'The Disneyland is 150 years on Monday"An article from the February issue of St. Anthony's MessengerWHEN LOURDES was once described as the “Disneyland of the Catholic Church,” as “God’s Magic Kingdom,” I replied that it is the complete opposite. Disneyland is a commercial enterprise where joy and pleasure are manufactured and paid for. Lourdes is about generosity of spirit where true joy is found in giving time and loving service freely to the sick and those in need.
At the heart of Lourdes stands an encounter of love between a child and a mother, between Bernadette Soubirous and Mary, Mother of God and our mother. That meeting forever changed the face of a small French village and reawakened the spiritual yearnings of people, making Lourdes a worldwide center of pilgrimage.
In 1858, with a population of little more than 3,000, Lourdes was an obscure village amid the Pyrenees in southwestern France. Among its poorest citizens were members of the Soubirous family. With his wife, Louise, and their four children, Francois Soubirous, a miller by trade, had fallen upon hard times. In 1857 they were forced to live in the Cachot, an abandoned jail.
On Thursday, February 11, 1858, life changed dramatically and decisively for Bernadette. On a cold, damp day, her simple search for firewood initiated an amazing encounter with heaven. Bernadette, her sister Toinette and a friend, Jeanne Abadie, were searching for firewood. At a rocky recess in a place known as Massabielle, where the river currents washed up driftwood and other debris, Bernadette had a vision that left an indelible imprint on her heart and began the story that is Lourdes.
In this grotto she saw a “Lady dressed in white with a blue sash and a yellow rose on each foot, the color of her rosary.” Who the “Lady” was became the subject of much debate. There were 18 apparitions in all, the last one occurring on July 16, 1858.
As news reached the townspeople and neighboring districts, people flocked to the grotto. With the discovery of a spring of water, and the news of healings taking place, the crowds grew.
For Bernadette it was a time of private ecstasy and public hell. She was mocked and ridiculed by some. A 14-year-old illiterate child, she was hounded by police and local authorities, interrogated and even threatened with prison. In the face of this adversity, she remained steadfast. Even the local priest, the Abbé Peyramale, who was skeptical at first, eventually believed her.
He became convinced when, at the ninth apparition on March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation, the “Lady” said, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” Peyramale knew that a poor, uneducated child with no formal religious training or doctrinal knowledge could never have invented such a title—a dogma only proclaimed by the Church in 1854.
After four years of stringent Church investigation, the clear evidence of Bernadette’s credibility and many cases of inexplicable healing, the local bishop, in a pastoral letter dated January 18, 1862, declared, “Truly, the Blessed Virgin Mary did appear to Bernadette.”
Bernadette remained in Lourdes until 1866 when she joined the Sisters of Charity and Christian Learning at Nevers in northern France. She remained there until her death on April 16, 1879.
'The Disneyland is 150 years on Monday"
on 'Loaves and Fishes' for Today's Lenten Observers 
akers and to postpone for another time my reflections on the third beatitude, the one about the meek. The message of peace, directed to the whole world, must first of all be accepted, meditated on, and bear fruit here among us, at the center of the Church.This year message is for peace in all areas, from the more personal ambit to the more vast ones of politics, economy, ecology, and international organizations. These are different fields, but they are united by the fact that all have the human person as their primary object, as the title of the message indicates "The Human Person: Heart of Peace."There is a fundamental affirmation in the message that is the interpretive key of the whole. The Holy Father says: "Peace is both gift and task. If it is true that peace between individuals and peoples -- the ability to live together and to build relationships of justice and solidarity -- calls for unfailing commitment on our part, it is also true, and indeed more so, that peace is a gift from God."Peace is an aspect of God's activity, made manifest both in the creation of an orderly and harmonious universe and also in the redemption of humanity that needs to be rescued from the disorder of sin. Creation and Redemption thus provide a key that helps us begin to understand the meaning of our life on earth."[1]These words help us to understand the beatitude of the peacemakers and this beatitude, in turn, throws light on these words of the Pope's message. The nearness of Christmas sets a particular tone, a liturgical one, to our meditation. On Christmas night we will hear the words of the angelic hymn: "Peace on earth to men loved by the Lord." The meaning of these words is not “may there be peace”, but rather “there is peace”; it’s a news not just a wish. "The birth of the Lord," St. Gregory the Great said, "is the birth of peace": Natalis Domini natalis est pacis.[2]