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Mary Is With Us: Our Lady of Lourdes

March 20, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment

Dur­ing this dif­fi­cult time of Coro­n­avirus, I will be shar­ing excerpts from the book, Mag­ni­fi­cat: Mama Mary’s Pil­grim Sites, a col­lec­tion of 24 tes­ti­monies by peo­ple whose lives were changed by Mama Mary.  I hope that these arti­cles remind us that Mary is with us dur­ing this dif­fi­cult time. May you find solace in these per­son­al tes­ti­mo­ni­als.  ~ Cecil­ia Manguer­ra Brainard, edi­tor of Mag­ni­fi­cat.

Our Lady of Lourdes

FRANCE – The Sanc­tu­ary of Our Lady of Lourdes

In 1858 the Vir­gin Mary appeared to sick­ly 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous at a wood­ed grot­to near the Gave Riv­er. In 1872 the neo-Golth­ic Basil­i­ca of the Immac­u­late Con­cep­tion was built above the grot­to, which itself is a love­ly shrine. Since then, many more places of wor­ship were built, includ­ing the Rosary Basil­i­ca and the under­ground Basil­i­ca of St. Pius X. Not to be missed: the sanc­tu­ary’s night­ly can­dle­light pro­ces­sion led by a statute of the Vir­gin Mary car­ried by white-robed priests. Holy spring water said to have heal­ing effects flow from rows of spig­ots near the shrine and pil­grims come to bathe in its waters.

~

THE GIRL IN WHITE

Bri­an Ascalon Roley

The Lit­tle Boy

            WHEN IT became clear that my lit­tle boy could not walk unas­sist­ed, my moth­er began to sug­gest that we bring him to Lour­des for a cure.

            “I don’t know,” my wife said, when I relat­ed to her the idea. “Europe’s hilly and the streets and build­ings are old. It isn’t so easy to trav­el with a dis­abled child.”

            “My moth­er and father would help. I’d car­ry him.”

            “And you believe in that stuff?”

            I went over to the table and set my hand on the chair back. I too had heard that Lour­des was gaudy and tacky, a tourist trap, full of mer­chants sell­ing cheap plas­tic vir­gins to ill and dis­abled pil­grims, prof­it­ing off their pain. But I had also seen a giant faith heal­ing nun in the Philip­pines, dressed in shim­mer­ing elec­tric blue habit, set her hands on my comatose lola’s shoul­ders and cause a change in mon­i­tored heart beat that brought the nurs­es run­ning into the ICU room. I had felt a jolt of ener­gy, seen an elder­ly lolo dis­card his canes and walk.

             “It couldn’t hurt,” I told my wife.

            She wrapped a strand of blonde hair around her fin­ger, as she some­times did when ner­vous, then looked up and said, “But wouldn’t it make him feel like there’s some­thing wrong with him?”

The Girl in White

            One always hears about phys­i­cal­ly ill or dis­abled pil­grims seek­ing cures at Lour­des, that most famous of Mar­i­an vis­i­ta­tion sites, but I sus­pect that many are drawn by the sto­ry of Bernadette, which is par­tic­u­lar­ly inspir­ing to any­body who has been afflict­ed with the pain of self-doubt, lone­li­ness, phys­i­cal or spir­i­tu­al infir­mi­ty, or been less than appre­ci­at­ed by their boss­es or oth­er author­i­ties. And who has not at times felt alone in the com­pa­ny of their failures?

            Bernadette Soubirous could not read or write when she wan­dered far from home into woods near Lour­des, France to gath­er fire­wood for her poor fam­i­ly in chilly win­ter. She was 14, the year 1858. She end­ed up beside a hill called Mass­a­bielle rock. Accord­ing to her biog­ra­ph­er, Abbe Fran­cois Trochu, she said:

            “I heard the sound of wind, as in a storm. I looked up and saw a clus­ter of branch­es under­neath the top­most open­ing in the grot­to toss­ing and sway­ing, though noth­ing else stirred all round. With­in the open­ing, I saw a girl in white, no big­ger than myself, who greet­ed me with a slight bow of the head.”

