THE WORD AND THE FEAST
February 11, 2021: Celebrating our Blessed Mother of Lourdes
Commemorating the 29th World day of the Sick
Genesis 2: 18-25; Mark 7: 24-30
At times people are apprehensive about interreligious dialogue or multi religious initiatives of unity and harmony. They prefer to look at the other as different, separate or even contrary. If we truly mean what we say and what we pray: I believe in One God - then I need to become more and more proactive and look at the reality as One Humanity!
Divisions and discrimination are sins; they are a sickness, a sickness that has affected human persons right from the beginning and tries to control them all along. It makes humans sick... sick in their vision of the other, sick in their relations with the other, sick in their conception of the world and sick in their attitude towards others and everything else.
Celebrating Our Lady of Lourdes today, we are inspired to thank God for the great gift of her person and the fullness of grace that she possessed. And not just we in the Church, but even the world at large remembers as the world day of sick persons. Receiving the apparition at Lourdes, Bernadette said, 'The Mother said, I am the Immaculate Conception.' Immaculate Conception was a manifestation of God's fullness in the person of Mary, the wholeness which the Blessed Mother intercedes for. Especially these days when the whole world is tired of battling against the pandemic that is more than a year old, we need the sustenance of our Blessed Mother.
From sickness to wholeness, or healing - that is the journey we are called to make today. Not just sicknesses of body, but also sicknesses of the mind - such as divisions and discriminations, sicknesses of the spirit - such as sinfulness and spiritual laziness, and sicknesses of all sorts. May our Blessed Mother strengthen and sustain us in this journey, from sickness to wholeness.
