“Yes Lord, but how?” I asked as I tried unsuccessfully to concentrate on the papers I was filing. Two day’s earlier on a college retreat my campus minister, Juan, had casually mentioned the upcoming mission trip he and a group of students and parishioners were taking to Lourdes, France.
The thought of going on the trip had never crossed my mind in the many months I watched the others plan their pilgrimage. Even this time when he suggested it, I declined. I had no intention of going to France, and certainly no desire to get on a plane again, especially after having flown overseas for the first time the summer before to Rome. I was deathly afraid of flying and had nearly turned down the offer to attend World Youth Day in Vatican City because of that fear.
Today, however, I awoke abruptly with the idea in my head. To no avail, I tried repeatedly to ignore it and go back to sleep. Now at work, I was anxious. I couldn’t think straight, and I certainly wasn’t getting any work done. The Lord had most definitely put the desire for this trip on my heart. When I finally surrendered, I took a break and called Juan. He was excited, but we had to face the inevitable problem of money and my lack of it.
Most months I struggled to pay my rent, now I had to come up with nearly $2,000 in two weeks to pay my way. As in anything that the Lord wills, He made it possible. My home parish, community, family and friends gave from their hearts and their pocket books to send me as an advocate for their prayers to the Blessed Mother, and by the grace of God and the generosity of others I was able to go. Two weeks later, sitting in my guest room within eyesight of the shrine, I still could not believe it. I knew that to get me past my fear of flying, my financial limitations, and mostly my own stubbornness, the big man had to have some big plan for me to be here.
Being a wannabe, rookie apologist, I love every teaching of the Catholic Church, even those that I do not yet understand, including the ones that speak of the benefits of honoring the mother of God. Even coming from a cradle Catholic background the importance placed on Mary presented perhaps the biggest challenge to my faith. As with most of our Church’s teachings, I knew the words to explain them to myself, and even teach them to others, but with those doctrines concerning Mary I had yet the understanding to believe them in my heart.
I was passionately in love with Christ and I had an intimate relationship with Him, so what role did Mary need to play in that? Why was I here, in the place of one of the most famous Marian apparitions? Sitting in this tiny room now, I was sure that for whatever reason, it was God’s plan for me to be on this trip.
I had begun to notice a pattern in my faith life. My stubbornness or perhaps arrogance always deemed it necessary for me to learn every lesson the hard way. In my few short years of truly ‘active’ Catholicism I’d often walked around the entire block just to get across the street, so to speak, and I was quickly gathering that this situation would be no different. As some might come to understand Mary through a book, the rosary, or maybe even a well-researched tape set by Tim Staples, the Lord felt it necessary to fly me across an ocean and bring me to Lourdes to soften my heart to His mother.
“Ok Lord, I’m ready,” I said out loud as I sat on the ledge of my window overlooking the shrine and the navy blue night sky. “Show me through your Word.” I played a little ‘Bible roulette’ as I randomly opened the Good Book. I was somewhat disappointed when I saw that it opened to the book of Joshua. Post-Moses Israelites not seeming to be something particularly encouraging at the moment, I began to think that I needed to try my ‘luck’ again and flip to a different spot in scripture. I kept my place though, as I planted my eyes on the first verse I saw. “When the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God comes to you. . .” (Joshua 3:3).
Ding! Ding! My hours of reading and listening to Tim Staples and Scott Hahn were now paying off. I knew Mary as the ark of the new covenant; a type of the old ark, and I knew this was not a coincidence. My interest now sparked, I started at the beginning and read the entire book of Joshua that night, but came back to verses 3 and 4. “Then you shall set out from your place and follow it. . .” (Joshua 3:3).
That line stuck with me the next evening as I watched 20,000 people in a procession, behind a statue of Mary’s likeness, while praying the rosary in many different languages. All of them had set out from their homes from every corner of the earth to do this very thing, including me, but why? “…That you may know the way you shall go, for you have not passed this way before.” (Joshua 3:4).
Those verses continued to perplex me. I read them faithfully everyday of my stay there. As I worked in the hospital and the train station in Lourdes, privileged to be serving people from all around the world, and making friends with my fellow missionaries, they ran through my head again and again.
One night after the procession and after almost an hour of hopelessly searching for my friends amongst the thousands of people praying at and near the grotto, I decided to sit and pray myself. I found a spot near the river directly across from the grotto. As I sat there, I took out my Bible and my journal and began to plead for understanding. I read those words from Joshua once more, even though I knew them by heart now. What was all this about? I started to think of Mary appearing to little Bernadette in 1858. As I looked at the statue in the same place that Mary herself stood so long ago, I noticed something I hadn’t before, something obscure; the blue sash around her waist. Sure, I knew it was what made the image of Our Lady of Lourdes distinct from her infinite other titles, but I saw it in a different light now. In Jesus’ time, when a woman wore a blue sash around her waist it was known that she was with child.
