We’re getting closer to Our Lady of Lourdes’ Feast Day, and we would like to celebrate with very interesting facts.
Did you know…
Our Lady of Lourdes and Our Lady of Fatima are related in some way?
Our Lady
First of all, we know that when we refer to Our Lady of Lourdes and Our Lady of Fatima, we are talking about the same person: Our Most Holy Mother, the Virgin Mary. She is the Mother of God and Our Mother as well, as Jesus proclaimed from the Cross “Behold your Mother” (Jn. 19:27).
Our Lady comes to us through her authentic private revelations, by God’s will, at different moments in time and to different nations to give a specific message. It is important to note that private revelations add nothing to the Deposit of Faith, but they “can add to our knowledge of the Faith and in a most inspiring way” (cf. Fatima and the First Saturdays book).
Our Lady’s apparitions at Lourdes and at Fatima
Our Lady appeared to a fourteen-year-old girl called Bernadette in Lourdes, France on February 11th, 1858. This was the first out of eighteen apparitions from Our Lady to Bernadette in the same year. Our Lady of Fatima appeared six times to three children of Fatima, Portugal, 59 years later. A similarity to note between these apparitions is that in both, Our Lady appeared in small villages to modest and humble children. This makes us think and affirm that Our Lord and Our Lady are not interested in our material possessions, but in the simplicity of our hearts.
On February 18th, 1858, Our Lady told Bernadette that she would not promise to make her happy in this world, but in the other she would (cf. Arundel and Brighton Diocese, 2020). In the same way, on the 13th of May, 1917, when Our Lady appeared for the first time to the three children at Fatima, she asked them the following question: “Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended, and of supplication for the conversion of sinners?” The three children: Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco said “yes”, and after this Our Lady replied: “Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort” cf. (Fatima and the First Saturdays, 2021). As we can see, real happiness is not reduced to a mere feeling or to mundane thought of happiness.
Finally, let us quote some passages from the Fatima and the First Saturdays book, where we quote a great comparison between Our Lady’s dogmas.
The Dogmas of the Assumption and the Immaculate Conception
After every apparition of Our Lady at Fatima in 1917, she left rising “towards the east until she disappeared”. This seems to be symbolic of Our Lady’s Assumption into Heaven, which was solemnly defined as a dogma in 1950 […]. By comparison, we see at Lourdes, shortly after the definition of the Immaculate Conception that Our Lady appeared partly enclosed by a niche within a large cave, which could be taken to symbolize the Immaculate Conception in the womb of St. Anne. In fact, Our Lady even identified herself as the Immaculate Conception.
The Promises
Did you know that one of the five reasons why Our Lord asked Venerable Sister Lucia (who was one of the three children of Fatima) to make reparation, is for the sins against Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception?
In 1858 Our Lady confirms to Bernadette that she is the Immaculate Conception, which was a new dogma from the Church proclaimed only four years before. However, In 1917, it was already necessary to make reparation for the blasphemies that had been done against her in regards to this dogma. How much more reparation will be needed today? Our Lord not only asked us to make reparation for this blasphemy, but also for four more reasons. Our Lady asked that by practicing the First Saturdays devotion by doing 5 consecutive first Saturdays, we may obtain the graces necessary for (our personal) salvation. However, we should not forget, that we are invited to continue this practice for an indefinite number of times, in order to obtain a period of peace and the salvation of souls, as Our Lady promised on July 13th, 1917.
The Assumption was Our Lady’s victory over death. The practice of the First Saturdays will be the victory of her Immaculate Heart in then end. Please see the Fatima and the First Saturdays book. Learn more about the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in our online and live study groups using this book! For more information please go to: www.CommunalFirstSaturdays.org/study-groups
References:
- The Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton. (2020). https://www.abdiocese.org.uk/lourdes/the-apparitions
- First Saturdays for Peace. (2021). Fatima and the First Saturdays.