Humility and Poverty allow Him to Reign

A powerful day in which we experienced the fecundity of humilty and poverty of heart began first thing in the morning with the celebration of Holy Mass. At Mass, Fr. Adam delivered a powerful homily centered around the three-fold cry of Joshua to the Isealites about to enter the Promised Land: are we really ready to enter? Are we truly willing to embrace the responsibilty that the gift of Love calls forth from us? Are we willing to embrace the sweet yoke of Love?

 

Next we continued along our path of the day by following the "path" of Bernadette, embarking on her "Footsteps." This began with our visit to her museum, which featured photos and different articles from her life and the town. We continued on to the Boly Mill where Bernadette spent the first ten happy years of her life. Finally, we ended at the "cachot" or old prison cell rented out to her family - a single room unfit even for real prisoners, in which the six-member family lived after the family came upon hard times. This is where Bernadette was living when the apparitions began. We see from this that the Lord chooses the humble and poor of heart to carry out his work. Even when people began to offer gifts and money because of the apparitions, the poor family refused to take them, knowing they did not belong to them. This humble and poor family gives us a beautiful witness of the power of humility and poverty. 

In the evening, we gathered in the convent chapel in which we are staying to hear a beautiful talk of Sr. Silvia on the virtue of humilty. She led us to deepen our understanding of authentic humilty, of how the Lord is only able to work and bear fruit in a humble heart. She led us through an examination of humilty,  and how to attain it through a better "seeing" of ourselves, of our relationship to God and our relationship to others.

Finally, we ended the night with a very powerful time of adoration, in which the Lord called us to praise Him, as in heaven. To humbly bow before our God. Only in this way would we truly be able to open our hearts to receive Him. He called us individually to fully surrender ourselves, without reserve, to his plan for our lives, to his love and his will. It was a powerful night of true praise and adoration of our Lord and God. Praise and glory to Him forever.