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| Virgen de Lourdes Courtesy Wikipedia |
This post is a bit long winded. Sometimes things cannot be explained in a Facebook meme or Youtube soundbite. So please be patient and read the entirety to understand how it all ties together. Vobis gratias ago.
Today at Our Lady of Grace the Feast Day of Our Lady of Lourdes was celebrated. Wikipedia provides the following explanation:
Our Lady of Lourdes is a Roman Catholic title of the Blessed Virgin Mary venerated in honor of the Marian apparitions that reportedly occurred in 1858 in the vicinity of Lourdes in France. The first of these is the apparition of 11 February 1858, when 14-year old Bernadette Soubirous told her mother that a "lady" spoke to her in the cave of Massabielle (a mile from the town) while she was gathering firewood with her sister and a friend. Similar apparitions of the alleged "Lady" were reported on seventeen occasions that year, until the climax revelation of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception took place. In 1862, Pope Pius IX authorized Bishop Bertrand-Sévère Laurence to permit the veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Lourdes. On 3 July 1876, the same Pontiff officially granted a Canonical Coronation to the image that used to be in the courtyard of what is now part of the Rosary Basilica. The image of Our Lady of Lourdes has been widely copied and reproduced, often displayed in shrines and homes, often in garden landscapes. Soubirous was later canonized as a Catholic saint.
Additionally, Pope Pius XII wrote an encyclical about this entitled, Le Pelerinage de Lourdes, wherein he warns against materialism on the centenary of the apparitions at Lourdes. Furthermore, there is an additional account regarding the water flowing from a spring at Lourdes about which Wikipedia says:
"Lourdes water is water which flows from a spring in the Grotto of Massabielle in the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, France. The location of the spring was described to Bernadette Soubirous by an apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes on 25 February 1858. Since that time many thousands of pilgrims to Lourdes have followed the instruction of Our Lady of Lourdes to "drink at the spring and bathe in it". Lourdes water is considered non-liturgical holy water. Although never formally encouraged by the Church, Lourdes water has become a focus of devotion to the Virgin Mary at Lourdes. Since the supposed apparitions, many people have claimed to have been cured by drinking or bathing in it, and the Lourdes authorities provide it free of charge to any who ask for it."
These things are presented first to show how they tie into today's Scripture reading from Genesis 3:9-24. As the reader knows, Eve had succumbed to the serpent's temptation and had eaten of the forbidden fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The serpent was condemned to crawl on his belly and eat the dust of the Earth all his life, and while he would strike at the heel of Man's offspring (a reference to Christ), the woman (a reference to the Virgin Mary) would crush his head. Woman was condemned to bear children in pain and travail, and to be subject to Man as master. Man himself was condemned to toil for his bread among the thistles and thorns, eventually returning to the dust of the ground from which he had been made. St. Paul explains this well in Romans 5:12-21 where he explains that through old Adam sin and death entered the world, and through the new Adam righteousness and eternal. In Romans 8:18-25 St. Paul also describes how all creation is groaning in it bondage to decay which began at the sin of old Adam and Eve, and how the New Adam (because of the obedience of the New Eve - Mary) will set us all free.
But what is it that sets us free to eternal life? Genesis 3:22-24 tells us:
Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever” - therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
The God of our fathers raised Jesus whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.
And St. Paul explains further in Galatians 3:13-14.
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed be every one who hangs on a tree”— that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
And what is the fruit of this Tree? St. John tells us in the Bread of Life Discourse in John 6:22-71 with verses 51 and 53 through 58 giving an unmistakable explanation.
"I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh."
So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever.”
The fruit of the Tree of Life is the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ. That Tree which stands in one point at Calvary (space) some 2000 years ago (time) exists forever in space-time. During every Eucharist at Holy Mass (for Catholics) or Divine Liturgy (for Orthodox) that Tree becomes revealed and we the baptized members of the Body of Christ partake of its fruit. Having sinned against God by partaking of the forbidden fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Adam and Eve without Baptism were forbidden to partake of the fruit of the Tree of Life. 1st Peter 3:18-22 explains:
For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit; in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him.
We must be baptized into the Body of Christ - the Church - before we can partake of the fruit of the Tree of Life which is the Cross. So how does this relate to the story of Our Lady of Lourdes? Well first we have to look at a few more passages of Sacred Scripture. Genesis 2:8-10 states:
And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers.
The prophet Ezekiel in the Old Testament has a vision (or series of visions) where (after the destruction of Jerusalem and Solomon's Temple therein, and the deportation of Judah to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar) he sees the new Temple of God presumably at the end of time. In chapter 47 he describes water flowing from the Temple and trees lining either side of the river. These trees make stagnant water fresh, enabling fish to live and providing fruit for food and leaves for healing, neither withering nor dying.
St. John in Revelation 22:1-7 describes essentially the same thing. Verses 1 through 5 state:
Then he showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. There shall no more be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall worship him; they shall see his face, and his name shall be on their foreheads. And night shall be no more; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they shall reign for ever and ever.
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| Tree of Life 12 Kinds of Fruit |
Miraculous healing has often been attributed to the intercession of Our Lady of Lourdes. According to St. John that healing of body and soul derives from leaves of the Tree of Life, which is nourished by the water flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. That water is the baptismal water which flowed with the sacrificial blood that poured from Jesus' side when He was pierced with a lance in John 19:31-37. That's the water (the Genesis water, the Ezekiel water, the Revelation water) which flows from the Temple, hence the symbolism of the water from the spring in the Grotto of Massabielle in the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, France.
Consistent with all this, today Fr. Kirby administered the Sacrament of Anointing the Sick at Mass, reading first from James 5:14-15.
Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
Father gave examples of miraculous healing he had seen as a result of this Sacrament. But he cautioned us by explaining that while God does miraculously heal to provide a spiritual lesson, sometime even though we may be sick or injured, a healing is not required because it would not provide a spiritual benefit. Sometimes we are exactly where we ought to be. My second sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous some 30 years ago would have agreed with Father. he often told me that I don't get to tell God what to do or how to do it. Having turned my will and my life over to His care, what He chooses to do with my life from that moment forward is none of my business. Further, I don;t get to order Him in what to do for another. Rather, we must pray for God's will to be done on Earth as it is in Heaven just as the Lord's prayer would have us pray. And my biological father often said that God does heal, but in three different ways and it isn't up to us to tell Him which one to use:
- Divinely
- By medical instrumentality
- By calling the sick or injured one home to Heaven
All these things I was reminded of today at Holy Mass. Things from AA meetings three decades ago, from daily Bible readings, and from my father's talks when I was a child all seemed to come together in one big lesson. The Tree of Life is the Cross, the fruit is Jesus' Body and Blood, and healing happens in His time and in His way.
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