Radorth

Yes Peter, I should reword that.

Perhaps "when a Hindu sun God is the higher power.."

Rad

Peter Kirby

Hi Radorth,

Oddly enough, that reminds me of a childhood summer camp with the name "Us in the Son."

But you still haven't cited your source.

best,
Peter Kirby

Vorkosigan

Posted by Vorkosigan:
In the case of Lourdes, Bernadette, a poor and uneducated girl still receiving religious instructions was out collecting firewood in 1858 with one or more other children. She, Bernadette, stopped briefly to pray to Mary (probably the rosary--I've forgotten as I was last in Lourdes in the late 1970s).

Lourdes legend, all.

According to the earliest written account cited in the book above, Berna was gathering bones, not firewood along the river. She was with a friend. She did not stop to pray to Mary. She something in the hedge that had "the shape of a young girl." The second time the apparition appeared, the girls were saying the rosary. Adults whom they told said it was an illusion, aquero did not tell who it was, and the girls friends speculated that it was a dead friend of Bernadette's. The Virgin showed up later, imposed on the story from the outside. The creature showed up in mid-Feb, by March 3 it had still not announced its name. NOt until March 25 does the apparition announce its the Immaculate Conception. Long after the crowd had already invented healings and named her a saint.

a church be built on the spot. When Bernadette reported THIS to the local clergy they were skeptical (to put it mildly!) and asked Bernadette to ask the Lady's name. The answer (again in the local patois) translates as: "I am the Immaculate Conception".

Roughly true, but the chronology is all wrong.

Since Bernadette herself was WAY too ignorant to know what she was repeating (as the village priest who listened in astonishment knew all too well) and as the dogma of the Immaculate Conception had been proclaimed only 1-3 years before (forgotten the exact year) this itself suggested to the skeptical clergymen that this was not just some individual invention.

The dogma of IC was proclaimed in 1854, but it had been an article of intense faith and hope among the french peasantry for a quarter-century prior to that. Berna knew of it well, in fact she mentioned a popular medal struck for it in her March 25 account, comparing the apparition's pose to the one on the medal. Berna was not that ignorant, she had been receiving catchetism at the local priest's direction (although he had stopped because he thought her too stupid to do anything. You should get the book above and check out the discussion on Bernie.

The spring was discovered at the direction of "Aquero" (in a subsequent vision). But again, to ascribe
any cures performed at Lourdes to "Canaanite gods"
is taking tendentiousness to new levels....

YHWH is a Canaanite god, Leo.

Vorkosigan

I have no idea. But as you can see, not only does the RCC not have such a protocol, none is possible either. Therefore, attribution of the miracles to any particular entity or process, even assuming that they occur, is impossible.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

You misunderstood. Not all the miracle cures of Lourdes are attributed to the water. Please read my whole post next time. The RCC "protocol" is so loose that a woman in Algeria was cured by a mass at Lourdes. Again, Lourdes water is not necessary.

Vorkosigan

leonarde

Posted by Vorkosigan: I did read the whole post. Nowhere
did I claim that "all the miracle cures...
are attributed to the water." That was not my point: my point was that the whole origin, practices, and history of Lourdes as a shrine has
from the day of that first vision been connected
with Roman Catholicism: it was the religion of the
seer, it was popularized (even before official
Church recognition) by the local faithful, the
"Aquero" asked that a RC church be built, when the
seer finally asked her name "Aquero" identified
herself as "the Immaculate Conception", the spring
was discovered at the promptings of "Aquero". Whatever the unanswered questions about the Lourdes phenomenon, it remains as Roman Catholic
as the Vatican.

When I read about the subject in the 1970s I read books exclusively devoted to the Lourdes phenomenon(ie not Marian devotional overviews
such as the text you mention). All of the
sources, including the literature/books I read
at Lourdes itself said that the children were
out gathering firewood. Since this was in the month of February and since her poor family lived
in a drafty dungeon-like abode (still preserved and open to the public when I was last there), it
would be surprising if she wasn'tlooking for firewood. The claim that it was "bones" she was looking for is a new one on me....

[ September 28, 2002: Message edited by: leonarde ]</p>

leonarde

Curious on the Lourdes question I obtained "Saint
Bernadette; The Child and the Nun" from a local
libray. (Author: Margarte Trouncer. Sheed and Ward
New York, 1958.)

