From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Of Love of Solitude and Silence [IV]   
      
    It happens very often that those whom men esteem highly are more   
   seriously endangered by their own excessive confidence. Hence, for   
   many it is better not to be too free from temptations, but often to be   
   tried lest they become too secure, too filled with pride, or even too   
   eager to fall back upon external comforts.   
   --Thomas à Kempis --Imitation of Christ –Bk 2 Ch 20   
      
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   April 16th - St. Bernadette   
   18 February on some calendars   
      
   (1844-1879)   
   We can’t think of Lourdes without thinking of the 14-year-old girl to   
   whom Our Lady appeared there in 1858--Bernadette Soubirous.   
      
   St. Paul wrote, “God … singled out the weak of the world to shame the   
   strong.” (I Cor. 1:27). In her apparitions to various people, Mary has   
   followed the same policy. She has never revealed herself to presidents   
   or potentates or plutocrats. She has chosen simple but substantial   
   people, whether men or women or children.   
      
   Bernadette Soubirous of Lourdes was just such a person. A teenager who   
   was physically frail and who, at that point, had not yet learned to   
   read or write, or even studied her catechism or made her first Holy   
   Communion! Bernadette was nevertheless solid, balanced and docile. A   
   good one, in other words, to be sent as Mary’s ambassador to urge   
   Catholics to prayers and penance for sinners, and to urge the local   
   clergy to set up a chapel at the riverside grotto of the apparitions.   
      
   In exchange for Bernadette’s prophetic role, Mary did not promise her   
   to make her happy on this earth, only in the next. Bernadette began to   
   experience frustrations during the apparitions themselves, in the form   
   of excessive pestering by the curious people who flocked to the new   
   shrine. But when the apparitions ceased, the young girl sought to   
   escape from this turmoil. By then her embassy was basically   
   accomplished. Now she wanted to hide from the world--to be retired,   
   she said, as an old broom is retired behind the door.   
      
   At the age of 18, Bernadette sought entrance into the Sisters of Notre   
   Dame at Nevers. However, she could not be completely anonymous even   
   there. The very nuns of her religious community sometimes expected her   
   to be proud because of her special graces. But she would point out,   
   “Don’t I know that the Blessed Virgin chose me because I was the most   
   ignorant? If she had found anyone else more ignorant than me, she   
   would have chosen her.”   
      
   Although St. Bernadette’s mission was officially finished in July,   
   1858, she had the continuing duty of living up to Mary’s injunctions,   
   and of thus setting an example for others. As a nun, she sought to   
   fulfill perfectly the rule of her community. She accepted even her   
   chronic illness in that light. Thus, on a certain day, one of her   
   superiors, finding her in bed because of her serious ailments, twitted   
   her, “What are you doing there in bed, you lazy little thing?” Sister   
   Marie Bernarde (her name in religious) replied, “Why my dear Mother,   
   I’m doing my job.” “And what is your job?” “Being ill” said   
   Bernadette.   
      
   Always a vital part of her own “prayers for sinners” was the rosary,   
   which she constantly recommended to all. Part of the rosary was the   
   sign of the cross. Whether in the rosary or at any other time, from   
   the days of the Lourdes apparitions on, Bernadette was noted for the   
   wonderful way she made the sign of the cross. One observer at the   
   grotto later wrote, “If the sign of the cross is made in heaven, it   
   can only be made in this manner.” Everybody marveled at the way she   
   crossed herself--slowly, reverently, “with majesty.” “It is important   
   to make it well,” she told one of her fellow novices in the convent.   
   The sisters respected the way she blessed herself, because they knew   
   who had taught her. It was Our Lady herself, during the Lourdes   
   apparitions.   
      
   Do we make the sign of the cross often? (Do you know that we can   
   obtain a partial indulgence, applicable, if we choose, to the souls in   
   purgatory, every time we make it?) Why not take on the project of   
   always blessing ourselves slowly and reverently, pondering meanwhile   
   what that sign means? If we offer up these signs of the cross for the   
   conversions of sinners, we will also be corresponding with what Our   
   Lady of Lourdes asked of us through her humble ambassadress,   
   Bernadette Soubirous.   
   –Father Robert   
      
      
   Saint Quotes:   
   Nothing is anything more to me; everything is nothing to me, but   
   Jesus: neither things nor persons, neither ideas nor emotions, neither   
   honor nor sufferings. Jesus is for me honor, delight, heart and   
   soul.--Saint Bernadette   
      
   You must receive God well; give Him a loving welcome, for then He has   
   to pay us rent.--Saint Bernadette   
      
   The more I am crucified, the more I rejoice.   
   --Saint Bernadette Soubirous   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   Love is watchful   
      
   “Love is watchful.   
   Sleeping – it does not slumber.   
   Wearied – it is not tired.   
   Pressed – it is not straitened.   
   Alarmed – it is not confused   
   but like a living flame,   
   a burning torch,   
   it forces its way upward   
   and passes unharmed,   
   through every obstacle.”   
   --Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471) The Imitation of Christ   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)