            Bernadette knelt and prayed.

            She saw the girl in white sevem­teen more times over the fol­low­ing months, always in the cliff side grot­to embraced by batch­es of wild ros­es. The girl showed Bernadette a trick­ling spring near­by, told her to tell the local priest to build a chapel here. On the six­teenth appear­ance, the appari­tion told Bernadette, “I am the Immac­u­late Conception.”

            Nobody else saw them and church author­i­ties were skep­ti­cal. But she gath­ered crowds who wit­nessed her when in the com­pa­ny of the appari­tion, appar­ent­ly in a state of mys­ti­cal and spir­i­tu­al rap­ture not unlike those described by St. Tere­sa of Avi­la or bear­ers of the stig­ma­ta. Her con­cen­tra­tion was leg­endary; some­one even placed a pin into her shoul­der to test Bernadette and she did not move. The girl in white appar­ent­ly showed her a spring whose water was the source of mirac­u­lous cures, as report­ed by many vis­i­tors (and are still report­ed by pil­grims today.)

            After the appari­tions end­ed, Bernadette was strick­en with a sense of loss and per­haps aban­don­ment. She lived in a Lour­des hos­pice, then moved in 1866 to become a nun at the Con­vent of St. Gildard in Nev­ers, cen­tral France.

            She nev­er saw the beloved grot­to again. Her post-Lour­des life was ardu­ous, stressed by an unem­pa­thet­ic moth­er supe­ri­or (who felt that the famous nun need­ed to be kept hum­ble) and bur­dened by the expec­ta­tions of peo­ple who flocked to the con­vent to meet her. She was ill in health, bedrid­den in the con­ven­t’s infir­mary, and full of self-doubt that she had failed her God-giv­en gifts. She died in 1879 and was can­on­ized fifty-four years later.

            Despite the skep­ti­cism and even hos­til­i­ty by many church and sec­u­lar author­i­ties, the thou­sands of pil­grims nev­er stopped com­ing. And now popes come to Lour­des and peo­ple still report mir­a­cle cures today.

            Includ­ing my own Fil­ipino rel­a­tives. Thus, as my son’s med­ical diag­noses got more com­pli­cat­ed, over the years, my moth­er kept ask­ing me, “Why don’t we bring him to Lour­des? It real­ly works.” And she would then cite the exam­ple of a rela­tion or fam­i­ly friend who had made the jour­ney and report­ed heal­ing of can­cer, a kid­ney, dia­betes, dis­eases of the heart.

            I was skep­ti­cal. I did yearn to expose ancient Catholic spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, tied in my mind to Philip­pine cul­ture, to my kids who only knew sub­ur­ban church­es in Ohio. But my vision of Lour­des was taint­ed by the rep­u­ta­tion of tack­i­ness I’d heard from oth­er, more mock­ing sources. I had heard of the long lines and the gaudy shop­keep­ers sell­ing cheap plas­tic trin­kets to vul­ner­a­ble pil­grims to prof­it at oth­er people’s suffering.

            I was also mar­ried to a Protes­tant and per­haps wor­ried about giv­ing a bad impres­sion of Catholics to the moth­er of my sons.

            Our old­est child was not bap­tized until his third year. It was my wife’s idea to bap­tize and raise our sons Catholic. But when I relat­ed to her my mother’s sug­ges­tion about tak­ing Bran­don to Lour­des, Gail would grow uncom­fort­able and repeat, “But what if it doesn’t work? Wouldn’t all he takes away from the trip—for a ‘cure’—be a feel­ing of inferiority?”

            In my heart I shared her worries.

