Happy Feast
of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary!

(This is one of the many beautiful mosaics to be found at Lourdes, where Our Lady appeared to St. Bernadette.)
159 years ago today, she told Bernadette who she was:

“On March 25^th, the Lady was waiting for me. I told her how much I loved her and said my rosary. I much wished to ask her name, but I was afraid of annoying her. At last I asked her to tell me who she was. She smiled. Three times, out of obedience to the parish priest, I put the question to her. The Lady was standing beside the rose-tree, with her hands stretched out towards me. When I asked her for the third time she took on a serious look, she seemed to humble herself. Then she joined her hands, lifted them to the full height of her chest, and looked towards Heaven; after that she slowly separated her hands, leant down towards me, and in a very gentle, quavering voice, said to me: - ‘I am the Immaculate Conception.’ There were many pious people surrounding me because of the feast day, asking me if the Lady had given her name. I told them of these words which I was unable to understand….It was the anniversary of the day when the Archangel Gabriel had greeted Mary with the words: - ‘Full of Grace,’ words which referred to the Immaculate Conception. The crowd, knowing this, began to sing – ‘O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you.’”

~ St. Bernadette Speaks, by Fr. Albert Bessieres, SJ, 1956.