In fact, the most recently authenticated miracle made it through the
tight, triple screen of the verification process as recently as 1989. Because
Lourdes is so close to our time, it confronts us as a vast profile. Fact or
fraud, it is there – like the pyramids. It is of enormous significance for those
professionals who make objective inquiries into the nature of reality; people
called ‘scientists.’ How curious, it is, that some people need a special grace
to see something that is blindingly obvious.
So what is Lourdes all about? If you don’t know, perhaps you’d
better sit down. Lourdes is the greatest of all Catholic shrines and ranks
among the first three places of pilgrimage of any faith on the planet,
attracting around five million people every year. Here, says the Catholic
Church, Our Lady – the Mother of Christ, the Mother of God, Mary of
Nazareth –
that woman, blessed above all creatures – appeared eighteen
times to Bernadette Soubirous, a fourteen year-old school girl/shepherdess
and child of poverty, between the 11th February and 16
th
July 1858. I repeat:
eighteen times. By way of warranty, numerous miracles have happened
since then – miracles that relate directly to the shrine, though not always
occurring at the shrine. More about miracles and the validation process
later.
The fraud charge
Sensational stuff? Certainly. Hard to swallow? For many people,
yes, indeed. Fraudulent? Considering the prevailing belief systems of our
age, the question is reasonable. But it is not new. It has been raised again
and again over one hundred and forty years and no accuser has made a fraud
charge stick. But here is the rub: accept Our Lady of Lourdes and it is but a
short step to the core doctrines of the Catholic Church. God exists. God is in
control. God cares. God took on a human frame and became a true man,
while remaining God. Lourdes also proclaims a glorious message of hope:
“You have a Father”, said Christ.
“God is love”, said John the Apostle.
So we are encouraged to hope in a loving Father. Lourdes tells us
we can also hope to find laughter in heaven; for humour weaves delicately
through Bernadette’s great drama. No dramatist could have made a better
fist of plot, text and character, with some of the players scurrying through
their parts in the hilarious tradition of French farce. Front and centre they
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