HOMILY WEEK 05 01
Creation, Recreation and Our Lady of Lourdes:
Optional Memorial
(Gen 1:1-19; Ps 104; Mk 6:53-56)
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The readings for an optional memorial like Our Lady of Lourdes today vary from year to year, thus presenting a different challenge to a homilist each time.
Within the context of this memorial, today’s readings invite us to appreciate Mary’s role in God’s grand plan of bringing about, through his Son Jesus and Mary, his mother, a new creation more wondrous than the first, as well as our own participation in this plan of salvation.
The first reading from Genesis describes the first four days of that initial creation. What is interesting is the first element described is actually a “formless void of water and darkness.” Within my ministry among the Indigenous peoples, I have often found myself thanking God for the first of all God’s creations, water. Although the reading actually states God created light on the first day, this passage suggests that water may have pre-empted light and might even be seen as a pre-creation element, if that is possible. Certainly, it upholds the respect I have always held for water within the whole reality of creation.
As part of God’s creation, a large percentage of our bodies are made up of water. According to Dr. Jeffrey Utz, Neuroscience, pediatrics, Allegheny University, babies have the most, being born at about 78%. By one year of age, that amount drops to about 65%. In adult men, about 60% of their bodies are water. In adult women, fat makes up more of the body than men, so they have about 55% of their bodies made of water. So incidentally, our respect for ourselves as human beings also includes respect for water!
The rest of the first reading goes on to describe the creation of light separated from darkness, the sky, earth and plant growth, and finally the sun and moon. Luckily, this is a faith account and not a scientific account, so we don’t have to worry too much about how light could be created before the sun. Suffice it to say that God saw all this creation as good, as very good. So truly, one can say the first bible is creation itself, proclaiming the glory of God, which Psalm 104 proceeds to do for us.
We now fast-forward to the gospel, where it is obvious something went wrong with this very good creation of God, as wherever Jesus went, he encountered suffering, sickness and distress, and people flocking to him for healing: “And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.”
This reality led St. Augustine to develop the theory of original sin as a logical explanation of this negative aspect of God’s creation. What we see in the gospel is the creator in person, “through whom all things were made” (Colossians 1:16), coming into his own creation to restore that wounded creation to an even greater glory than had Adam and Eve not sinned.
We now have a tension between two theories dealing with the negative aspects of the original creation – St. Anselm’s “substitutionary atonement” theory centered upon the necessity of payment for sin, and Franciscan Duns Scotus’ view of the Incarnation and passion as a “divine epiphany” revealing the depth of God’s love for humanity, claiming that was God’s plan all along.
The fact that healing of illness and disease is the most striking aspect of the presence of Jesus in the territory of Gennesaret seems to lie within the parameters of this second theory of God’s love for humanity. That Jesus, the creator himself, would humbly enter into his own creation as totally one of us, and proceed to restore a wounded and ill humanity to health, suggests that what God is really all about in Jesus (and Mary his mother) is a restoring of all creation to an even more glorious and wondrous reality than the original creation.
The memorial today brings to mind the many ways Mary, a very human, humble young girl herself when the angel Gabriel appeared to her, played in this awesome plan of salvation, redemption and healing of the whole universe.
The Living With Christ, in its commentary on this memorial, informs us that in 1858 Mary the Mother of Jesus appeared to Bernadette Soubirous in a cave at Massabielle, near Lourdes in France. Just four years earlier, in 1854, the church had declared the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, so when the “beautiful woman” of Bernadette’s visions identified herself as the Immaculate Conception there was initial skepticism. Although others accompanied Bernadette to the grotto, no one else could see or hear the visions. However, it did not take long for an Episcopal Commission, an official inquiry, to say: “We judge that Mary the Immaculate Mother of God, did really appear to Bernadette Soubirous on February 11th, 1858 and on certain subsequent days, eighteen times in all, in the Grotto of Massabielle, near the town of Lourdes; that this appearance bears every mark of truth.”
A few years later, this date was added to the list of Marian feasts to honor the mysterious beauty of the Immaculate Conception. So, the veneration of Mary as Our Lady of Lourdes arose first in popular devotion and later in the Church’s liturgy.
Since that time, millions of people have made a pilgrimage to Lourdes, with hundreds receiving physical as well as other kinds of healing. One person who witnessed such a healing was Fr. Lucien Larré, who recounts in a mission talk how he with great doubt accompanied a woman religious to Lourdes who was confined to a wheel chair. After a few days in Lourdes, suddenly she shocked him by standing up and getting out of her wheel chair. That healing proved to be genuine over the next few months, as she resumed her ordinary life and even skated when winter came!
Our response to all of this can be to imitate Mary’s humility, faith and obedience to God’s word, and take our place in working with the Holy Spirit to help bring about this new re-creation of God’s love in the universe. After all, Jesus told us we would “do even greater things than he” and “whatever we loose or bind on earth is loosed or bound in heaven.” So, we too have a role to play in this plan of the divine revelation of God’s love for our wounded humanity.
The Eucharist is a participation today in the heavenly banquet that awaits us in the fulfillment of time.
May our celebration of the Eucharist and this memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes strengthen our faith in God’s unconditional love for us, and empower us to bring that love to the world in humble yet powerful ways like Mary, Our Lady of Lourdes.
May we keep on strengthening our faith through Jesus himself by following him and trusting his ways or his teachings. As long as we have that love nothing is impossible. God keep on teaching us that unconditional love by having mercy and forgiveness towards people. We are to forgive people who have hurt us time and time again. Also, having a heart to love our enemies like we already forgave them. We are to show that love and compassion to our neighbour like loving them dearly. We are ask to praise and worship God like we are truly devoted to him and treat him with all gratitude and respect. We are to worship God the first thing in the morning and celebrations. We should ask God forgiveness for our sins and healing so that we are transform us into this new person. Besides , we look at Our Lady of Lourdes who heals people for any type of sickness. She has healed quite a few people for their physical illnesses as long as we are devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary. We should also be worshipping Mary with love and passion just like Jesus Christ . Amen.
There are many people on the pilgrimage visited the Shrine and grotto of Mary at Lourdes, France. They task the Virgin Mary to heal them and bless them for any sickness or problems they have. The Holy water in the Shrine is for healing ; some people even bathe or dip themselves in the water. The water is cleaning our original sins and faults that we have done in the past. This is day is healing the sick in the whole world . Thanks for the following stories. memory of Our Lady of Lourdes . May we ask the Blessed Virgin Mary to pray for us . God Bless You. Bishop Sylvain Lavoie.