What Happened in Lourdes?

Why did Mary come?up on us in 2,000 years, waited. One year went by.
What was so important at this time in history, in thisThe situation was bad. Two years went by. Not much
country?change took place in the attitudes of her children
It's easy in retrospect to understand the need fortowards the new Dogma of the Immaculate
divine intervention in 1858.Conception. The third year passed. But still she waited.
In 1854, in the face of massive opposition, one ofAnd then she did the predictable.
Mary's staunchest supporters, Pope Pius IX proclaimedShe found a remote town of no great importance, and
to the world what had been believed down throughwithin that speck on the earth, she chose a simple child
the centuries, but had never been made a Dogma ofof the poorest family in the region, and led her to a
the Church.garbage dump. From that vantage point she was to
The Immaculate Conception was declared fact, and allsend out a message to the world for all time, loud and
Catholics were required to believe this. There hadclear, confirmation of Pope Pius' IX dogma, in the
been a popular heresy spreading throughout Europe atstatement she made in the 16th Apparition on the
this time, Pantheism, which claimed that man was equalFeast of the Annunciation,
with God. By this proclamation, Our Lord Jesus through"Que soy era Immaculada councepciou"
the Pope declared that with the exception of Jesus,"I am the Immaculate Conception" Into this background,
only Mary was conceived without Original Sin. The restwe bring Bernadette Soubirous, an illiterate, extremely
of the human race are heirs of Adam and Eve, and allunhealthy little 14 year old girl.
that goes with it.Bernadette was always a good girl, a holy girl, a
This proclamation caused more problems than it meanthumble girl. For someone as famous as she became,
to solve.she had no exaggerated impressions of her self worth.
Rumbling went on inside the Church, and outside inWhen asked how she felt about receiving such a
Protestant circles. It was outrageous, they said, to givespecial gift from Our Lady, she made the statement "
this singular honor to a woman. The enemies of theWhat do you think of me? Don't I realize that the
Church claimed Mary was from Adam as we all are;Blessed Virgin chose me because I was the most
that she came into the world with the same stain ofignorant? If she had found anyone more ignorant than
sin that everyone else was born with. "It was one thingmyself, she would have chosen her." She said of
for the peasants, the uninformed, to believe in thisherself, "The Blessed Virgin used me like a broom.
superstition", they ranted. "How could the Church makeWhat do you do with a broom when you have
this farce into dogma?"finished sweeping? You put it back in its place, behind
Our Lady of Patience, my Mary, who has never giventhe door.