Parish Newsletter - Week 5, 2026

On February 11th we celebration the wondrous apparition of Our Lady at Lourdes. Our Lady chose Bernadette Soubirous, an impoverished, uneducated, and sickly teenage girl, as her messenger. It is a judicious choice that highlights Catholic virtues of humility and simplicity.

The spiritual message in many of her apparitions is a call to personal holiness and a return to living Gospel teaching. At Lourdes, Our Lady repeatedly called for "Penance, penance, penance" and asked Bernadette to pray and kiss the ground—an act of humility and repentance for sinners. Our Lady appeared with a Rosary, emphasising its importance as a spiritual weapon against the forces of darkness. The miraculous spring of water at the Grotto was also given as an indelible sign of God's love and grace, symbolising the cleansing power of Baptism and the flow of living water from the pierced heart of Jesus on the cross.

The apparition at Lourdes also confirmed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Pope Pius IX defined the dogma that Blessed Virgin was conceived without original sin. Our Lady identified herself to Bernadette Soubirous with the words "I am the Immaculate Conception".

The message of Lourdes is a call for the conversion of our hearts and lives towards God and others. It is a reminder that our faith is a living thing, not something we pick up for an hour on a Sunday. Our humble acceptance of them is redolent of the selfless acceptance of the sacrifices made by Christ, for our sakes, in his Passion. Our Lady told Bernadette, "I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the other". This theological point emphasises the redemptive nature of suffering when united to Christ's Passion and the promise of eternal happiness in God's kingdom.