            Yet my moth­er per­sist­ed. Over the years, we would receive lit­tle plas­tic Our Lady bot­tles filled with Lour­des spring water from my uncle’s wife and oth­er rel­a­tives. My moth­er would rub it on my son’s legs at night, when­ev­er my Protes­tant wife was not in earshot, and whis­per to him that the water would “cure” him and make him “bet­ter.” She knew that we wor­ried, but she could not help doing so, because she loved him and believe it would work.

            It took years. But, in my son’s eighth year on this earth, I final­ly gave in, at the encour­age­ment of my wife, to my mother’s plan.

From Barcelona

            We flew in to Barcelona and rent­ed a car and drove six hours to the French Midi-Pyrénées. I was expect­ing the worst sort of over-crowd­ed tourist town, but the sur­round­ing coun­try­side is moun­tain­ous and beau­ti­ful. Find­ing the Hotel Mod­erne through the maze of wind­ing one-way hill­side streets was a night­mare that took an hour, and often required maneu­ver­ing through crowds of pilgrims—many in habits and priest­ly vest­ments, or slowed by wheel­chairs and walk­ers. We knew we must be close when we saw the streets lined by mar­ket stalls sell­ing plas­tic Vir­gin Mary bottles.

            But once out of the car and on foot, wan­der­ing through the crowd towards din­ner, we quick­ly felt the excite­ment of event — a sort of joy —I n the crowd. I was push­ing my son’s wheel­chair and noticed him look­ing at all the elder­ly in wheel­chairs or using walk­ers and my heart leap a lit­tle bit.

Pil­grim­age Site

            After an ear­ly din­ner my jet-lagged fam­i­ly slept, but I head­ed towards the pil­grim­age site alone. The day was end­ing, grow­ing near dark. But sun­shine still hit the hill­tops about the love­ly moun­tain val­ley, and also the beau­ti­ful church I found, the neo-Goth­ic Basil­i­ca of the Immac­u­late Con­cep­tion, built on the Mass­a­bielle rock, near the Riv­er Gave, front­ed by a gold crown and cross and semi-cir­cu­lar stone ramps that seemed to embrace—like arms—Rosary Square.

            That first night I watched the can­dle­light pro­ces­sion, from the stone ram­part atop the rock. It was indeed love­ly. The pro­ces­sion was led by monks hold­ing up a lit­ter with a stat­ue of Our Lady, fol­lowed by pil­grims in wheel­chairs pushed by vol­un­teer helpers, and then a thou­sand peo­ple hold­ing can­dles. I made a men­tal note to par­tic­i­pate tomor­row with my son in front.

            After­wards, I went down to the Grot­to. What were once woods were now open to the Riv­er Gave. You had to wait in a short line to see the Madon­na placed at the site where Bernadette had seen the Lit­tle White Girl. But in line you could reach out to the rock’s ver­ti­cal cliff-side and touch the damp sur­face. Peo­ple would tap it on their fore­heads like Holy Water and make the sign of the cross. It was a touch­ing experience.

First Morn­ing

            The first morn­ing we all went to vis­it the shrine togeth­er. My chil­dren looked around with amaze­ment at all the trav­el­ers, and with par­tic­u­lar inter­est in the many peo­ple flock­ing to the rock hill­side where spig­ots had been installed and peo­ple were fill­ing lit­tle plas­tic Vir­gin Mary bot­tles with water.

            “Is that the actu­al spring water?” my wife said with amazement.

            “I sup­pose it must be,” I said. “Oth­er­wise why would peo­ple be fill­ing it in their bottles?”

            “What’s spring water?” Bran­don asked, watch­ing from his wheelchair.

            “Water from the moun­tain. But this water is special—that’s why peo­ple are splash­ing it on their faces. The lit­tle French girl who saw Mary said that Mary point­ed to a trick­le of this water, and told her it could heal people.”

            “Is it magic?”

            “No. Not magic.”

            “Will it fix me?”

            “It’s hard to explain,” I said.

            “You don’t need fix­ing. It’s only to help us pray,” said my wife. She twirled a strand of her blond hair in her fin­ger, then clutched her elbow as she some­times did when nervous.

