Lourdes Pilgrimage - Day 7
Something Old, Something Ancient
Today’s mass as at the Abbey of Saint-Savin-en-Lavedan, which is over 1,000 years old. And, to be honest, it kinda looks it.
The interior is just as impressive—
I couldn’t help but contrast this with our time at the Pius X Basilica yesterday. That was built 65 years ago, which is basically brand new on the 2,000 year scale of the Church. There are people on our pilgrimage older than that.
The Saint Savin Abbey is from an entirely different time. People couldn’t read or write, but they sure knew how to build a church. The high walls and domes drew your eye upwards. The paintings and statues reminded you of the most important stories of the bible.
Going to Pius X was like attending mass in a fallout shelter. It was impressive, but mostly on the grounds of human achievement and ingenuity. If you took out the banners depicting saints, it would resemble nothing so much as the interior of a concrete whale. Saint Savin, on the other hand, will still be a church until the last stone crumbles.
I don’t think I really understood why I dislike modern churches until now: they don’t really look like churches. My parish at home (coincidentally, Our Lady of Lourdes), has a weird, wooden sculpture along the back wall that looks more like an ent designed by Piet Mondrian than any sort of religious iconography. If you took away the crucifix and alter, the nave would be indistinguishable from a conference room in a middle-grade hotel; it doesn’t really call one to contemplate the eternal.
Anyway, enough of my complaining. Here’s a cute picture of Amelia eating ice cream.
Please keep praying for her.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.
O Most Holy Mother of my Jesus, you who saw and felt the extreme desolation of your dear Son, help us in our own time of desolation.
And you saints of Heaven who have passed through this trial, have pity on those who are suffering it now and pray that we be given the grace to be faithful until death.
And in a particular way, dear St. Bernadette, we ask for your intercession for the intentions on our heart, that Amelia be cured of her metachromatic leukodystrophy.
St. Bernadette, you had such perfect obedience. When Our Lady asked you if it would bother you to “get down on [your] knees and kiss the ground as a penance for sinners,” you responded, “Oh, no! with all my heart.” You dug with your fingers in the mud, drank muddy water, and ate grass in obedient response to Our Lady’s requests. People thought you were crazy, but it was through your obedience that at that location, where Amelia is now, a healing spring exists. Soften my heart that it may become more immediately obedient to God’s promptings.
Jesus, grow in me, in my heart, in my spirit, in my imagination, and in my senses, by your modesty, your purity, your humility, your zeal, and your love. Grow with your grace, your light, your peace. Grow despite my resistance and my pride. Grow as you did at Nazareth before God and before men, for the glory of your Father.
