I just spent a month at Lourdes, France, serving in the Family Rosary Center we are operating there this summer. Maybe another day I will blog about that mission but today I want to share some personal thoughts about what it has been like to be there … this place which so many people have found to be so extraordinary since Our Lady appeared there to Saint Bernadette in 1858.
Over the years, I have been able to visit the Shrine a number of times and each time I experience a sense of peace that is so palpable you could almost cut it with a knife.
The VIPs there are the sick and the handicapped. It is very moving to see people of all ages, from all over the world, who have given their vacations to come and take care of them. They push wheelchairs, help the sick into the healing spring waters, and attend to their personal needs. They are Mary sharing the Lord's love and grace.
Now, spending four weeks at Lourdes opened me to a deeper experience, still. I was there for a mission that kept me busy … yet I noticed that my mind and heart were being drawn to recall so many friends and situations in the Church and in the world with a simple clarity and the loving attentiveness I often long to attain. It was concern, yet it was not worry! In my heart was a deep sense of trust and deep connection with all.
Whatever happens, live in prayerful trust! I sensed somehow that I was being drawn into the Heart of Mary which is the Heart of the Church! Being in Lourdes for a few weeks, I seemed to gracefully be allowed to stay there, seemingly effortlessly, so as to learn this once again and more deeply.
I share the experience of this grace with you so that together we can live something so simple yet so important for our world.
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Is this really what the Lord is asking of us? Sometimes we need to go apart to pray as Jesus did so we can set a new pace. I find for myself that often I don’t stop until I have a migraine. For others it may take a fall, an accident, the flu, getting fired, or what have you. Wouldn’t it be better if we could hear God’s voice calling us to rest and pray before we have gone over our physical, emotional, and spiritual limits?
Patroness of the 
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