Saint Blaise Saint Scholastica Our Lady of Lourdes In the year 1858 in France, a beautiful young woman dressed in white appeared to a fourteenyear-old girl named Bernadette Soubirous. The lady asked her to pray for sinners. Bernadette was poor and uneducated. Many people thought she was imagining or even lying about the lady. She was questioned by authorities, from priests to police officers, but Bernadette’s account of what she heard and saw never wavered. Oneday the lady toldBernadette to “drink from the spring.” Bernadette dug in the grotto, or cave, where the lady had been appearing. She cupped her hands and drank the muddy water she found there. Many mocked her for this strange behavior, but later water began to pool where she haddug. By the end of the week, clear water was flowing freely from an underground spring. Soon people began claiming that they had been healed by the water. Many times Bernadette asked the lady who she was. Finally, the lady replied, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” Bernadette had never heard such a thing before and did not understand what the lady meant. When she repeated those words to the parish priest, he understood that the visions were genuine, and that the beautiful lady wasMary, theMother of God. The grotto became a place of pilgrimage, and the spring water has continued to flow. Each year millions of people visit Lourdes topray. Contact with the water, along with heartfelt faith, has brought about many physical healings, andmany more spiritual ones. Blaise was a bishop in Armenia during the fourth century, at a timewhenChristianswerefiercely persecuted. He was known to be a skilled physician as well as a holyman. To hide from the hostile authorities, Blaise lived in a cave. Hebefriendedwildanimals, often heal ing them of wounds and ailments. Because of this, he is considered the patron of animals. One day soldiers wandered into Blaise’s cave, searching for animals to capture for sport in the governor ’s amphi theater. They found Blaise—surrounded by bears and wolves and foxes— completely unharmed by the beasts and unwilling to let thembe captured. The soldiers took Blaise instead. While in prison awaiting execution, Blaise was visited by a woman whose young son was near death after choking on a fish bone. Blaise healed the boy, and the miracle is remembered on this day as priests bless the throats of the faithful, holding two candles, reminiscent of the candles carried by the grievingmother to the saint’s dark prison cell. Near the end of her life, when her twin brother was visiting for their yearly reunion, Scholastica sensed that this might be one of their last chances to speak together. As Benedict was about to return to his monastery, Scholastica prayed for God to delay him so they could spend more time together, and a wild storm broke out! Unable to leave, Benedict realized that God wanted him to stay a while longer, and the twins spent the rest of the night continuing their discussion. February 3 February 10 Born in the year 480, Saint Scholastica was the twin sister of Saint Benedict. Just as he founded the Benedictine monks, she founded theBenedictinenuns. Once every year the two would meet to pray and to talk about all sorts of subjects. February 11 20
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