand it from the content of Divine Revelation, Satan had some claim on divine justice to try to seduce the human creatures into sin, which, in the Original Sin of Adam and Eve, he succeeded in doing. When Christ comes into the world as the Man-God, we see Him doing battle with Satan, as He must do if He is to be truly the Second Adam. The Victory of Christ’s Cross is complete and irreversible over Satan’s power and his “right-of-conquest”, which he was holding over the sinful earth with the purest malice. All that is left to defeated Satan now until the Second Coming of Christ is to fight a “rear-guard” action by trying to snatch human souls who will perversely reject the graces offered them for salvation to the very last moment when death separates their immortal souls from their mortal bodies. This is what is meant by the phrase “final damnation”. Of all the evils in the world, the only absolute one for us is that one: final damnation. We most definitely have need then of St. Michael, the “Prince of the Heavenly Host”, and all the good angels to come to our aid against the “wickedness and the snares of the Devil.” Let us give praise and thanks to God today for the ministry of His Angels!
Today on the Nativity of Our Lady we will offer the Blessing of Seeds and Seedlings at the end of Mass. We will repeat this Blessing on Saturday morning, September 14th, at the end of our 9 AM Mass for anyone who was not prepared for the blessing of their seeds for planting today. It is a beautiful Ritual Blessing which beseeches God, as the “Sower and Tiller of the heavenly world” to “cultivate the field of our hearts with heavenly tools, hearken to our prayers, and pour forth bountiful blessings upon the fields in which these seeds will be sown. By Thy protecting Hand turn away the fury of the elements, so that this entire fruit may be filled with Thy blessing and may be gathered without hindrance into the granary.”
With the celebration of Our Lady’s Assumption we reach the high-point of our Catholic summer. At the Assumption Day Masses on August 15th we had the Blessing of the FirstFruits associated with this Feast-day. The texts of these prayers are particularly beautiful and fill the natural world with a heightened sense of God’s higher power of grace enfolding us. I quote sections of these prayers from the Roman Ritual: O GOD, by Moses, Thy servant Thou didst command the children of Israel to carry their sheaves of new grain to the priests for a blessing, to pluck the finest fruits of the orchards, and to make merry before Thee, the Lord their God. Hear Thou our supplications, and bestow blessings in abundance upon us and upon these bundles of new grain, new herbs, and this assortment of produce which we gratefully present to Thee on this festival— blessing them in Thy Name … Through the merits of the Blessed Virgin Mary whose Assumption we celebrate, may we likewise, laden with sheaves of good works, deserve to be lifted up to Heaven … O GOD, Who on this day hast raised up to heavenly heights the rod of Jesse, the Mother of Thy Son, Jesus Christ, Our Lord, that through her prayers and patronage Thou mightiest communicate to our mortal nature the Fruit of her womb, Thy same Son; we pray that we may use these fruits of the soil for our temporal and eternal welfare— the power of Thy Son and the patronage of His glorious Mother assisting us. Through the same Jesus Christ, Thy So, Our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, forever and ever Amen. And may the blessing of Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost come upon these creatures and remain for all time. Amen.