            Bran­don looked down, but nodded.

            My wife and I exchanged glances. Then we all moved on to find the shrine.

Funic­u­lar

            We did a few tourist things on this trip. We want­ed the kids to rebond with my par­ents, who, unfor­tu­nate­ly live in anoth­er state. You can take an on-off fake rub­ber-wheel train ride through var­i­ous tourist sites around the town. It makes sev­en stops, but you need to be care­ful in pick­ing the stops you choose because the trains run dis­ap­point­ing­ly infre­quent­ly and are some­times full. Our kids most enjoyed the recre­ation of life in Bernadette’s time, a cas­tle on a hill­top with a beau­ti­ful gar­den (but which is not ter­ri­bly wheel­chair or dis­abled friend­ly), and the funic­u­lar train ride up the side of a moun­tain to a scenic peak.

Spig­ots

            We drank and splashed water from spig­ots on our faces every time we passed one, which was often. My kids loved to do this. I wor­ried that they would not get the sig­nif­i­cance, think­ing it only a game, and that per­haps there was some­thing sac­ri­le­gious about not tak­ing this process seri­ous­ly. But they’d seen, at home, the plas­tic Our Lady bot­tles sent to us by rel­a­tives and they saw peo­ple fill­ing iden­ti­cal bot­tles now, so they were excited.

            Their Protes­tant moth­er, the one who signed them up for CCD (or cat­e­chism) class­es, stood back and did not participate.

Baths

Then we set off to the baths. I had wor­ried because I read online that the baths get very crowd­ed, with long lines, and you need­ed three days to make sure you made it inside. How­ev­er, this was not a prob­lem. There is a sep­a­rate entrance for the dis­abled. Bran­don and I got into line an hour before the baths opened, but some­one came by and let us into a shad­ed seat­ing area right by the doors. After anoth­er half hour, the vol­un­teers in charge arrived; they looked at the dis­abled sit­ting on our bench­es, and we felt ner­vous­ly observed, knew these men were try­ing to decide who would go in first and then in what order.

A French man went up to Bran­don and touched him: we were to be first. Of the hun­dreds of peo­ple wait­ing, some­thing about this quar­ter Fil­ipino boy with red hair and radi­ant smile had drawn him.

Bran­don gig­gled in his sun­ny way.

But I was a bit ner­vous, not hav­ing an exam­ple of some­one else to go in before us. A team of men quick­ly led us inside. We felt hur­ried by the weight of the wait­ing peo­ple behind us. Our mar­ble bath was behind a curtain—about the shape of a large coffin—and they told me to undress and took my son from me. Bran­don looked at me anx­ious­ly. I want­ed to tell these men I would undress him and put him in the bath, but they worked fast and seemed to know what they were doing. The air felt damp, smelled musty. He had a scared look in his eyes as they unbut­toned his cloth­ing and took the lay­ers off; I was naked now, and a man gave me a cov­er­ing sheet.

Bran­don by now down to under­pants, had tears in his eyes, lip quiv­er­ing, and looked at these men as if he strug­gled between trust­ing and not trust­ing. Naked now, he watched as they held his arms and wrists and began affix­ing to him a com­plex sys­tem of leather straps and buck­les, which they would use to low­er him into the water. He looked at me and kept whis­per­ing, No, I don’t want to go in. I had to step in first. It was freez­ing, caus­ing a jolt in my ankles. I hes­i­tat­ed, imag­in­ing how cold and shock­ing this would be for my son, won­der­ing if I should call this whole thing off. But the old man assist­ing me did not know English—none of them did—and I did not object as he gripped my arm and force­ful­ly led me to step deep­er and, ulti­mate­ly, to kneel down and lay back beneath the frigid spring water.

