PRAYER TO OUR LADY OF LOURDES FOR A SICK PERSON.

O MARY, conceived without sin, our Lady of Lourdes, who dost draw from all parts thy children to the Grotto of the apparitions; thou never ceases to encourage, by innumerable benefits, the filial confidence of those who have responded to thy invitation. Suffering in body and soul, I come in the company of thousands and thousands of poor sick people to throw myself at thy feet and implore thee to heal me. O Mother of goodness, and all-powerful with our LORD, grant that I may be delivered from my infirmities, and that I may be able to consecrate my renewed strength to the service of GOD and of my brethren. How sweet it would be for me to proclaim that I owe to thy intercession the restoration of my health, which, while bearing witness to thy goodness to me, might be also a motive of conversion for many a soul.

But I desire, above everything, to abandon myself into thy maternal hands. If it be the will of JESUS CHRIST, my divine SAVIOUR, to which thy will is ever united, that the chalice of my sufferings should not at present depart from me, I desire the grace to say, with resignation and love, that I, too, will the same. Cause me, then, to be penetrated to the depths of my heart with a full and perfect acceptance of that consoling and heaven-sent doctrine: that the GOD of goodness loves us infinitely, always and under all circumstances, but especially without doubt when he associates us with the sufferings of JESUS CHRIST and fastens us to his Cross.

O Immaculate Virgin, our Lady of Lourdes, Mother of a GOD who was a man of sorrows, thy divine Son wished thee to be at his side on Calvary, whilst He suffered and died for us. He loves thee as only GOD could love a mother, and yet He willed that thy soul should be pierced with a sword of grief, so that thy love for Him should be revealed, and expand by sharing in his inexpressible sufferings.

Obtain for me this grace, our Lady of Lourdes, consoler of the afflicted, health of the sick, that I may love GOD more and more, in proportion as He prolongs and aggravates my trials. This would be a miracle greater than my sudden and complete restoration. To restore my health a single word would suffice, spoken by thee in the name and with the power of Him who is thy Son, while He is also thy GOD; but that the grace of resignation in suffering should make me accept with joy my sickness and its many painful consequences, this I feel to be in an eminent degree the work of the Most High. I see that it is in some sort easier for GOD to heal my sufferings than to make me love them. But, if thou desirest it, myweakness will have for support a supernatural force which will render it victorious, and so manifest the extent of thy power.

Would that the pains of my malady, sanctified by submission to the divine will, could be united to the agony of my Divine SAVIOUR ; would that my tears, mixed with his tears and his blood, could effect the expiation of my past sins, and draw down the graces of resurrection on poor souls dying or dead in sin. May the abundance of thy gifts, O my GOD, be granted, I beseech Thee, in the name of thy Mother, especially to those who are united to me by ties of blood or friendship. Grant that my sufferings, until it shall please thee to put an end to them, may open for them a fountain of mercies.

O Mother of Sorrows and Mother of merciful bounty, who stood erect at the foot of the Cross, pray for us, that we may be made worthy of the promises of CHRIST. Amen.