I had been praying for a healing miracle for quite some time. Ask, seek, knock. Isn’t that what the scripture says. So that’s what I had been doing.
I’ve been a good girl all my life. Loved God most of my life. However, taking my Catholic roots for granted, I went from the Catholic church to a variety of non-Catholic expressions of Christianity only to return to my Catholic roots late in life. Still, my asking, seeking, knocking was not discouraged the deeper I dove into my love of Jesus in my learning and re-learning the truths of the Catholic dimensions of Faith in Jesus.
One struggle I had to deal with early in my return was the amount of honor that was given to Mary. Still, if the Lord was leading me back to the Catholic church, I had to step out in faith and embrace her until I was sure He disapproved of that devotion.
Over the centuries, Mary has appeared in a variety of ways, in a variety of dress, all over the world. And why not? How many women do you know who only have one outfit? For the most part she calls for penance, to make restitution for the many offenses committed against our Lord.
I soon learned of Our Lady of Lourdes. In 1858, she appeared to a teenage girl every day for about two weeks. During one visit, Our Lady had Bernadette dig in the ground near where she was kneeling. The people surrounding her laughed and snickered when, at the command of Our Lady, she tried to drink the mud from the hole she dug. Very soon, though, a spring came forth. People began to wash in the spring and they were healed of a variety of maladies. For the last 160 years, thousands of people have claimed to be healed either spiritually, emotionally or physically by visiting and bathing in the waters at Lourdes.
I had been asking for her intercession for healing for many years when one day, having had a cold persist for weeks, I was spending the day in bed. I had continued to work, only prolonging my cold, and purposed to stay in bed to allow my body to heal. So, I decided to watch movies all day. I started with a movie on the Hallmark website called Durango . It was about an Irish cowboy who wanted to drive his cattle 40 miles to get a better price for his cattle, a feat never attempted as it was thought to be impossible. In one scene, one loony local woman blessed their journey with fake holy water from Lourdes. Cute movie.
Since this was a Sunday, I decided I should watch movies that were more redeeming. So I opened up my subscription to Formed.org, a Catholic media ministry which has teaching audios and videos as well as documentaries and full length feature films.
There were three movies about Lourdes. I didn’t intend to watch them all, but nothing else seemed to appeal to me.
The next day before I went to my part time job at the UPS Store, my habit was to go the Chapel at my Catholic Church and sit before the Tabernacle which held the consecrated Host.
Sitting, staring at the Tabernacle, I began to think about the thing all the movies had in common. In every single movie, someone went to Lourdes, took water from the spring and took it back to the person who was ill.
I began to wonder, surely in this age of buying anything and everything on the internet, I could get someone to ship some Lourdes water to me. Surely! But at what cost?
I had a part time job making $9.00 an hour and living with my mother. My life had fallen apart, I had lost almost everything and I was struggling to put it back together again. After work, I would get on the internet to see getting some water somehow.
I found Lourdes water, of all places, on Amazon. Of course! I also found a couple of places in France which would sell and ship the holy water at a pretty penny. I had only ugly pennies, and not near enough of them. I put it out of my mind.
The next day, as I sat in the Chapel staring at the Tabernacle, my mind went again to getting the water. Might the Lord allow me to spend my pittance of a paycheck on WATER? Would He WANT me to? I would wait and see if he provided. If He really wanted me to have it, He would.
I left the chapel and went to work. My boss, Fetahi, was there with his life-long best friend, Isaias, who would hang out at the store so often that I wondered if he worked for a living. I could tell the two men were working on a project. As I went to set my jacket and purse in the office, a customer came in and my boss went to help her.
I asked Isaias what they were working on. He told me that they were working on a prayer book for a trip he was taking.
I love to travel so I asked where he was going.
“France,” he said to me.
Quickly, my brain sprung to Lourdes, but I quickly dismissed it. How many places are there in France for people to visit, to say nothing of the obvious, Paris? So, I asked, “where in France?”
“Lourdes.”
I couldn’t believe it! Immediately, I asked him if he would bring me some water. Of course, he said he would. And he did. About three weeks later.
While the holy water didn’t bring about the physical healing for which I had asked, sought and knocked, it certainly did encourage me to keep asking, seeking and knocking. The experience reminded me that the Lord hears me and likes when I sit with Him in the Chapel listening to and discerning the thoughts He puts in my mind, including honoring His mother, her apparitions and message.
Pingback: Our Lady of Lourdes - naturallysupernaturalgrace.com