This idea of the Blessed Virgin and the insight we can have to her just by observing the various apparitions of her are simply so lovely that I cannot hesitate to wonder.
The Blessed Virgin is a powerful force in the Holy Church. Though many people have claimed to see the Blessed Virgin in various apparitions over the last twenty centuries, there are only a few apparitions that are verified and supported by the Catholic Church.
There are two apparitions of the Blessed Virgin that remain very very close to my heart.
One is Our Lady of Fatima and the other is Our Lady of Lourdes. Now, it is possible that I resonate most with these particular apparitions because it was those apparitions about which I have learned so many things and have seen more about them.
And this idea of the Blessed Virgin and the insight we can have to her just by observing the various apparitions of her are simply so lovely that I cannot hesitate to wonder.
When the Blessed Virgin appeared at Lourdes, she appeared in a Grotto to a child, Bernadette Soubirous, who was a sickly asthmatic, who eventually died of tuberculosis of the bone, after having lived during her adult life in a cloister away from the world, praying for souls.
During those apparitions, the Blessed Virgin told this young girl, Saint Bernadette, that she was the Immaculate Conception. And this identification, which is a dogma of the Catholic Church (which means an irrefutable truth of our faith and something that we must believe in if we wish to be called Catholics) is something that Saint Maximillion Kolby was able to further understand through the insights of the Holy Spirit.
The apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima are even more fascinating to me. Not only did the Blessed Virgin show a group of three very young (primary school aged children) Hell itself, but she also urged them to offer penance to atone for sin. When the Blessed Virgin appeared to the Children of Fatima, she also appeared in the form of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
In the thirteenth century, the Blessed Virgin had appeared to Saint Simon Stock and during those apparitions had given him a piece of brown cloth to use as a scapular. She had promised to protect the faithful who wore that scapular and who relied on her care. Out Lady of Mount Carmel was revered by the Carmelites from the twelfth century. In the Holy Land, on Mount Carmel, hermitages were built to allow the hermits to worship God through the intercession of His Blessed Mother. And it was to those hermitages (as they expanded throughout Europe) that Saints like Saint Terese of Avila and Saint Therese of Lisieux among many others flocked…
And I have been thinking today of how the Blessed Virgin inspired a soul such as mine to love her in the form of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, by appearing in that form to some shepherd children in Fatima…
What a blessing that really is…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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