LENT 6 ~ TEARS OF LOURDES

          A gentle press on my soul on the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. Light and undemanding. So, I read on St Bernadette to commemorate the feast.

          When the hours had grown old, I left the feast day, and moved on to other things.

          But something lingered, holding on to my spirit.

          Searching, trying to discern, I sensed it was connected to the Lourdes water, specifically. Sensing a call, I turned it over in my mind, and waited for more illumination.

          Then, today, it came, on a breath of blue.

          Immerse souls, dying and lost, in the healing waters of Lourdes.

          I was ready to obey. As we recited the family Rosary, I felt another interior tug. Why the Water of Lourdes? Understandably for its miraculous healing powers, but there was a sense of something more. I went over what I knew of the apparition, and the beginnings of the stream that St Bernadette had dug. I pictured her there, on all fours, parting the earth, oblivious to the mocking of the gathered crowd.

          What was the source of the water? I asked as I prayed on.

          Then, for no reason, not besieged by any emotion or storm of heart, my eyes filled with sudden tears. What is the water of Lourdes that it has this power to heal?

          And then I knew.

          Tears of the Mother.

          Immerse souls, dying and lost, in the tears of the Mother.