Summary of her account (pages 36 to 39) of the
first apparition. Bernadette went to the
woods with her sister Toinette and her sister's
friend, Jeanne, to gather firewood. From the
other side of the stream Jeanne thought she saw
a bone in the grotto. This prompted the girls to
cross, one by one, the millstream. Bernadette was
last. Just then the Angelus rang out (the Angelus
is a daily invitation via church bells to pray
one or more prayers): the 12 O'clock ringing from
the town of Lourdes (which was tiny in 1858). [Note: this account doesn't say anything specific
about her actually PRAYING the Angelus but another
book I obtained today----"The Miracle of Bernadette" by Margaret Gray Blanton (Prentice-Hall, Inc, Englewood Clifts NJ 1958) is
quite explicit on this point (page 53)quoting Jeanne at the time as saying that Bernadette wasn't much good for anything else BUT praying.]
Then Bernadette heard what sounded like a heavy
wind but without attendant rustling of the trees
(it was the poplars along the river which provided
easy firewood). Then she (and only she, not the other two girls)saw the Lady whom she called "Aquero". (This was on February 11th, 1858. Bernadette was 14 years old.)Stunned by her vision, Bernadette didn't know what to do or say
so she began praying. She used her rosary. Aquero also had a rosary. She (Aquero) fingered the beads
in unison with Bernadette. Only when Bernadette got to "Gloria Patri" did Aquero move her lips to
the prayer.
This is all from chapter 3 of Trouncer's book,
a chapter called "Bernadette Goes Gathering Firewood".....

Cheers!

leonarde

Posted by Voskosgian: That's funny: all the books that I read years ago
have the parish priest himself remarking
that Bernadette was ignorant of both the term Immaculate Conception AND the concept.
Furthermore my experience of being a Catholic for
over 45 years informs me that the "Immaculate Conception" is the most regularly misunderstood
concept by RCs themselves: most frequently
they get it mixed up with the Virgin Birth. Since
she was a century before my time I'll have to rely
on the parish priest's evaluation of her knowledge
of the faith. As important as the Immaculate Conception became in Mariology, it is hardly at the core of Christianity OR R Catholicism. That core is typically what is taught to a child in the
first few years of religious instruction.
I don't agree that a "French peasant" of 1858 would likely know what the Immaculate Conception was: devotion to Mary existed throughout the Middle Ages without any such dogma.

Cheers!

Vorkosigan

Posted by Voskosgian:
That's funny: all the books that I read years ago
have the parish priest himself remarking
that Bernadette was ignorant of both the term Immaculate Conception AND the concept.

Well, since accounts written at the time say she mentioned the medal, whatever embellishments she made later are meaningless.

Sinceshe was a century before my time I'll have to relyon the parish priest's evaluation of her knowledge of the faith.

As for me, I'll go with the written account at the time. Zimdars-Schwartz writes:

• in her own account of what transpired then, Nernadette said that she asked aquero several times to have the kindness to say who she was. Aquero at first only smiled, but then she opened her hands "in the manner of the Miraculous Medal."

p. 55

As you can see, Bernadette was quite aware of the Immaculate Conception; she cited it in her March 25 description of events.

important as the Immaculate Conception became in Mariology, it is hardly at the core of Christianity OR R Catholicism. That core is typically what is taught to a child in the
first few years of religious instruction.
I don't agree that a "French peasant" of 1858 would likely know what the Immaculate Conception was: devotion to Mary existed throughout the Middle Ages without any such dogma.

It's nice that you don't agree, but sociological history by Thomas Kselman has already shown your belief to be incorrect. The IC -- and it matters not whether the peasants understood it, so long as they had some dim idea -- was widely popular among the peasantry, since the late Middle Ages, in fact, and certainly among French peasantry for the quarter-century leading up to the visions at Lourdes. "..by 1854 this was already a very popular doctrine, supported and advanced by many prophecies, apparitions, cures, devotional cults, and pious tracts." See Kselman Miracles and Prophecies in Nineteenth Century France.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

Leo, the earliest account, prepared ten days after Berna's vision by the local police commissioner, does not run this way. What you have is a mishmash of truth and legendary embellishment. In the earliest account, Berna is gathering bones by the river. There is no prayer, the rustling is on her side of the river, Berna never crosses the river, there's no bell at Angelus, and after seeing the rustling and the white shape in the trees, she then sets about gathering wood.

Also, it's a good idea to cite academics rather than popular authors. As Zimdar's-Schwartz notes, "almost all the extant materials pertaining to her early life and the life of her family, however, represent a selection which has probably been governed more by hagiographic than by strictly historical interests." By March, even the local newspapers were saying that there were a thousand variations on each story, including that of several locals who averred that poor Bernadette suffered from seizures. Naturally, these stories dropped out of the hagiographic tradition....