SaintCast #110, “I am the Immaculate Conception”
150 years ago, a 14 year old girl saw another ‘girl’ in the niche of a grotto along the River Gave. She said she was ‘the Immaculate Conception.’ Today Paul takes you there to experience the ’sights’ and sounds of the sanctuary at Lourdes. Come experience a visit to the Grotto at Massabielle, visit the tiny Cachot where she lived in a one room former prison with her family, and hear the candlelight procession of thousands. There’s still time to respond with the answer to the question of which relics are in your church’s altar. . and win some SaintCast swag.
- Catholic Family Podcast
- Catholic New Media Roundup’s Advent Calendar
- Song of Bernadette
- Print your SaintCast flyers for posting here
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PC:
On your question about relics in altar stones, I can tell you that the mensa from my old home church, St. Therese in Aurora, Colo., had a first-class relic of St. Therese, a strand of hair. The other relic was a piece of cloth, a third-class relic from St. Stephen (that’s the martyr for the stone).
This was told to me when i was a kid by my late pastor, Fr. Jim Hamblin. Fr. Jim’s previous work was as a journalist, believe it or not. He was a writer for, of all things, Our Little Messenger, the Catholic version of the Weekly Reader. “Father Jim’s Letter” was a way of explaining all kinds of things Catholic, from the reason for the way we say Mass, various Holy Days and feast days, and, of course, the Saints.
Father Jim was pretty cool. Imagine Jackie Gleason as a priest. You’d have Fr. Jim. My best recollection of him was one summer, I think it was in between my freshman and sophomore years in high school, when I was serving Mass for him (Public school kids had to work summers if they wanted to be servers, so I did my two-week stint for him at 7:45 Mass.).
He was vesting for Mass, I was re-entering the sacristy from lighting the candles on the Altar. A chain smoker, Fr. Jim would be known for just coming out with stuff at the whackiest moments. He stood there, cigarette (Winston Longs) in one hand and a glass of water (which looked liked he’d have been comfortable with Scotch in that glass) in the other.
He says: “Dreiling, you gotta entertain ‘em out there. You know, a man comes in here on Sunday, his wife isn’t making good loving with him, his kids don’t listen to him any more, he hates going into work every day. He’s got bills to pay and he sticks with it.
“Remember, we’ve got one hour, just one hour each week, to keep that guy from going nuts and killing either himself or his family or his boss. We’ve got just one hour each week to give that guy some hope, to make him believe in something bigger than himself, to realize it’s not hopeless and to send him out of here with the faith that everything is going to work out and to give him a song in his heart.
“That’s why it’s important for me to do a good homily, for you to make the liturgy to look great, for the lectors to sound great, for the music to be great. So, let’s give him a good show out there.”
That’s been 35 years ago. That conversation just sticks with me. As I’ve gotten older, I realize how right he was. Since I still lector about once a month, I still work on making sure I give the folks out there in that congregation something they can use and feel good about.
Anyway, that’s my Father Jim story.
Have enjoyed the Grail segments, especially the Python elements. I was reading somewhere that Eric Idle is going to build a giant new Python Website with high-end product because of all the viral video stuff that’s out there already and some of it’s of mixed quality.
Can’t wait to hear about Lourdes.
Cheers:
LD
@Larry–cool story thanks!! Can I copy that and send it to our Prayer and Worship committee?
Our altar has a relic of St. Felix, although I don’t know which one. I believe there are more than one. The cool thing about this is that my Grandfather’s name is Felix and he lived right across from the school and church and was a custodian there before he died. I learned about the relic when I was looking through one of the books our parish put out many years ago celebrating and anniversary of the parish. My folks have that book and I will try to remember to ask to see the book again when I next visit them. I’m lookiing forward to hearing about more relics.
This was a beautiful and moving podcast. You conveyed the sights and sounds of Lourdes in a wonderful way. I was near tears several times. The intercuts of the movie Song of Bernadette were perfect. Superb job as always, Dr. Camarata.