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| Did you know she was only 4 foot 7? |
Sometimes I forget to check my Catholic calendar, or to turn to the proper of saints in the breviary and end up missing a favorite memorial, but Our Lady of Lourdes is one I don't forget. Three years ago today I became an intentionally and joyfully unemployed caseworker. Next to recovered abilities to fix decent dinners and be home when my kids got off the school bus, one of the happiest side results of this was time to a. consistently pray 5 liturgical hours daily and b. blog about it.
So I guess Our Lady of Lourdes is an unofficial patron of this blog. Never thought of it that way until today. The story of Lourdes loomed large in my spiritual consciousness when I was young. It was always a major event when a TV station aired The Song of Bernadette. (This was the pre-VCR/DVD era). More recently, the life and example of St. Bernadette has come to mean more to me than the apparitions and miracles.
Here are my favorite St. Bernadette resources:
St. Bernadette Soubirous by Francois Trochu - the definitive biography
A Holy Life by Patricia McEachern is a collection of Bernadette's writings. No one gets canonized because they had visions of the Blessed Mother. Here is a look into the heart of a saint.
DVD:
Bernadette, directed by Jean Delannoy starring Sydney Penney
The Passion of Bernadette (same director and star as Bernadette)
Although Hollywood's The Song of Bernadette is a happy monument to the golden age of Catholic-themed films, and has many fine features that cinema nerds can tell you about, I prefer Sydney Penney's more down-to-earth portrayal of the saint. Her courage and sense of humor come through, while Jennifer Jones' Bernadette is too much of the luminous, other-worldy, pre-canonized, too-good-for-this-earth variety. Plus it's all shot on location.
Now, back to the blog and the breviary. I'll be re-running some popular older posts in the next few weeks for the benefit of more recent followers. Also, because after 3 years of blogging Liturgy of the Hours every week, and writing a book about it, there isn't much else left for me to do but repeat what has been said before.
Blogiversaries need giveaways. I'll be doing one a week for the next few weeks. Put your name in a comment below, and on Sunday night I'll choose a winner. Please share a link to this post with your friends, since giveaways help bring in new readers. This week's giveaway prize is an autographed copy of The Everyday Catholic's Guide to the Liturgy of the Hours. I know lots of you have it already, but this is a chance to get a copy to give to a friend, or, as I already said, to alert other people you know to this giveaway.
Welcome, new follower, Stuart, and everyone else who follows thought Feedly or other reader apps. Good to have you. Questions or comments are welcome anytime.