Then he pulled me up and encour­aged me to stand, shiv­er­ing, fac­ing the Vir­gin. Togeth­er we prayed the rosary and I prayed silent­ly for my boy’s heal­ing. But, though I yearned for some spir­i­tu­al “feeling”—some con­fir­ma­tion that a heal­ing or trans­for­ma­tion was hap­pen­ing, I felt noth­ing but bone-grip­ping cold, the mar­ble beneath my toes, anx­i­ety for my son who was weep­ing behind me, and self-con­scious­ness aware­ness that I should not be observ­ing my reac­tions as if evi­dence for the spir­i­tu­al verac­i­ty of this place.

The man let me dry myself with the cling­ing sheet. I turned. My son was naked, the com­plex leather straps fas­tened about him, as six men now maneu­vered him towards the water with smil­ing, reas­sur­ing faces. But Bran­don could only look at me, with fear there.

I joined them beside him, tried to assist with a hand on his del­i­cate soft arm, sur­ren­der­ing myself to the inevitabil­i­ty of the process — the event — and helped my weep­ing boy to the water, whis­per­ing reas­sur­ances, stroking his soft red hair. He tried to be brave, tried to smile, with his anx­ious laugh. We stepped him into the water and his eyes widened with shock. Then the men low­ered him back and I had to trust them and they dunked my boy back­wards into the water.

Wet, shiv­er­ing, we lift­ed him and faced him to Mary and prayed, as the men dried him.

After­ward, blink­ing in the arid Pyre­nees sun­light, after giv­ing these old men thanks and smiles, Bran­don and I looked for our fam­i­ly. We had part­ed from my par­ents in the main line, where my father was still wait­ing with my moth­er.  They saw us and imme­di­ate­ly flocked to Bran­don, muss­ing his hair, all eager smiles, though I could tell my moth­er was scru­ti­niz­ing his face for signs of spir­i­tu­al trans­for­ma­tion or heal­ing, and seemed a bit ner­vous that I would be disappointed.

“How are you Bran­don? What hap­pened inside?”

“I was cold.”

“He was the first one cho­sen to go in,” I said.

“Real­ly?”

“Yes—there must have been some­thing about him.”

Bran­don was cheer­ful now, chat­ter­ing away, hap­py I think that the part­ing with Dad was over. But he showed no sign of miracle.

“Have you seen Gail and Alan?” I said.

“I think they were wan­der­ing around some­where,” she said.

“Maybe we’ll go find them,” I said.

My moth­er met my eyes and clear­ly knew that I was anx­ious about Gail’s reac­tion, that she would inevitably hear about the “freez­ing cold water” and the fact that Bran­don had cried.

Bran­don and I found them eat­ing gela­to among the crowd before the grot­to by the Riv­er Gave. They ran up to us and flocked to Bran­don, smil­ing as peo­ple do around the boy with sun­shine smiles, and touched him as if to see if some mag­ic had worn off. Alan appeared to study his hair, Gail his face; Bran­don avoid­ed her eyes.

“What hap­pened?” she said.

He looked down.

“It was a bit cold,” I explained with a ner­vous smile.

I hes­i­tat­ed but con­tin­ued. When it came out that he had cried, Bran­don blushed and looked at his lap.

We walked.

We neared the foun­tains before which pil­grims and sell­ers were fill­ing plas­tic Vir­gin Mary bot­tles.  A num­ber of peo­ple were clear­ly mer­chants, fill­ing box­es of these things to prof­it off peo­ple look­ing for a cure. “Look!” Bran­don said, and reached towards the sell­ers from his wheelchair.

“What is it?”

“I want to go there.”

I real­ized that I was blush­ing and looked over at my wife. “Go on,” she said.

I wheeled Bran­don over, Alan almost trip­ping on his wheels as he ran beside us. Alan pressed the met­al spig­ot but­ton and the spring water start­ed com­ing out. I cupped my hands to gath­er some for Bran­don. But before I got to it, my wife’s hands reached out and cupped it. Sur­prised, I backed up to let her place some spring water up to Brandon’s mouth.

