Lessons from Lourdes for Christmas

When the lady in the rock appeared, she called her “Aquero”, meaning “the one” . 

I love that this is the centre of Lourdes, anonymity at its core.  It is wholly Christocentric as it is wonderfully humble.

This young woman that a young girl looked at was quiet, and silent and appeared in a place of debris and filth. A place where it was known, people dumped rubbish.

Bernadette, gathering firewood and unable to keep up with her companions, stayed on one side of the river, indeed separated from the “multitude”. 

It was here that “the one” appeared.

She graced little Bernadette with her presence on the side less travelled per se. Alone, separated, cold and sick, indeed poor, and very uncertain of the future, the first moments of Lourdes should speak to us this Christmas.

Fuel is hard to come by, as it was in Bernadette’s time – she was seeking firewood when “Aquero” appeared. Sickness is abundant with a plague still stalking us.

We live in an uncertain time and, at the moment of this uncertainty, the certainty of the presence of God often can appear. 

This certainty, this “one”, appeared in a very special place, a place of debris, not unlike Golgotha where criminals were discarded on trees. The wood gathered by little Bernadette, who had asthma, an affliction that once affected me, but by God’s grace has left me, would nurture thankfulness and warmth in the family that evening, something perhaps missing in today’s domestic life.

A reflection on Lourdes pre-Christmas may seem unusual, but I feel it is perfectly encapsulated in the Mariological spirit of the season.

Consider Mary, a young woman, unsure, and nervous, (indeed how can a man perfectly capture the feelings of a pregnant female?), but I am confident to say, afraid. So, young, unsure, nervous, afraid … This preceded the nativity, the birth of something so wholesome and beyond comprehension: such feelings often come before something we cannot comprehend.

Consider Bernadette, equally young, sick, and devoted like the mother of God was to her faith, but in her sickness, she reached beyond what was, perhaps, physically possible for her. The route from “Le Cachot” just off Rue Du Bourg, where Bernadette lived during the apparitions, to “la Grotte” (“the cave”, hearkening to the nativity), where “Aquero” appeared, is quite a distance if you have asthma and are poor in health. The terrain is not flat and in 1858 was probably more rugged than now.

Bernadette made that journey like Mary made her journey before giving birth. At Lourdes, there was a nativity of a different kind, the birth of a new spring of hope.

If you have been to Lourdes, you will know the Grotto. Consider it in your mind’s eye, Now, turn your back to the Grotto. Top left, Mary (the Immaculate Heart), centre, the altar (the Eucharist) and right, the spring (as in John 19:34 – the font of life). A perfect encapsulation of our faith.

Lourdes, wrought by the humility of a separated, sick girl who ravaged a dump for her poverty-stricken family, became a geographical manifestation of the centre of our faith: the interconnectedness of the Immaculate and Sacred Heart, the centrality of the Eucharist and Our Blessed Mother pointing toward the stream that flows from the side.

Lourdes teaches us much more about faith than we realise, and not just for five days once a year.

The brokenness of the incorrupt St Bernadette was the opening for the humility that made possible what we now know as Lourdes.

When you see brokenness this Christmas, when you see people alone, when you see segregation, when you see illness, like the sick, alone, segregated Bernadette, think of the young child scavenging for firewood, so she and her family in the disused jail cell would not freeze.

Think of the light that shined there amid the silence, rats and water thereafter. 

This evening I remember especially (and wish him a blessed and happy Christmas) my mentor, teacher and friend, Fr Oliver Treanor, who taught me more theologically speaking than I could ever believe a mind could appreciate.

He left me always wanting to know more, for Fr Oliver did not teach Theology at Maynooth, he prayed theology – a living saint and a wonderful example of a priest.

Have a blessed Christmas and the best for 2023. If you are a priest, please speak of marginalised children of single mothers this Christmas time. It seems apt somehow!