Christian Courage: Song of Bernadette

 I am not a fan of many religious films. I just don't think the quality is usually very good. But this one, about St. Bernadette is pretty good, although dated in style. Jennifer Jones won the Academy Award for this role in 1944.

 

St. Bernadette was a simple girl who had a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The spot of the vision, Lourdes, has become a pilgrimage site. It is the most famous place for medical miracles. There is a hospital on the grounds staffed by doctors to examine any miracle claims. There have been some amazing miracles.

One was a woman Madame Bire in 1908 came there, blind because her optic nerve was withered; she regained her sight when the Blessed Sacrament passed. But when the Doctors inspected her eyes, they found she was able to see, even though the nerve was still withered-- to add to miracle, the nerve did recover within a few weeks. (cf. A PROTESTANT LOOKS AT LOURDES, By Ruth Cranston)

 

St. Bernadette's body remains incorrupt. It has not undergone decay.

faith formation: What is Love? Love is Patient-- post 1

Love is the goal of life--to love God and our neighbor. 

St. Paul defined it as we Christians should understand it. 

“Love is patient, love is kind. Love is not jealous, it is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury. Love does not rejoice over wrong-doing, but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

 

Let’s examine each point

faith formation: St. John Paul II’s Message to Women Who Have Had An Abortion - Fr. Mark Goring, CC

 

faith formation: Pride and Duty

The devil tempts us by three main methods: Pleasure, Honor, and Power. Pride is part of all three. He focuses on our main weakness, which is sinful-pride. Other languages  have one word for sinful-pride and another for good-pride, but not in common conversational English. (We could call good-pride “magnanimity” and sinful-pride “hubris”; but we will stick to common language for now). 

In English we  tend to use the same words often with different meanings, depending on the context. Good-pride is the pride you have for your loved ones succeeding, one's country, or culture. It is “other minded” or “group minded.” But even these can become sinful, when brought to excess.

faith formation: Do the Opposite--"AGERE CONTRA"-- Spirituality 101; Fr. Mark Goring

 Here Fr. Goring explains a principle in the spiritual life of "AGERE CONTRA"--"To act against". A term in ascetical literature to describe the deliberate effort one must make to strive to overcome his evil tendencies, by doing the opposite of that to which he is sinfully inclined.

Amazing World: The incredible ibex defies gravity and climbs a dam

 Nature is so full of curious wonders. These mountain goats can scale a share cliff of a mountain dam.

faith formation: Manifestation of Conscience

 Fr. Goring is on fire with pearls of wisdom for the spiritual life. Here  talks about how one should pray to know your soul as God sees it. To know your faults and sins, especially the ones you are not conscious of.

 

 

There was a practice of revealing your innermost thoughts to your spiritual father in religious orders, but it was not the sacrament of confession. The practice has fallen out favor because of abuses and other complications. There is a problem of the inner and external forum.

For example a married priest shouldn't hear his wife's confession, unless it is a dire emergency. It makes interpersonal relationships very complicated.

It creates complications because similar to the seal of confession, "manifestations of conscience" has a kind of seal of secrecy, and confidentiality, which makes it hard to navigate when one, as a superior, can act or can't.

To curb such abuses  Pope Leo XIII, 17 December 1890, "Quemadmodum" forbade both mandatory manifestation of conscience and the practice of superiors inducing their subjects to make such manifestations.