"I am the Immaculate Conception." Our Lady of Lourdes

WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT? WHAT HAPPENED IN LOURDES?

Why did Mary come? What was so important at this time in history, in this country? It’s easy in retrospect to understand the need for divine intervention in 1858. The Church had gone through one of its worst periods possible in Europe. It had not quite recovered from the French Revolution. New governments, new revolutions attacked the Church and the people. In 1848, the Archbishop of Paris was murdered when yet another revolution took place in France. It then spread itself to Rome. The Pope’s Prime Minister was murdered. The Papal Palace was attacked. Many were wounded or killed. It became violent to the point of driving Pope Pius IX out of the Vatican State. Belief and trust in the promise of Jesus waned badly. It seemed as if the Church was tolling its death knell. Louis Napoleon brought his French troops to the aid of the Church temporarily, and the Pope was able to return to Rome. But the calm was shortlived. The war clouds loomed over the horizon again. Satan poised his troops in preparation for the final destruction of the Church.

In 1854, in the midst of this, and in the face of massive opposition, one of Mary’s staunchest supporters, Pope Pius IX proclaimed to the world what had been believed down through the centuries, but had never been made a Dogma of the Church. THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION was declared fact, and all Catholics were required to believe this. There had been a popular heresy spreading throughout Europe at this time, Pantheism, which claimed that man was equal with God. By this proclamation, Our Lord Jesus through the Pope declared that with the exception of Jesus, only Mary was conceived without Original Sin. The rest of the human race are heirs of Adam and Eve, and all that goes with it.

This proclamation caused more problems than it meant to solve. Rumbling went on inside the Church, and outside in Protestant circles. It was outrageous, they said, to give this singular honor to a woman. Shades of Lucifer! He, the once favored angel of God, made this same statement when told that a woman would be Queen of Heaven and Earth, of all the Angels and the Saints.

Open by Steve Bailey