Loving Mary

Our day began with a beautiful hike out of the city, away from the crowds, and into the mountains to visit the place where Bernadette lived for a period of her life. It was a wonderful moment of family in the midst of God's creation. When we got to the house and barn where she lived, we said a prayer to Bernadette, asking her to us accept, at all moments, the Lord's will for our lives, like her and the Blessed Mother.

Upon our return, in the afternoon, we celebrated Holy Mass for the last time in our dear St. Gabriel Chapel. In the Mass gave another beautiful homily about the necessity  of humility before God, about how we must, in love, bow before Him in order to receive all the graces that He desires to pour upon us. This is precisely the faith of the Canaanite woman that brought healing to her daughter.

The afternoon was a time of free time, in which we took the opportunity to pray, visit the grotto, go in the baths again, complete our shopping, and walk around the shrine and city. It was a time to recollect and allow the graces of the past five days to sink deeper into our hearts.

After dinner, we had another wonderful talk, given by Fr. Adam, about consecration to the Blessed Mother, in which he shared with us how his own beautiful devotion and consecration came about, and how his own priestly vocation came at the moment of his consecration to the Blessed Mother.  As well, he gave a wonderful summary of the life of St.Louis de Montfort and his treatise on True Devotion to Mary. Thanks be to his clear and powerful reflection on the beauty and importance of love and devotion to Mary, our hearts were left more disposed and prepared to make our lifelong consecration to her tomorrow a more authentic and truthful and loving act.