Cognitive Dissonance Is Engulfing our Beloved Church

We are becoming the Church of cognitive dissonance. Let's begin by defining that psychological term:

Cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort that occurs when a person holds two or more contradictory beliefs, values, or attitudes, or when their behavior conflicts with their beliefs. This discomfort motivates people to change their beliefs, justify their actions, or avoid new information to reduce the inconsistency.

Think about that. What happens when the actions of our pope and bishops show diametrically opposed philosophies. How do you reconcile two mutually exclusive propositions? You can't! Jesus called Himself "The way, the truth and the life."  Embracing truth means one has to choose. Which of two things is true, or are both untrue and is the truth elsewhere altogether.

Random Thoughts on Monday

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  In the traditional Catholic calendar, tomorrow is the Feast of the Apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes. Interesting coincidence: I'm readinga biography of Pio Nono, Pope Pius IX so I checked the shelf where I keep encyclicals of the popes. Among those in the rubber-banded stash for Pio Nono I found Ineffabilis Deus, the Apostolic Constitution defining the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception. I happen to have two copies. While I was reading my Benedictus today, I noticed that the feast for tomorrow is Our Lady of Lourdes. Then when I came in to check out my email and news on the computer, I saw that I left both copies of the apostolic constitution front and center on the desk. What a great time to re-read the pope's declaration about Our Lady. So I will invite my dear husband to do an after dinner reading before we pray our daily rosary. It will be a gift to ourselves and to Mary, the Immaculate Conception. How I love that dear mother. I will use one of my mom's many rosaries. I think she had a rosary in every coat and jacket pocket she owned. Mom, please join me today in glorifying the Blessed Mother, whom you taught me to love so much. 

On Pilgrimage: Our Lady of Lourdes, Pray for Us!

Basilica of Lourdes at the height of the season.
Six million pilgrims visit every year.

Today is the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. Do you know St. Bernadette's story? Raised in poverty, she was a sickly child, but was still eager to help her family. One day in winter she, her sister and a friend went to look for firewood. At the cave of Massabielle, what the locals called the "pigs' shelter" she saw a vision of a young girl dressed in a white gown with gold roses on her feet who invited Bernadette to pray the rosary and asked her to return every day for fifteen days. Every day she would kneel at the grotto, venerate the beautiful lady, and pray the rosary.

Bernadette became a figure of mockery when the lady told her to dig in the earth and drink the water that appeared there and eat the weed. The gathered crowd called her crazy, but a spring bubbled up there and miraculous cures soon took place at the site.

When Bernadette asked the lady her name she replied, "I am the Immaculate Conception," a title conferred on her only a few years earlier by Pope Pius IX.

God in the Workplace

I found this article really inspiring. Do you say the morning offering? Do you think about God frequently during the day? Do you thank Him for the many gifts with which He showers you? Give God your day, your work, your relationships. He will bless you....not necessarily with material success, but with the things that really matter.

Nutella Founder Dies, Said Secret of Success Was Our Lady of Lourdes

Miracles for an Unbelieving World

Today is the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes and World Day of the Sick. What an appropriate combination. Our Lady appeared to a young girl, Bernadette Soubirous, in the little village of Lourdes France in 1858. During the 18 apparitions the Blessed Mother left a spring that had miraculous properties. The first approved miracle occurred on March 1, 1858 while the apparitions continued when Catherine Latapie, nine months pregnant, walked about five miles from the neighboring village of Loubajac to bathe her paralyzed arm in the spring. She was immediately healed and gave birth to a son later that day. Thirty-five miracles would be documented over the next few years before the Church announced in 1862 that Bernadette's apparitions were authentic. Miracles continue to occur at Lourdes astounding medical science. For two amazing stories click here.

While physical cures may be the most dramatic, spiritual miracles of conversion and the strengthening of faith are far more important. Fr. John Hardon, S.J. confirmed that on a retreat I attended when he shared some personal experiences of witnessing physical miracles. He then stressed that miracles of the soul were of a higher nature and more valuable. I thought of that when I read an account about a family who had a daughter with cerebral palsy. They came to Lourdes every year, not asking for a cure, but asking for the strength to live another year with cheerfulness and courage. Suffering is part of the human condition; suffering well is a miracle of grace.

For more about Bernadette and the story of Lourdes take a virtual pilgrimageand meet this humble and beautiful saint whose body remains incorrupt after 150 years.