So, I thought, when Mary appeared to that poor uneducated French girl she was either making a very outdated fashion statement or she was bearing the child Jesus. The ark of the covenant contained the articles that represented the presence of God. Joshua was trying to lead his people to the promised land and the ark of the covenant was of the utmost importance on that journey. So important that when the feet of the priests carrying the arc touched the river, “the waters coming down from above stood and rose up in a heap far off… and those flowing down toward the sea… were wholly cut off” (Joshua 3:16). Mary bore in her womb the Word incarnate; God himself. The thought of her as the ark was booming in my ears now. God isn’t limited to time, I thought, and this was not an isolated event. Mary was then, is now and always will be the living tabernacle, eternally the ark of the new covenant. Mary was present here and, therefore, so was Jesus. She did not come here only to lead us to Christ, but to bring Him to us!
I remembered all that I had learned in my weeks there about Mary’s message to Bernadette. The many visits she paid to that one faithful child. One statement of hers stuck out in my mind now, “Go and tell the priests to have a chapel built here.” What before had seemed arrogant to me made so much sense now as I looked up at the awesome shrine that stood before me. Here was the very Church they had built. It was suddenly so clear to me however, that much more than a church had been built.
Here before me was the Church, the bride of Christ, not in stone and cement but in living, breathing people. In my time there I saw thousands of volunteers and patients work and pray together to bring each other to Christ. Without prejudice or arguments, they preached with action, all in their own way, all in the way of love. They gave up their time and energy, some for the past 20 years of their lives, to form a true representation of the body of Christ, all because 150 years ago the Mother of God appeared to a small girl in the side of a mountain and she believed. All to be an example, so that we as the Church may better “know the way we should go”.
My relationship with Christ was good and something I held very dear to my heart, but will always be in need of growth. In all my efforts to grow spiritually, never had I “passed this way before”. Christ came to the world physically through Mary. What better way to get to Christ than through her? I thought. Though I had heard the words many times before they now hit home, Mary does not divert my relationship with Christ; she helps me to focus on Him, on His message. I could not fill my journal fast enough. My hand began to hurt from writing so much, so I stopped.
I closed my notebook and began to listen. — Next to me I could hear a group praying the rosary in Spanish over the soft hum of thousands praying all around. I was so overwhelmed by it all, this place, my thoughts, and this revelation. I needed confirmation and reassurance that I was on the right track. I asked Mary to show me God’s blessing. I looked around me, surely there had to be a priest nearby, but even if there were, would he speak my language? There are thousands of people out here, would he even stop to acknowledge me? I closed my eyes in doubt, not even noticing that the group next to me had finished praying and were leaving now.
I felt a hand on my shoulder, when I opened my eyes there was a priest before me. He had been leading the Spanish rosary that filled my ears as I sat and journaled. I was in such shock that I could not speak at first. After much confusion and a few attempts in different languages on his part, he finally realized that I spoke English (no doubt I was American). He admitted that the sight of someone my age praying so intently caught his eye and led him to speak to me. He asked me where I was from and we conversed for a while. In my mind I was pleading with myself, “Ask him for a blessing Amy… ask… just ask.” When I noticed that he was about to leave, I forced a word out of my mouth. “Father…” but before I could continue, before I could ask, his hands were on my head and his eyes were closed in prayer as he said a prayer of blessing over me. Then he was gone.
Mary was with me in that time helping me through my prayers to get closer to Christ and to see His church in a completely new light. What I am realizing now in hindsight is that she’d always been with me, so close in fact, that I had never noticed. She voiced her fiat as a young woman asking, “How can this be. . .?” (Luke 1:34) In the same way she helped me to say, “Yes Lord” both in the beginning of this journey across the ocean and daily in my journey with Christ. She was with me in that dorm room when I opened my Bible as she said “Let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:37). And my miracle was made possible through God, as hers was when the angel appeared to her, “For with God, nothing is impossible” (Luke 1:37).
What better person for me, a young woman struggling to live a life for Christ, to emulate, than the mother of Jesus; pure, holy, strong and so very present. My quest to understand Mary was far from complete but I was so very blessed to have it nurtured in this place, in this time, and in this way.
© Copyright 2003 Catholic Exchange
