Prayer

Be blessed, O most pure Virgin, for having vouchsafed to manifest your shining with life, sweetness and beauty, in the Grotto of Lourdes, saying to the child, St. Bernadette: "I am the Immaculate Conception." A thousand times we congratulate you upon your Immaculate Conception. And now, O ever Immaculate Virgin, Mother of mercy, Health of the sick, Refuge of sinners, Comforter of the afflicted, you know our wants, our troubles, our sufferings deign to cast upon us a look of mercy.

By appearing in the Grotto of Lourdes, you were pleased to make it a privileged sanctuary, whence you dispense your favors, and already many have obtained the cure of their infirmities, both spiritual and physical. We come, therefore, with the most unbounded confidence to implore your maternal intercession. Obtain for us, O loving Mother, the granting of our request.

( request )

Through gratitude for your favors, we will endeavor to imitate your virtues, that we may one day share your glory. Our Lady of Lourdes, Mother of Christ, you had influence with your divine son while upon earth. You have the same influence now in Heaven. Pray for us; obtain for us from your Divine Son our special requests if it be the Divine Will. Amen.

Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us.
Saint Bernadette, pray for us.

DAY EIGHT

O Immaculate Mother of God, from heaven itself you came to appear to the little Bernadette in the rough Grotto of Lourdes! And as Bernadette knelt at your feet and the miraculous spring burst forth and as multitudes have knelt ever since before your shrine, O Mother of God, we kneel before you today to ask that in your mercy you plead with your Divine Son to grant the special favor we seek in this novena.

(make your request)

O Brilliant star of purity, Mary Immaculate, Our Lady of Lourdes, glorious in your assumption, triumphant in your coronation, show unto us the mercy of the Mother of God, Virgin Mary, Queen and Mother, be our comfort, hope, strength, and consolation. Amen.

Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us.
Saint Bernadette, pray for us.

And after these things he went forth, and saw a publican named Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom, and he said to him: Follow me. And leaving all things, he rose up and followed him. And Levi made him a great feast in his own house; and there was a great company of publicans, and of others, that were at table with them. But the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying to his disciples: Why do you eat and drink with publicans and sinners? And Jesus answering, said to them: They that are whole, need not the physician: but they that are sick. I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance.
Luke 5:27-32 (Douay-Rheims Bible)

Prayer Reflection

Dear Father why is it so hard for those who live faith filled lives to comprehend your coming to those who sin. Or for that matter eating and drinking with them. Then I think about this and come to understand that when we live in your Will and follow your ways, you are pleased and the graces you give we often don't recognize because we have become so accustomed to you that we don't see your hand. Yet on the other side of this, the sinners seek deliverance and repentance. But Jesus will go in search of those who need that push to repent, the love to guide them back to you. They are the one's in need because those who often follow you forget them and shun them. They often forget to reach out to the lowly, maybe out of their fear of being soiled but your Son dear Father went after them to bring them home to you, so they could be saved as well as those who have lived faith filled lives. The clue was in Jesus answer, he came not to call the just, but the sinners to penance. Why do we in that regard look at the sinners as if they don't belong to the same family of God. But since those who are already following Jesus, how can he come to us and say, follow me, unless he is calling us to a vocation. Then we also must realize that he calls sinners to truly come and follow him to change their life and come back to God.