OUR LADY OF LOURDES,World Day of the Sick
Introduction
On February 11, 1858, our Lady appeared at Lourdes to a simple girl, Bernadette Soubirous. Since then millions of pilgrims have flocked to this town and have experienced there a renewal of their faith and for some of their health. Pilgrimages are a sacred tradition for God’s pilgrim people; very many of these pilgrim journeys are to Marian sanctuaries, where many seek the restoration of their health and their faith. The greatest miracle of Lourdes lies perhaps not so much in its spectacular cures but in the atmosphere of the trusting prayer of the pilgrims and in the unity of faith of the poor and the rich, the healthy and the sick.
Reading 1 Gn 3:9-24
God called to the Man: “Where are you?”
He said, “I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. And I hid.”
God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from that tree I told you not to eat from?”
The Man said, “The Woman you gave me as a companion, she gave me fruit from the tree, and, yes, I ate it.”
God said to the Woman, “What is this that you’ve done?”
“The serpent seduced me,” she said, “and I ate.”
God told the serpent:
“Because you’ve done this, you’re cursed,
cursed beyond all cattle and wild animals,
Cursed to slink on your belly
and eat dirt all your life.
I’m declaring war between you and the Woman,
between your offspring and hers.
He’ll wound your head,
you’ll wound his heel.”
He told the Woman:
“I’ll multiply your pains in childbirth;
you’ll give birth to your babies in pain.
You’ll want to please your husband,
but he’ll lord it over you.”
He told the Man:
“Because you listened to your wife
and ate from the tree
That I commanded you not to eat from,
‘Don’t eat from this tree,’
The very ground is cursed because of you;
getting food from the ground
Will be as painful as having babies is for your wife;
you’ll be working in pain all your life long.
The ground will sprout thorns and weeds,
you’ll get your food the hard way,
Planting and tilling and harvesting,
sweating in the fields from dawn to dusk,
Until you return to that ground yourself, dead and buried;
you started out as dirt, you’ll end up dirt.”
The Man, known as Adam, named his wife Eve because she was the mother of all the living.
God made leather clothing for Adam and his wife and dressed them.
God said, “The Man has become like one of us, capable of knowing everything, ranging from good to evil. What if he now should reach out and take fruit from the Tree-of-Life and eat, and live forever? Never—this cannot happen!”
So God expelled them from the Garden of Eden and sent them to work the ground, the same dirt out of which they’d been made. He threw them out of the garden and stationed angel-cherubim and a revolving sword of fire east of it, guarding the path to the Tree-of-Life.
Gospel Mk 8:1-10
At about this same time he again found himself with a hungry crowd on his hands. He called his disciples together and said, “This crowd is breaking my heart. They have stuck with me for three days, and now they have nothing to eat. If I send them home hungry, they’ll faint along the way—some of them have come a long distance.”
His disciples responded, “What do you expect us to do about it? Buy food out here in the desert?”
He asked, “How much bread do you have?”
“Seven loaves,” they said.
So Jesus told the crowd to sit down on the ground. After giving thanks, he took the seven bread loaves, broke them into pieces, and gave them to his disciples so they could hand them out to the crowd. They also had a few fish. He pronounced a blessing over the fish and told his disciples to hand them out as well. The crowd ate its fill. Seven sacks of leftovers were collected. There were well over four thousand at the meal. Then he sent them home. He himself went straight to the boat with his disciples and set out for Dalmanoutha.
Prayer
Lord our God,
the Mother of Jesus was one with her Son
in the mystery of pain
when he saved people by his suffering,
his death and resurrection.
Through her prayers help those
who journey to her sanctuaries
because their bodies are racked with pain
and their hearts are pierced with a sword.
Give them the courage of faith
to keep hoping in you,
our God for ever and ever.
Reflection:
11 February 2023
Mk 8:1-10
Feeding the hungry is God’s work.
To a present-day reader of the gospel, the behaviour of those four thousand people would seem absurd. They simply decide to come far away from their homes, to follow a preacher, disregarding their needs for food. The Gospel insists that the listeners of the Word of God chose to remain close to Christ and he was “moved with pity” and he sought a remedy for their hunger.
The Gospel gives us a vital lesson for life: When we persevere to “remain in him” (John 15:4), Christ himself provides for our needs. He knows our exact circumstances- how far we’ve come and how hungry we are. He provides for our every need.
As the Son of God, Jesus had the power to fix the problem of hunger. But he didn’t fix it himself. He chose to invite people to be missionaries to feed the hungry. “How many loaves do you have?” is the question. Today, Jesus asks us as well. We answer by dedicating our time, talents, and treasures to Christ.
In the Apostolic Exhortation Christus Vivit #174 , Pope Francis appeals to the world: “Please, do not leave it to others to be protagonists of change. You are the ones who hold the future! Jesus was not a bystander. He got involved. Don’t stand aloof, but immerse yourselves in the reality of life, as Jesus did. Above all, in one way or another, fight for the common good, serve the poor, be protagonists of the revolution of charity and service, capable of resisting the pathologies of consumerism and superficial individualism.”
People who have dedicated themselves to caring for the hungry and homeless have always found what they needed, at their doorstep. There is a crucial element in today’s Gospel we cannot overlook. It was not Jesus but his disciples who distributed the food. Our world has enough resources to satisfy the hunger of all its peoples, but not enough to feed the greed of even one person. If there is hunger, malnutrition and other unmet needs in the world today, it is because we, are failing, in our task of distribution.
Hunger and suffering are not the work of God, instead it is our failure to do any work. Our everyday should be a time of giving. We could ask ourselves: To whom are we giving? Can we widen our circle of people to whom we reach out, with gifts that mean life or death for the receivers or beneficiaries who will never know who their benefactors are and who will not be able to give anything back….this is Jesus’ way of giving, so quietly/ that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing.