Throughout my trip, I was contemplating what Lourdes meant to me. First, it came to me when I was in the grotto. I was praying silently to Our Lady and looking at all of the people who were processing through the grotto, touching the rocks, lighting candles and putting their prayer intentions in the intentions box. Suddenly, I remembered the first day in which all of the sick people were able to go into the baths. The baths where we wash ourselves and hope for a healing. Finally, it all connected, Our Lady loves us so much that she gave us this special gift in order to know and understand true love and healing through God's love. Therefore, the grotto and the baths reminded me of Love and Marriage.
Marriage is the institution of a man and a woman for life. It is the sacrament in which the man and the woman are showing the world what God's love is. Through this, the couple's goals are to love like Christ and get each other to Heaven. However, we are all sinners, so God has given his grace to the couple through the sacrament of marriage in the church.
The coincidence of Jacob proposing to Mary at the replica of the grotto, and me actually experiencing Lourdes is incredible. It amazes me how Our Lady planned this out for Lourdes, to be a place where you can find God's love, and how God has shown his love for the world through the sacrament of marriage.
