Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame de Lourdes Church, Manhattan
Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes
February 11, 2023
Is 66:10-14, Judith 13:18-19, Jn 2:1-11
To listen to an audio recording of this homily, please click below:
The following points were attempted in the homily:
- Today we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, whose first of 18 appearances to St. Bernadette took place 165 years ago in the Grotto of Massabielle at the foot of the Pyrenees in Lourdes, France. Because of the connection of Lourdes with the suffering, it’s also the World Day of the Sick, in which we pray and resolve to care for those who ill or in need. Our Lady of Lourdes is a clear personification of the compassion of God, of the mercy that he wants each of us to receive and share.
- In the first reading, God through the Prophet Isaiah urges everyone to look at Jerusalem as a mother, to rejoice and exult because of her, to suck fully of the milk of her comfort and nurse with delight at her breasts, to be carried in her arms and fondled in her lap. “As a mother comforts her child,” God tells us through the prophet, “so will I comfort you.” Mary is an incarnation of this image of Jerusalem and today we rejoice and exult because of her, come to be breastfed off her faith, hope and love in God, to let her embrace us with love, carry us in life, and comfort and strengthen us so that we might imitate her charity.
- We see that charity on display in the Gospel scene of the wedding feast of Cana. Before seemingly anyone had noticed that there was a problem, not the couple, not the parents of the bride, not even the headwaiter, Mary with maternal care had sprung into action, asking Jesus, even though it wasn’t yet his hour, to work his first miracle to prevent an embarrassing disaster. With confidence she persevered in her request and got the servants to commit to do whatever her Son said. And Jesus worked that stupendous miracle, which led many to begin to believe in him. Mary is constantly, with maternal love and vigilance, bringing our needs before her Son before we may even be aware that we need her intercession. How many graces and even miracles she has gotten her Son to work for us without our even knowing! Today we turn to her and say, truthfully and full of gratitude, “You are the highest honor of our race!”
- She appeared to St. Bernadette in order to unleash a huge torrent of charity. She asked for a shrine to be built so that it could be a house of prayer, prayer for the sick, prayer for conversion. Over the last 165 years, in Lourdes there has been a great theophany of charity. It’s so moving to see hundreds of Good Samaritans who come to help with the malades, the sick, rolling them in wheelchairs to the baths, in the processions, at Mass, to their residences, and so much more. It’s moving to see so thousands of other volunteers who care for pilgrims, who try to embrace them with the love with which God wants. Just as much as Mary chose St. Bernadette to help extend that mission of maternal love, so she is praying that each of us will respond to the same vocation and mission. The summit of the Christian life is unselfish Christ-like love of others, and the Blessed Mother came to Lourdes to help us all be transformed by God’s love in such a way that we seek to share that love with others. She wants to inspire us to help all those who are physically ill, spiritually sick, emotionally wounded or otherwise in need. We do that first by our prayers, but the fruit of prayer is always charity. Pope Francis, in his Message for the World Day of the Sick, said, “On 11 February 2023, let us turn our thoughts to the Shrine of Lourdes, a prophetic lesson entrusted to the Church for our modern times. It is not only what functions well or those who are productive that matter. Sick people, in fact, are at the center of God’s people, and the Church advances together with them as a sign of a humanity in which everyone is precious and no one should be discarded or left behind.” Mary came to Lourdes with a prophetic message. Not a new one, but an ever true one always in need of being actualized. It’s the message and mission of mercy her Son Jesus brought into the world.
- Ten years ago today, Pope-emeritus shocked the world by renouncing the papacy. We continue to pray for him, sick weeks after his being called home by God. In 2008, he traveled to Lourdes for the 150th anniversary of the apparitions. There he focused on a very important detail that I want to recall, because I hope that it will be constitutive of the way we pray in this sacred spot. Pope Benedict noted that when St. Bernadette first asked Our Lady to tell her her name, our Lady didn’t respond in words. She responded with a serene smile. That was her first response and a fitting introduction to her whole mission. “In the smile of the most eminent of all creatures, looking down on us,” Pope Benedict said, “is reflected our dignity as children of God, that dignity that never abandons the sick person. This smile, a true reflection of God’s tenderness, is the source of an invincible hope.” Mary came to Lourdes to smile at us — a smile coming not only of her maternal love but a reflection of the way God smiles on us with tenderness. That smile reminds us of our dignity, of how much God loves us, and how that divine and human love behindthat smile is the constitutive reality of our existence and worth. Mary ultimately wants to help us along the path that will leads us to smile just as serenely, in this life and in the next.
