Tag Archives: Mary

Happy Feast Day: Our Lady of Lourdes

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Our Lady of Lourdes
Today, in honor of the feast day of Our Lady of Lourdes, we watched Song of Bernadette, a film about Bernadette Soubirous, a young peasant girl who was visited by Our Lady.

There are several versions of the story in film, but the best by far is the 1943 version starring Jennifer Jones and Vincent Price.

This quote begins the movie:

“For those who believe in God, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not believe in God, no explanation is possible.”
-Franz Werfel (1890-1945)

BONUS!!

When I was looking up the spelling of Bernadette’s last name and the IMDb film link just now, I found a video of Aaron Neville and Linda Ronstadt singing “Song of Bernadette,” by Jennifer Warnes and Leonard Cohen:

And here’s Jennifer Warnes doing it:

I found the backstory on Jennifer’s inspiration in writing this song at the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity website.

Creative Commons License photo credit: Lawrence OP

The Two Who Stayed

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In the end, there were only two, his mother Mary and his apostle John.

Is it any wonder that Mary was assumed into Heaven and that John was the only apostle whose life didn’t end in tragedy?

All the other 12 apostles — with the exception of Judas, who committed suicide — were martyred for the faith.

[Taken today at Sacred Heart’s chapel. One of the 12 stations of the cross, it was handmade years ago and was in the old church building up on West Main Street.]

Mary, Mother of God

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Mary at Sacred Heart's entrance

Today marks the first picture in my picture-a-day project, and there’s no better day to start it because today is not only the first day of the new year — 1/1/11 — but it’s also the Solemnity (or feast day) of Mary, Mother of God.

If you’re not Catholic, this may sound weird to you. It did to me not too long ago. As a matter of fact, calling Mary the “Mother of God” was one of the big things that hung me up about becoming Catholic. (We started the RCIA program to convert in August 2009 and were confirmed in June 2010.)

The only time I remember my Protestant churches spending much time on Mary at all was around Christmas, and that was mostly relegated to the kids’ nativity skit. I never even wondered why.

I really had to analyze what it means that Mary is the Mother of God. As a Christian already, I believed that Mary is Jesus’ mother and that Jesus is not only the Son of God but IS God, as well. So the fact that she’s Mother of God is simply a logical deduction.

In this new year, I hope to be able to weed out any more subconsciously ingrained beliefs I may have and be inspired to understand more about my faith through this project.