(July 16th is the anniversary of the last of the 18 reported apparitions at Lourdes, one in which Our Lady did not say anything but, according to Saint Bernadette, she ‘looked more beautiful than ever’. Here is a story from new contributor Liz Centi of one of the innumerable small (and large) miracles of Lourdes to ponder on this poignant memorial) Editor
My father was a man of unwavering faith.
That is how I would describe him.
Throughout my life, I often witnessed my father turn to the Blessed Mother in prayer. It was not something he did only in moments of fear or uncertainty—it was a relationship that seemed to accompany him through every season of his life. Even in his youth.
When I was struggling myself, he would tell me, “Pray to her. She always answers me.”
To my father, Mary was more than a religious icon. She was his comfort, his protector, and the one he trusted to carry his prayers when he needed help beyond his own endurance. He had a deep relationship with her. One that I never quite understood.
Until recently.
Years after my father passed away, I began reading the many letters he wrote home during World War II. As I turned each fragile page, I felt as though I was discovering a young man I had never known—the young soldier who grew into the father that I remembered.
Through those letters, I saw his humor, his courage, his homesickness, and his longing for the people he loved. I saw a son writing to his parents, a soldier trying to reassure his family, and a young man experiencing a world filled with newness and uncertainty.
In those pages, I also discovered a chapter of his life I had only known about in pieces.
While stationed in France during World War II, my father -for an unknown reason- spent time in a hospital. During that time, his French fiancée, Jacqueline, wrote that she and her family traveled to Lourdes to pray for him. She told him they prayed for his healing and even carved his name somewhere at the Grotto.
Their story did not become the lifelong love story I might have imagined as I read his letters. Life took them in different directions, and of course, he wound up marrying my mother. But what stayed with me was the love and faith behind that moment—a young woman in wartime France bringing the name of a 22 year old American soldier she cared for to a place of prayer.
Someone was praying for my father before I ever knew him.
After reading this, I was able to make a connection to another piece of that story that came back to me in the most unexpected way.
Just a year ago, my aunt, my father’s sister, sent me a surprise package. Inside was a small chalkware figurine of a grotto showing the Blessed Mother appearing to Bernadette at Lourdes.
I was stunned.
I learned that these little Lourdes grotto statues had been mass-produced during World War II and sold to the servicemen and visitors overseas. Somehow, this small reminder of faith had traveled through my father’s hands during the war and eventually found its way home to his mother.
80 years or so later, it found its way to me.
My aunt knew how sentimental I was and how much it would mean to me—not just as a family keepsake, but as another piece of my father’s story. Here was something tangible that connected his wartime experience, his devotion, and the prayers that surrounded him during those difficult years.
His devotion to the Blessed Mother was beginning to make sense.
But the story was not finished.
After reading my father’s letters and knowing that I had become the owner of the figurine, I found myself wanting to learn more about Lourdes—the place that had quietly been part of his story for so long. I began researching its history and discovering more about the connection my father had to this sacred place.
Then I discovered something that stopped me.
The Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes is celebrated on February 11—the day my father passed away.
Of all the dates on the calendar, it was February 11.
I sat there in disbelief.
Some may call it coincidence. Others may see something more. But for me, it felt like one more thread in a story that had been unfolding long before I knew to look for it.
My father spent his life telling me, “Pray to her. She always answers me.”
Maybe this was his final reminder.
Maybe it was a gentle reassurance that the faith he carried through war, the prayers whispered for him in Lourdes, and the devotion he passed down to me were all connected in ways I could never fully understand.
The young soldier who was once prayed for in Lourdes came home. He built a life. He became a husband, a father, and eventually the man who taught me about faith.
The little grotto that traveled across an ocean during a world at war survived decades and found its way back into my hands.
And on the day he left this earth, my father was forever connected to the place where he had once been lifted up in prayer.
I may never fully understand the mystery of it.
But I know this:
My father spent his life believing the Blessed Mother was listening.
And now, through his letters, his keepsake, and the unexpected discovery of that special date, I feel as though she was reassuring me that she had been listening all along.
