Lourdes 2025 (5/5) Discover Marie through her prayer

“It’s not long since Marie returns to my prayer. I turned to her because my faith became sterile. I would like to put myself at his school. ” Without a false modesty, Anne, energetic at the Montpellier septuagenaire, reveals the reasons for her passage to the chapel of the miraculous medal on the rue du Bac, in the heart of the 7th arrondissement of Paris: “I come to pray Mary so that she helps me find meaning in my faith.”

Like Anne, they are hundreds of them to cross the elegant carriage door every day of this street of one of the most chic districts in the capital, to reach the chapel where the Virgin appeared in Catherine Labouré in 1830. Ages and nationalities mix to pray, recite the rosary and join one of the many masses celebrated daily.

Among the pilgrims is Andres, a Filipino tourist who came to Paris with a group of friends. No question for him to leave without going through the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower and … the rue du Bac. Fearing that he is suspected of “mariolatry” – to make an excessive cult to the Virgin – he wants to explain why this visit is essential in his eyes. “When we address Mary, it is to entrust her with our prayer to Jesus Christ. She is not a divinity that we would come to invoke, ”he insists.

She accompanies our prayers

The text of the I greets you Marie shows it well: unlike our father, where the believer formulates very concrete requests, this prayer of praise has only one supplication: “Pray for us poor sinners.” It is therefore not a question of imploring a providential action that Mary would accomplish herself, but of joining her own prayer. The Vatican Council II (1962-1965) also affirms this role of the Mother of Christ in the Constitution Lumen Gentium : “By its multiple intercession, (Mary) continues to get us the gifts that ensure our eternal salvation.”

“By praying to Marie, we testify to our confidence in her help, and recognize that she is powerful with her son,” explains Father Guillaume de Menthière, author of several works on Marian spirituality. And as a biblical source of this confidence, he quotes the wedding of Cana, during which Mary obtained from Jesus that he changes water into wine.

It is, continues this priest of the diocese of Paris, the meaning of the famous Marian prayer attributed to Saint Bernard de Clairvaux: “We have never heard that none of those who have recourse to your protection, implored your assistance or claimed your help, has been abandoned.”

… and purifies them

The appearances of Lourdes in Bernadette Soubirous are perhaps one of the best illustrations of this action of the Virgin. When she asks the girl to say the rosary, Marie he he he he he hew withstands the grains under her fingers. Would the Virgin pray herself? Bernadette provides us with the answer: Marie, who has remained silent throughout the rosary, only joined her word to her own to pronounce the glory to the father, formulated at the end of each ten rosary. She therefore does not recite her own praise, but accompanies the prayer addressed to God and his son.

But why ask Marie her intercession? “You never know if our prayers are truly legitimate. As Saint Thérèse de Lisieux said, we go through the Virgin Mary so that she purifies them before presenting them to God: as a mother, she knows very well what we need, “lights up the father of Menthière.

Accustomed to rue du Bac, Bernadette attests: “Marie acts for our good with her son,” she says smiling behind her round glasses. Here, I can be in communion with her, entrust her with my difficulties … and give thanks when these are resolved! ”