The year of 2008 is the Jubilee Year of Lourdes, in honor of the 150 anniversary of the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Bernadette Soubirous, in the grotto at Lourdes.
The apparitions at Lourdes had a special transcendental value for Mamie in her life. We have often mentioned it prior to this issue. This time, I wish to make reference to how she lived her visits to Lourdes in the season of winter and why she would go there, during the time when it is officialy “closed.”
Lourdes “officially” opens on Easter Sunday and closes October 7th, feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. These dates are not strictly observed, however. Depending on the organization, some years it opens sooner and closes later. So, officially speaking, Lourdes is closed from October 7th to Easter Sunday. Of course, during this time there are no candlelight processions, nor processions with the sick, nor international masses…The baths are closed, there are no people in the visitor’s center, etc…. However, we used to go many times for various reasons.
I remember one time in particular. The recently started community of
the Servant Sisters was passing through painful circumstances. It
was 1987. They had just begun the foundation. Due to a series
of circumstances, two of the first five Servant Sisters left the community.
For all of us, it felt like having an arm cut off. The community had
been affected by their leaving.
February 11th is the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. That year, it fell
on a Wednesday. The three sisters who remained came to our house. They
were: Ana Campo, Reme Rodríguez y Conchi García
del Pino. We began to speak of Our Mother. It was the afternoon
of the 10th. I made them a suggestion: “Why don’t we go to
Lourdes this afternoon?”. And they all agreed that we should go,
Mamie being the first to applaud the idea. She was never lazy when it
came to visiting Our Mother in Her shrines.
I changed the wheels on the car, just in case, as it had recently snowed
and the forecast predicted more to come. At 10:00pm we set off. Everything
was going fine at first, but as we approached the mountains, it began
to snow. We reached the summit without trouble, but as we began to descend
at about 25 miles per hour, up ahead a truck was stopped along the side
of the road. I saw it just in time to stop. Mamie and the three sisters
were sleeping. I began to pump the brakes, in order to slow down and
not lose control of the car. But, suddenly I the car went out of control
and we headed straight for the truck. Thanks be to God, the car came
to a halt just yards from the truck’s cabin. Mamie and the sisters
awoke and asked what had happened. I had to turn the car around, as we
had been left facing the opposite direction, and we were able to make
it out between the truck and the side of the road. Later, I explained
what had happened.
We arrived in Lourdes and our souls found consolation in Our Mother. We
celebrated the Mass in the Cript. Then we prayed in the Grotto. We
walked along the side of the river and then over to the door leading
to the bath where Mamie had been cured of an almost complete paralysis
from the waist down. She had come out of that bath walking on her own.
The cold did not bother us. We continued walking, while she told us
the story of her experience. She spoke of how since then, her
life had never been the same. Everything had changed. The memory of
that day remained alive in her. This was Mamie: pleasant, friendly,
a person of deep reflection, attentive, intelligent, with still a bit
of shyness, full of experience and capacity for observing. She was
like the dear little old woman from a children’s fairy tale,
with her dark green coat that Conchita Güemes (a friend) had made
for her and her handkerchief wrapped around her head with a knot tied
below her chin…
We went to Gavarnie, a nearby glacier park, where we contemplated the beauty of the white, cold ice formations. We returned with renewed spirits. The “craziness” of our trip had obtained abundant fruits of peace and serenity. We knew that we had to follow our path, a path of trust and abandonment into God’s hands.
By Fr. Rafael Alonso
©HM Magazine No. 140 January/February 2008
