It’s the Feast of Apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Lourdes, 3rd Class, with the color of White. In this episode: the meditation: “God in Holy Scripture”, today’s news from the Church: “Bishop Strickland and the Consecrations: A Plea for "Apostolic Continuity"”, a preview of the Sermon: “Bishop Bernard Fellay on the Episcopal Consecrations”, and today’s thought from the Archbishop.

• “God in Holy Scripture” – From Epiphany to Lent
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• https://fsspx.news/en/news/bishop-strickland-and-consecrations-plea-apostolic-continuity-57098

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The Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes recalls a moment when heaven touched the ordinary life of a poor girl and quietly changed the spiritual landscape of the modern world. The story begins in 1858 in the small town of Lourdes, where a fourteen year old girl named Saint Bernadette Soubirous lived with her struggling family. Sickly, uneducated, and overlooked, Bernadette was gathering firewood near a rocky grotto when she encountered a beautiful lady who asked her simply to pray and return. Over the course of eighteen apparitions, the Lady revealed herself not with threats or demands, but with gentleness, patience, and silence. When she finally gave her name, it was a theological earthquake: “I am the Immaculate Conception,” confirming a dogma defined only four years earlier, one Bernadette herself could not possibly have invented.

At the heart of Lourdes is not spectacle, but humility. The Lady asked for prayer, penance, and processions, and directed Bernadette to dig in the dirt, where a spring of water emerged. That water, unimpressive at first glance, became the sign through which God would work. Healings followed, not immediately or universally, but steadily and carefully, always under scrutiny. Lourdes became a place where faith and reason met without fear. Claims of miracles were investigated rigorously, and only a small number were formally recognized, lending credibility to what could have easily become sentimentality.

Historically, the Church moved cautiously. Apparitions were approved only after years of examination, and Lourdes gradually developed into one of the world’s most important pilgrimage sites. What distinguished Lourdes from earlier shrines was its modern context. It spoke to an age shaped by skepticism, medicine, and science. Rather than reject those forces, Lourdes stood alongside them, insisting that suffering and healing cannot be reduced to mechanics alone. The sick were not treated as problems to be solved, but as persons to be loved.

The feast of Our Lady of Lourdes also became closely associated with the sick and the suffering. In 1992, the Church designated February 11 as the World Day of the Sick, drawing directly from Lourdes’ spiritual heart. The message was clear. Healing does not always mean cure. Sometimes it means peace, endurance, or a deeper union with Christ crucified.

Culturally, Lourdes developed a distinctive life of prayer. Candlelight processions, communal rosaries, and the simple act of washing in the water became signs of trust rather than magic. Volunteers from around the world serve the sick with tenderness, often discovering that they receive more than they give. Lourdes teaches the Church that God still chooses the lowly, that purity of heart opens the way to grace, and that hope can flow from the most unlikely places.

Our Lady of Lourdes, comfort of the afflicted and mother of mercy, pray for us.

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