Limelight: Miracle at Lourdes By Lubna Abdel Aziz On any given day thousands of pilgrims are seen kneeling by the rock of Massabielle in the South of France, with hope in their hearts and faith in their souls. Sunday 15 August was different. Amidst the 250,000 worshipers was the one holy man, revered by the whole world, the bishop of Rome, vicar of Christ, supreme pontiff of the Universal Church, patriarch of the West, primate of Italy, sovereign of Vatican City, Pope John Paul II, once known in his native Poland as Karol Josef Wojtyla. His voice weak, his legs unsteady, his hips ailing, he tried to kneel with other ailing pilgrims at the Holy Shrine at Lourdes known for its miraculous cures. This was his second visit to the covered grotto and though his disabled 84-year-old body could only kneel for a moment, he spoke haltingly from the depth of his heart, slurring his words, but the voice of his faith, strong and clear, rang around the green fields and around the world: "Dear brothers and sisters who are sick, how I would like to embrace each and every one of you with affection." He slipped and was immediately lifted up to his chair. He sipped a glass of the holy water from the spring that is believed to have healing powers and in a rare reference to his own ailments, the pope continued, "with you I share a time of life marked by physical suffering, yet not for that reason, any less fruitful in God's wondrous plan." Though his words were read for him, the pope was shaken with emotion and amid a sea of human sufferers bowed to honour the Holy Virgin Mary and to seek her help. For 2,000 years since she gave birth to Jesus, Mary has appeared to his faithful followers. Her first recorded apparition in 40 AD was, probably before she died, to James the Apostle, as he was spreading God's message in Saragossa, northeast of Spain. She gave him a small wooden statue and a column of jasper wood and instructed him to build a church in her honour. James built a small chapel, the first ever dedicated to honour the Holy Virgin. Disheartened by the failure of his mission in Spain, he returned to Jerusalem in 44 AD and was executed by Herod Agrippa, the first Apostle to be martyred for his faith. Several of his disciples returned his body for burial in Spain. Eight centuries later the gravesite was discovered by a local hermit and a cathedral was erected -- The Compostella -- now a major pilgrimage site in Europe. Mary's apparitions continued through the centuries covering the globe from Ireland to Mexico, from Vietnam to Egypt. Always consistent in nature, she appears in a circle of pure white light, dressed in a long dress and head cover, her feet surrounded by a mist of cloud. Egypt was blessed with several Virgin apparitions notably in Zeitun in 1968, and in Assiut in 2000. Two of the most important apparitions took place in Lourdes, France and Fatima, Portugal. In the 19th century on a cold Thursday evening, 11 February 1858, 14-year-old Bernadette Soubiroux went to collect wood at the shores of the river Gave. A mysterious vision of a young and beautiful lady appeared in the hollow of the rock -- "lovelier than I have ever seen". Although many stood there only little Bernadette saw the vision. On her third apparition the lady ordered Bernadette to drink from a spring that was not there. Bernadette dug a small hole in the mud, and an abundant spring of pure fresh water began to flow. This wondrous spring was responsible for the first medically unexplainable cures at Lourdes. On another occasion she bade Bernadette to tell the priests she wished a chapel to be built on the spot. Millions come and keep coming with all their emotional, psychological, and physical handicaps seeking solace, hope and help from the Blessed Virgin. On Sunday 15 August 2004 -- Feast of the Assumption -- which celebrates Mary being taken into heaven, hundreds of thousands of the world's sick came to pray as they do each year. This year, side by side with them, stood a trembling 84-year-old holy man who has since childhood held a blessed devotion to the Virgin Mary. Four years earlier, at Vatican City on 8 October 2000, the holy pope entrusted the third millennium to the protection of the Virgin Mary. In a moving ceremony with 1,500 bishops on hand and a sea of humanity in St Peter's Square, the statue of the Virgin of Fatima was brought over from Portugal and was received with enthusiastic applause as it appeared in procession followed by John Paul II. In the statue's crown was the bullet that had almost ended the pope's life almost two decades before by Mehmet Ali Acqa on 13 May 1981. The Holy Father, visibly moved by the event, pronounced the act of entrustment of all humanity to the Virgin Mary at the dawn of the millennium, beginning with the weakest: "The babies yet unborn, and those born into poverty and suffering, the young in search of meaning, the unemployed, the sick, the hungry. We entrust to you all troubled families, the elderly with no one to help them, and all who are alone without hope!" It was on another day in another century, 83 years before the millennium, 17 May 1917, that the blessed Virgin had appeared to three shepherd children Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco, at the Cova da Iria near the town of Fatima. After lunch and the Rosary they looked up to see a bright flash of something like lightning in the clear blue sky. In Lucia's words "a lady clothed in white, brighter than the sun, more clear and intense than a crystal cup filled with sparkling water, lit by burning sunlight." How can Hollywood resist such mysterious, miraculous events. Forever drawn to populist and spiritual themes, Hollywood has been successful in reproducing great religious epics such as The Ten Commandments, The Robe, Ben Hur, and this season we witnessed Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, which defied all odds and amassed millions. Films about the Virgin apparitions have also been popular in the past, including the story of Fatima of Portugal, Guadeloupe of Mexico, and the 1943 Oscar winner The Song of Bernadette (1943). A young newcomer, protégé of David O Selznick played the French peasant girl of Lourdes. She received an Oscar for her flawless performance. Her name was Jennifer Jones. Another unknown played the Blessed Virgin -- her name was Linda Darnell. Although only 66 official cures at Lourdes have been acknowledged by the church, one of the estimates is 3,962 during the first half century of the pilgrimage, which is undoubtedly considerably less than the actual number, acknowledged by the "Annales des Sciences Physiques", a sceptical revue of the Medical Faculty of Paris. Sceptics abound and search for reasons other than miraculous. Some claim the water has curative properties, but chemists analysed it and found none. Others thought the temperature was responsible, but such temperatures are used in hydrotherapy practised everywhere else than Lourdes without its miraculous cure. Some were sure it was the power of suggestion, but were suggestion to succeed it would require slow progress. Lourdes' cures are instantaneous. A recent claim suggested a natural force of which we are still ignorant. If such a force existed however, how would the pilgrims at Lourdes know how to set it in motion, and why does it work for some and not others. What natural force can instantaneously generate a cure of diseased tissues? For such an organic cure, no scientific explanation is available short of a miracle. Have we become so hardened that we can no longer conceive of a divine intervention? Miracles happen every day. One obvious miracle is the miracle of creation, especially of one tireless pilgrim who wakes up each day of his life and helps his fellow man. Nothing stops him, not age, not disease, not pain. He climbs every mountain, crosses every ocean, surmounts every obstacle, to bring God's love to all mankind. Trembling and frail he found the strength to kneel by an ivy grotto, amid green fields of summer, to pray for the suffering of body and soul. He is a miracle of life and achievement -- the achievement of a young orphaned athlete, playwright, poet, singer, actor, from Krakow Poland, who grew up to become the holiest man of his time. Miracles do happen, you just need to believe! Such is the power of love in gentle mind, That it can alter all the course of kind. Edmund Spenser (1552-1590)