She did this kneel­ing, then stood, hes­i­tat­ed and looked at her hands.

To my sur­prise, she put them up to her lips and drank.

After­ward

      My son did not get up and walk out of the baths unas­sist­ed; I wheeled him out into the sun­light as before. He did not get around the hotel room with­out his wheel­chair that night. If we were look­ing for instant heal­ing, we would be dis­ap­point­ed. But Gail and I dared not to expect that, even if we might have each har­bored secret hopes.

      How­ev­er, lat­er that sum­mer we would take him to the con­duc­tive learn­ing cen­ter in Michi­gan (a branch of the Hun­gar­i­an Peto Insti­tute) and he had the best month there yet. He did his rig­or­ous ther­a­py and exer­cis­es with joy and inde­pen­dence and more progress, accord­ing to his ther­a­pist-teach­ers, than any ses­sion in the past. And this fall, at his pub­lic school back in Ohio, he has done well and been happy.

      But we did not know this in Lour­des. Through­out the rest of our jour­ney, Brandon’s sun­ny dis­po­si­tion seemed to make the French peo­ple and vol­un­teers smile. We had brought him here hop­ing per­haps for a mir­a­cle, and I with hopes that some­thing of the mys­tery of ancient Catholic spir­i­tu­al­i­ty would rub off on my kids who only knew mod­ern sub­ur­ban church­es in Ohio. But it struck me that the infec­tious­ness of his joy, his radi­ant and mag­net­ic charm, was itself a mys­tery, a mir­a­cle we had brought to this place, a gift for others.

Bio of Author:

