My point was that I was being facetious in the use of the word "plain". If you think about it, holy water should be just as efficacious (please pardon my spelling; I can't easily spell check my posts; have to copy the word into my mail program), if not moreso, than water from any shrine. Forgive me also, but a lot of people would view the use of Lourdes water as superstition. One man's superstition is another man's sacramental.
I don't find Lourdes superstitious. Jesus sent the man to wash in the Pool of Siloam and in the OT the lepers went to the river Jordan, bathed and were healed per the instructions of a prophet (it's there somewhere but I don't want to take the time to find the exact quote).
The water from the Grotto at Lourdes itself is "plain". It is the Faith and Trust in God from our hearts that elicits miracles from God (through Mary). The whole event of Lourdes, including the water, is the external catalyst drawing us in our interior life through which we approach God for healing associated with the extraordinary favors He chose St. Bernadette and Lourdes for.
I've never understood why people can't receive healings through attendance at mass and prayer and the ministry of duly appointed living representatives like they did in the early church. Why must one go through other channels or invoke saints (I know they aren't dead but they are not inhabiting this earthly realm like the apostles did when they healed) to receive a healing?
Ad Iesus per Mariam. Here He confirms Mary as the Immaculate Conception. But I would think the central message of Lourdes from Mary to St. Bernadette was "...penance, penance, penance..." of which St. Bernadette fulfilled through the rest of her life.
I never really understood all this penance. I don't have a problem with it, but there is a distinction between penance and repentence. Repentence is turning away from sin. Penance is a small or large act aimed at making amends for sins committed. The protestant bibles translate the concept as repentence, whereas the catholic bibles use the word "penance". Some forms of penance appear obsessive-compulsive to me. Some do not.
Even in the Gospels Christ did not always heal everyone of physical infirmities where Faith was lacking, and those that He did, the people eventually grew old and died.
Yes, people eventually did die. Healing for the living gave their lives more quality before they had to die and enabled them to take care of themselves and their families rather than be a burden and live in shame and degradation having to beg (today living on SSI). The only people I know of in the bible who were not healed while Jesus was alive were those who had no faith (except the Centurian's daughter who probably had no faith of her own who was healed through the intercession of a living person). Maybe that's what you meant and I didn't read you exactly right. True, after the resurrection, some were not healed. Some of those who were not healed were sick and died because they received communion unworthily. I can't help wondering if that is true today because the people who are sick and dying in the catholic faith don't impress me as receiving communion unworthily whereas others who receive sacrilegious (sp?) communions are still robust years later, so it would appear anyway.
don't get caught up on external and quantitative comparisons concerning how many miracles, and to what people, they are given.
I can't help it. Too many who are sick, desire to be healed, deserve to be healed, and are not. People pray, pray and pray for them and nothing happens. It gets discouraging. I know people who have been infirm for so long they wouldn't know what to do if they got better. There are plenty of bad people who are not sickly all their lives.
It's a matter of trying to make sense of things that don't make sense any more. Maybe that's where I am making my mistake in trying to make sense of anything when it comes to religion. The early church seemed to make more sense of most things.
Now I'm not sure I mean any of this but I'll go ahead and post it anyway.