CELEBRATING the JUBILEE ANNIVERSARY of OUR LADY of LOURDES

Yesterday, Monday, February 11, was the feast day of Our Lady of Lourdes and this year marks the 150^th anniversary of the apparition of Our Lady in Lourdes, France. At Lourdes, a humble young girl saw the Blessed Mother and was instructed to establish a Marian devotion and to teach the benefits of Marian devotion to others. A spring began to flow on the site of the apparition and still flows today. This spring is said to have amazing curative powers and people still flock to this site for healing and adoration.

Since this year does mark the 150th anniversary of the apparition, a decree was announced on December 5, 2007, that granted the faithful a Plenary Indulgence if certain criteria are met. A plenary indulgence takes away all of the temporal punishment for remitted sins that we would have had to suffer on earth or in purgatory. If we go to confession (before or after the feast), pray for our Pope, and are free from attachment to sin, we can gain a plenary indulgence.

A church in Hitchcock, Texas, a small town near me had a wonderful celebration of this Feast Day of Our Lady of Lourdes and I much enjoyed attending. This feast day is even more special this year because the Vatican has granted the faithful a plenary indulgence for the occasion of the 150^th anniversary of the apparition of Our Lady to Bernadette at Lourdes. The Hitchcock church is named Our Lady of Lourdes, and many churches with this name and dedicated to Our lady did have special prayers and celebrations to grant plenary indulgence during this past week.