I’ve just watched “The Song of Bernadette [1943], Based on the novel by Franz Werfel, Directed by Henry King. With Jennifer Jones, Charles Bickford, William Eythe, Vincent Price. In 1858 France”. I do own the DVD and so many times over I have seen this movie and every time I find it fascinating and feel emotionally invaded each as a new experience of peace, faith, hope and love.
The true story of our Lady of Lourdes and Bernadette (Saint Marie-Bernarde Soubirous), the poor girl to whom Our Lady presented herself in Massabielle and which became a true story of humility and healing and which this movie depicts with much reality as well as the conflicts of every time, between faith and politics if not science and reason, conflicts which are made out of pure human experience from that reality of actually having to accept that God is real and that Virgin Mary is too and that a miracle actually occur at every time in our experience although we tend only to notice them when reality seems to be so out of touch with the truth.
For those who believe in God, no explanation is necessary.
For those who do not believe in God, no explanation is possible.
Considering that it was February 11th, 1858 when Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception appeared first to Bernadette and which was then 69 years after the French Revolution, that tragic and disastrous moment in world history that collectivist experiment that produced so much injustice and human suffering, especially if in retrospective today, we look back 69 years and find ourselves under that other very tragic moment in world history which is the middle of World War II; we can reflect on the time and space under which these events were taking place.
In our days when we are witnessing a world still in constant conflict, where God is being thrown into some closet in shyness trying not to be shown in any openness, as well as our religiosity, and at the same time we look at the disintegration of the family as the institution God gave us as the foundation of society, and marriage mocked as any type of relationship anyone can feel comfortable calling that, between same sexes or what might be presented to the occasion, and even life dismissed as an element of convenience where children are massacred by women and doctors claiming to have changed the meaning of good towards the self or what is convenient to the self; it is refreshing once in a while to go back just a bit in time and watch these depictions of the real world. Yes, there was anxiety and there was poverty and there was misery, but there was love, and I am talking not about 1858 but 1943 when the movie was made, because in those days the world was fighting a very crucial war and the good side was clearly ours and here, the poorest family can teach us all how to go back to reality and experience what love is really in the family or is it perhaps from the family. Children were not a matter of concern other than to love them and care for them and the needs were many, much more than what we can actually visualize today in our world of plenty, but love was there and is what prevailed over every aspect of life.
As the action moves the miracles start to show and if the first clear manifestation was a blind man that could see, the very dramatic evidence was of a mother that dare to take her son from the hands of death bringing him to be fully healed in the pond just start flowing its miracle water. Faith prevailed over reason because faith, on 1858 or on 1943 was very much in supply, in the former because of a time when humans had to deal with the reality of their own condition and in the later, much closer to today, because humanity needed to check on reality in a world apparently gone mad.
Today in 2011, we can see how our world has changed, really?
Materially, there are many good things we can use to minimize the requirements of the times in 1858, like not having to go out to fetch wood for the fire or food or just a bit of work to make it through the day, but our reality cannot say too much about human interaction. Our humanity has been put to test, because the lack of acceptance of God as our creator has decided that everyone must behave in such a manner as not to expose to anyone else the type of creatures we are, human beings created to the Image and Likeness of God and there for with dignity, individuality, identity and freedom.
In our days where collectivism makes us forget how human we are as well as our individuality on behalf of individualism, a pest that imposes selfishness upon transforming us into beggars of entitlements when not just the power that money will give, reducing us to mere pawns of some elites dictating how much true love has changed on behalf of just sexual interaction.
Our identity has been transformed into groups of numbers removing our character on behalf of what the numbers can carry as our worth in society, numbers that transform honour and honesty former distinctions of a credit worth person, into just mere numbers reflecting power and ability to pay and not necessarily produce anything good for society.
We can hardly expect to live again in 1943 or in 1858 as those time are gone and they do have their place in history, but what we can expect is to turn our sight towards restoring our humanity and the faith in God that use to define our impulse to live, grow and multiply as well as prosper.
One very important point brought up in the movie is about human suffering as a requirement for holiness and the point is of being able to deal with suffering as opposed to make other suffer. Humans must have the courage and resolve to deal with suffering. It is badly address as socialist a society that pretends to aim reducing human suffering while human individuality is reduced to nothing and is expected to be surrendered to some elites momentarily in control.
Us humans are social creatures and have been created as such, but we too are free by virtue of the gifts from the Holy Spirit delimiting our individuality to form families from marriages between one man and one woman and have children, many of them so that our society is enriched and can be prosperous and grow into a better future.
Lourdes is a holy place thanks to the visit of Our Lady, the Immaculate Conception, in the winter of 1858 and still today is healing people of good faith. Let’s preserve the message of faith that Virgin Mary brought us so that our children can actually survive the hecatomb of the current times when the world has gone mad once again in rampage to destroy life, the individual, families and the sanctity of marriage.
Let’s transform this world into a world of peace from the word as Jesus taught us; love, true, humility and forgiveness with faith, hope and charity. Peace is not the absence of war but the prevalence of truth.
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