Our Own Lourdes Rose
Posted on February 9, 2008
Filed Under Franciscanized World |
Recently, a red rose was placed at the grotto of the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity by a young family visiting one of the Sisters. It was a reminder that a  plenary indulgence is being granted “from the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord on February 2, 2008 until the end of the Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes on February 11, 2008, which is also the 150th anniversary appartition, to all who devoutly visit a blessed image of Our Lady of Lourdes in any church, chapel, grotto 
or other suitable place in which it is solemnly displayed, and in the presence of that image perform some pious act of Marian devotion, or at least pause to reflect for an appropriate length of time, concluding with the Lord’s Prayer, some legitimage form of the Profession of faith and the Jubilee prayer or some other Marian invocation.” (James Francis Cardinal Stafford, November 21, 2007)
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This winter image reminded me of an article that appeared in the Herald Times Reporter recently about Angela La Valley, a postulant for our community of Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity.
http://www.htrnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008802070480
Angela said “I feel that being open to God and to others is a major key to living authentically and being deeply happy…”
Mary, the Mother of God and our Mother, truly was receptive at a young age to God. Trusting, youthful, St. Bernadette was also sincere and straightforward in her relationship with Jesus and Mary. This kind of simplicity, this openness, firmly built on faith in a loving God, does ground us in the winters of our lives.
I find it interesting that, in my experiences so far (I am 61 years young), when churches or convents or seminaries or schools have an image of Mary other than Mary by herself, they often seem to be an image of our Lady of Lourdes. Our Motherhouse has a Lourdes grotto as we see on this website. Here at the hospital in Zanesville we had a grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes and St. Bernadette for many, many years, built with love by our own hospital workmen years ago. When the buiding near it was torn down recently, the two statues (Our Lady and St. Bernadette) were saved and will be part of a healing garden in the future. Unfortunately the grotto itself could not be saved, it was too expensive and heavy to move - it was solid stone, many of them quite large. Think back at the various statues of Mary that you have seen - how many of them have been Our Lady of Lourdes?
These pictures are absolutely breathtaking!
Thanks for enjoying the beauty of our Motherhouse grotto with us Jessica!
Yesterday, while out walking and passing the grotto, it struck me that the straw is still in the grotto from the scene of the Nativity. It is Monday of Holy Week. The hay of the fields became a rude bed for Jesus. The dead straw of our lives is the place where Jesus comes to redeem us and set us free. When the hay is removed from the cave of the grotto, it will return to the earth to enrich it. When the deaths we experience are given New Life at Easter, we are returned to everyone around us full of the richness of the Glory of God.