Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.
Today 11th of February the church all over the world commemorated the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. This feast is a very meaningful and joyful occasion for all believers in the world. This feast is based on the information received by a simple girl named Bernadette Soubirous. She was a native of France near the city of Lourdes. She was with her two other friends near the grotto of Our Blessed Mother at a place called Massabielle. Bernadette received a message through a voice which disturbed her. It is good that we reflect a little about the message that she received. The content of the message is to pray for the conversion of sinners. The underlying word is conversion. In other words we must all pray for the conversion of sinners. But what does conversion imply? Conversion is not changing from one religion to another religion. Not even a change from one set of the form of worship with another set of worship. It means that there is a personal and internal change of attitude in every person. This was the underlying message that Bernadette had received in 1858 for the first time. Subsequently she had received this and similar messages nearly fifteen times at the same venue. Bernadette was able to describe the image that she saw in the sky, as a lady dressed in white with blue sash and in her hand a rosary. At first she became speechless and could only use her rosary for prayer. Instead of going into all the details of the apparitions, let us look at the message and begin to put into practice what Our Blessed Mother has asked Bernadette to do.
It is through such simple people that the world receives vital messages or shall I say divine messages?
What do we celebrate on this day? We raise our hearts and minds to God in praise of Him for the person of our Blessed Mother who is keenly interested in all of us sinners. She reminds us that it is through people like us and our ardent prayers that would change our humanity.