BRIAN ASCALON ROLEY is the author of Amer­i­can Son: A Nov­el (W.W. Nor­ton 2001; Chris­t­ian Bour­go­is Edi­teur 2006). His fic­tion and non­fic­tion have appeared in many antholo­gies and pub­li­ca­tions, includ­ing the North Amer­i­can Review, Epoch, Geor­gia Review and the San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle. His awards and hon­ors include the 2003 Asso­ci­a­tion of Asian Amer­i­can Stud­ies Prose Book Award, a Los Ange­les Times Best Book, a New York Times Notable Book, and a Pacif­ic Rim Prize final­ist, and his work has been fea­tured in the Cal­i­for­nia Coun­cil for the Human­i­ties Statewide read­ing pro­gram. He earned an MFA from Cor­nell and is cur­rent­ly an Eng­lish pro­fes­sor at Mia­mi University.

~~~

Book: Mag­ni­fi­cat: Mama Mary’s Pil­grim Sites

Col­lect­ed and Edit­ed by Cecila Manguer­ra Brainard

Anvil, 2012, soft­cov­er, 168 pages, ISBN 9789712727115

Hard copies avail­able from Philip­pine Expres­sions Book­shop: 1–310–548‑8148 or 1–310–514‑9139

Avail­able from Ama­zon Kindle 

Con­trib­u­tors are: Lucy Adao McGin­ley, Cecil­ia Manguer­ra Brainard, Angeli­ta Calu­ag Cruz, Maria Cio­con, Celeste, Ma. Ceres P. Doyo, Mil­li­cent Dyp­i­ang­co, Ma. Mila­gros T. Dum­dum, Pene­lope V. Flo­res, Almi­ra Astudil­lo Gilles, Ma. Tere­si­ta Her­rera-Tan, Fe Aida Lac­samana-Reyes, Jaime C. Laya, Guia Lim, Lin­da Nietes-Lit­tle, Ma. Tere­sa Z. Lopez, Aimee Gaboya Orte­ga Lucero, Lyn­ley Salome R. Ocam­po, Ma. Cristi­na Padil­la-Sendin, Mar­sha C. Paras, Rev. Dr. Sebas­t­ian Peri­an­nan, Bri­an Ascalon Roley, Julia H. Wol­s­ki, and Lin­da Yamamoto.

Praise for Magnificat

“This is anoth­er out­stand­ing book by Cecil­ia Manguer­ra Brainard. Pro­found­ly Mar­i­an and beau­ti­ful­ly writ­ten by the con­trib­u­tors as these are their per­son­al expe­ri­ences! To our fel­low devo­tees and would-be devo­tees of the Blessed Vir­gin Mary, you will sure­ly fall in love with Mag­ni­fi­cat: Mama Mary’s Pil­grim Sites and love Our Blessed Moth­er even more.” (Bish­op Leopol­do C. Jau­cian, SVD, DD, Bish­op of Bangued, Philippines)

“The devo­tion to Mama Mary is strong in the hearts of every Fil­ipino.” (Father James B. Reuter, SJ)

“The Mag­ni­fi­cat has always been a tes­ta­ment to God’s para­dox­i­cal deal­ings with his peo­ple. This book assem­bles a tableau of wit­ness­es to how a fleet­ing vis­it with Mary can turn into a life-chang­ing intro­duc­tion to her Son. Through their sto­ries the author offers their read­ers the dis­tinct pos­si­bil­i­ty of set­ting the stage for a per­son­al, if vic­ar­i­ous, epiphany.” (Father Dion­i­sio M. Miran­da, SVD, Pres­i­dent, Uni­ver­si­ty of San Car­los in Cebu)

“Run­ning as a leit­mo­tif in all the essays in this book is the writ­ers’ pal­pa­ble love for Mama Mary. Each writer has under­gone a change in his or her life or out­look fol­low­ing a vis­it to a Mar­i­an site. Some may have expe­ri­enced a “mir­a­cle,” or felt con­soled and renewed; oth­ers a deep­en­ing of spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, or an epiphany, an insight into the divine. Although we know that Jesus is the only Way to the Father, it is our belief in the pow­er of Mary’s inter­ces­sion to her Son, borne out of the Bible’s Cana sto­ry, that makes us all turn to Her, whom Her divine Son will nev­er refuse. Kudos to Cecil­ia Manguer­ra Brainard for putting togeth­er an engag­ing col­lec­tion of sto­ries that mag­ni­fy the hum­ble hand­maid of the Lord.” (Erlin­da E. Panlilio, Writer and Editor)

This blog is also pub­lished in Cecilia’s trav­el blog: https://cbrainard.blogspot.com/2020/03/mary-is-with-us-maryam-monastery-of.html

Tags: book review, Mar­i­an, Mama Mary, Catholic, reli­gion, Chris­tian­i­ty, anthol­o­gy, Medugor­je, Coro­n­avirus, Covid 19, Lake Tana, Ethiopia, Lour­des, France

Filed Under: Nonfiction, Uncategorized Tagged With: anthology, Catholic, Christianity, Coronavirus, Covid 19, Ethiopia, France, Lake Tana, Lourdes, Mama Mary, Marian, Medugorje, religion

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Welcome!

I am a daugh­ter of the Philip­pines and an adopt­ed daugh­ter of Amer­i­ca. I have also trav­eled to many places so I am also a daugh­ter of the Earth. My expe­ri­ences have found their way into my sto­ries, which try to depict char­ac­ters caught in impor­tant moments in their lives, sit­u­a­tions that force them to act, make deci­sions, change. I try to see the world from my own point of view, not the dom­i­nant West­ern one, thus my inter­est in his­to­ry, cul­ture, and set­ting. But my char­ac­ters car­ry my sto­ries; they are the most impor­tant in my sto­ry-telling. I have to dive deep into them to under­stand their human­i­ty – their good­ness as well as their bad­ness, their beau­ty as well as their ugli­ness. Just like us. Just like each of us. I need to know where they came from, where they are now, so I under­stand where they are going. Just like us.

Please read my full biog­ra­phy here

 

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When the Rainbow Goddess Wept

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Cecil­ia Brainard
c/o PALH
PO Box 5099
San­ta Mon­i­ca, CA 90409
USA

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