Mary, Take Over! an anointed, inspirational account of how the Blessed Mother -- as  Undoer of Knots -- should be handed our daily trials large and small as we watch her work wonders with them -- turning obstacles into miracles! This booklet is by the same group that brings us 'Mary Undoer of Knots' and though small brims with powerful examples of how the Virgin Mary can enter any situation -- can help you against any 'Goliath' -- and make things  better than ever. click here 

 __________________________________________________

WORLD'S FOREMOST MARIOLOGIST AND AUTHOR OF DEFINITIVE WORK ON SAINT BERNADETTE SAID IN CURRENT CLIMATE LOURDES 'WOULD NOT BE RECOGNIZED'

The world's foremost Mariologist and author of what is considered to be the definitive dissertation on Lourdes, Father René Laurentin, of France, has stated that in the current climate, the famous apparitions to Saint Bernadette would have been rejected by the formal Church.

Father Laurentin, a consultant to John  Paul II, as well as the Vatican II Council, on matters of the Blessed Mother, and winner of the Marian Award from the University of Dayton, as well as a religious contributor to a major Paris newspaper, Le Figaro, said:

"I have shocked people every once in a while in these recent years by saying if Lourdes were to take place in our own day the apparitions would not be recognized. There would be enormous objections raised in the confused period which followed the apparitions.

"When apparitions ceased April 11, 1858, an epidemic of visionaries broke out; there were nearly fifty of them. The outbreak made a strong impression on the local pastor who had been so severe with Bernadette and won the enthusiasm of Jean-Baptiste Estrade, an intelligent man and future historian of Lourdes.

"A few visionary types and questionable people, drawn by the prestige of the apparitions, showed up at the grotto of Lourdes. They seemed to pick up where Bernadette left off.

"In our own day, Bernadette's exemplary witness would probably be reduced, by the use of a few catch words, to another instance of the same epidemic: this is a teenager, one whose adolescence has been retarded or in whom a combination of factors makes anything possible when it comes to visions, etcetera. A ready-made psychoanalytic grid would be applied in a superficial imagination. Thus, there was a rupture between theological reason, which was sometimes cold-blooded, and signs, which are essential not only to popular religion but also to biblical revelation and to religion itself. The result was a certain lack of balance and excessive mistrust of signs from Heaven."

Father Lauentin, now 97, author of more than fifty Catholic books and booklets, called our time a "hypercritical era" whose "illusions may already be out of date."

"The difficulty is aggravated by a deficient methodology governing the judgment concerning miracles," wrote the famous theologian. "In principle it is required that the miracle in question be a prodigy completely inexplicable by science. This is not in keeping with God's way of acting or with the tradition of the Church."

"Whether they were authentic or not, doubt and denial prevailed in every case [of reputed apparitions], whether it was good or bad. Real discernment such as that made by Bishop Laurence at Lourdes, in a manner exemplary for his day, does not seem possible any longer," said the renowned theologian.

"Some commission composed of people dominated by radical presuppositions [these presuppositions are derived from the historical-critical method or psychoanalysis, or people imbued with rationalistic or idealistic philosophies -- outlooks which are found more often among our Catholic intelligentsia than at first appears] could never arrive at a positive judgment concerning these apparitions."

Mary Undoer of Knots plus The Holy Cloak novena, $7.25

Michael Brown's books on Kindle or Nook

Return to home page www.spiritdaily.com