- As we celebrate her feast day and on it open up for Columbia Catholics our new Catholic Center, the Thomas Merton Institute for Catholic Life, behind this grotto, let us do so conscious of Mary’s smiling down at us. We thank her for all of her intercession that has made this day possible. We thank her in advance for all the prayers she has made and will make for the students, staff, faculty and visitors who will come to this Institute. We pray that it will become a little bit like the home she made in Nazareth to nourish Jesus, Joseph and so many guests, that it will have the qualities of the Jerusalem Isaiah describes. We pray that, like Lourdes, it will be a place where students going through rough patches will find solace and a reflection of her smile, a “true reflection of God’s tenderness” and a “source of invincible hope.” Let us see Mary smiling on us now as we prepare to receive her Son and ask her to help us bring that smile out to a world that so much needs to see the Gospel enfleshed on our faces! That is the smile of someone who loves God with his whole heart and knows that God loves us first. That is the smile of one who knows that God has come to dwell not just among us, but within us.
The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1
Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad because of her,
all you who love her;
Exult, exult with her,
all you who were mourning over her!
Oh, that you may suck fully
of the milk of her comfort,
That you may nurse with delight
at her abundant breasts!
For thus says the LORD:
Lo, I will spread prosperity over her like a river,
and the wealth of the nations like
an overflowing torrent.
As nurslings, you shall be carried in her arms,
and fondled in her lap;
As a mother comforts her child,
so will I comfort you;
in Jerusalem you shall find your comfort.
When you see this, your heart shall rejoice,
and your bodies flourish like the grass;
The LORD’s power shall be known to his servants.
all you who love her;
Exult, exult with her,
all you who were mourning over her!
Oh, that you may suck fully
of the milk of her comfort,
That you may nurse with delight
at her abundant breasts!
For thus says the LORD:
Lo, I will spread prosperity over her like a river,
and the wealth of the nations like
an overflowing torrent.
As nurslings, you shall be carried in her arms,
and fondled in her lap;
As a mother comforts her child,
so will I comfort you;
in Jerusalem you shall find your comfort.
When you see this, your heart shall rejoice,
and your bodies flourish like the grass;
The LORD’s power shall be known to his servants.
Responsorial Psalm
R. (15:9) You are the highest honor of our race.
Blessed are you, daughter, by the Most High God,
above all the women on earth;
and blessed be the LORD God,
the creator of heaven and earth.
R. You are the highest honor of our race.
Your deed of hope will never be forgotten
by those who tell of the might of God.
R. You are the highest honor of our race.
Blessed are you, daughter, by the Most High God,
above all the women on earth;
and blessed be the LORD God,
the creator of heaven and earth.
R. You are the highest honor of our race.
Your deed of hope will never be forgotten
by those who tell of the might of God.
R. You are the highest honor of our race.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Blessed are you, O Virgin Mary, who believed
that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Blessed are you, O Virgin Mary, who believed
that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
There was a wedding at Cana in Galilee,
and the mother of Jesus was there.
Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding.
When the wine ran short,
the mother of Jesus said to him,
“They have no wine.”
And Jesus said to her,
“Woman, how does your concern affect me?
My hour has not yet come.”
His mother said to the servants,
“Do whatever he tells you.”
Now there were six stone water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washings,
each holding twenty to thirty gallons.
Jesus told them,
“Fill the jars with water.”
So they filled them to the brim.
Then he told them,
“Draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter.”
So they took it.
And when the headwaiter tasted the water that had become wine,
without knowing where it came from
(although they who had drawn the water knew),
the headwaiter called the bridegroom and said to him,
“Everyone serves good wine first,
and then when people have drunk freely, an inferior one;
but you have kept the good wine until now.”
Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs at Cana in Galilee
and so revealed his glory,
and his disciples began to believe in him.
and the mother of Jesus was there.
Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding.
When the wine ran short,
the mother of Jesus said to him,
“They have no wine.”
And Jesus said to her,
“Woman, how does your concern affect me?
My hour has not yet come.”
His mother said to the servants,
“Do whatever he tells you.”
Now there were six stone water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washings,
each holding twenty to thirty gallons.
Jesus told them,
“Fill the jars with water.”
So they filled them to the brim.
Then he told them,
“Draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter.”
So they took it.
And when the headwaiter tasted the water that had become wine,
without knowing where it came from
(although they who had drawn the water knew),
the headwaiter called the bridegroom and said to him,
“Everyone serves good wine first,
and then when people have drunk freely, an inferior one;
but you have kept the good wine until now.”
Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs at Cana in Galilee
and so revealed his glory,
and his disciples began to believe in him.
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