Did you know in one of her apparitions, Mary gave three secrets and nobody alive today knows what they are? The secrets of Fatima have attracted a lot of attention but Mary gave a
few secrets to another visionary, Bernadette Soubirous.
For the month of May I have been reading Bernadette Speaks by René Laurentin. One
of the most interesting things I have discovered is that Our Lady of Lourdes conveyed
three secrets in the apparitions and concluded with “I forbid you to tell this to anyone.” And Bernadette never told anyone. She swore she wouldn’t even tell the Pope or her confessor. Only two comments (on separate occasions) revealed anything of what these secrets contain.
“I know one of the secrets, you’re going to be a nun?”
“No they’re much more important than that.”
“Are they about France, the Church or the Pope?”
“No, they’re for me alone!”
Most of the time when she was asked about the contents she would look away, or instruct the person “Go away!” One could fancy that Mary told her not to accept money or that she was told about the suffering she would endure, but this would be pure speculation. Mary asked her not to
tell and she was faithful.
One thing we do know Mary told her is that she “would not be happy in this world but in the next.” I think this is the greatest secret for each of us – we cannot be completely happy in this world but in the next. This world is caught in the ebb and flow, but in the next we rest in God.
It is not surprising that she became a nun – religious are a testimony of that happiness in the world to come. Even before she was a nun, many people came to believe the apparitions not from the testimonies of witnesses but by the witness of life that Bernadette lived, even saying “she herself is an apparition.”
Mary has other secrets for each of us, secrets of holiness, secrets of love, and secrets of happiness. We just need to be attentive to hear her soft voice in our ears.
As priests and religious, our lives are a witness to the life we will all have in heaven. Some things we do in the Legion might seem odd or difficult – physical separation from the family, giving up
marriage, hours of prayer – but this is to live a life of closer spiritual union with everyone. This is the life we can all await in heaven.
Thank you!
Thank you Father. Last week by chance at the university where I study I picked the same book and I read it for more than an hour. I read until the part where St. Marie Bernadette Soubirous says something to her friend in the cloister where she were that she heard the priest preach about sin. And she says something like this ‘I do want to sin and I do not sin’ and suddenly I wrote this line in my yellow notebook that I too do not want to sin. Since then thanks to be God my soul is in much better place than it was. It is a relief. Thanks God thru Mother Mary and Mary thru St.Brenadette.
Thank for sharing this beautiful article. God bless you !