Article
Peace & Healing Through Prayer

If you sit in front of the TV even few minutes you are bound to watch a number of flashy advertisements about goods and services that promise to make your life very comfortable, interesting, glamorous and fulfilling. The advertisements also give you the impression that you cannot really manage to live comfortably unless you purchase some of these goods. People are motivated to strive hard so as to satisfy their ever growing thirst for more and more new consumer items. Everyone works hard to earn more so as to consume more. This brings in competition and longer working hours. Lack or rest and over work soon begin to tell on one’s health and behavior. People have no time for themselves, for others and for God. Naturally this tells on the body and mind, and symptoms of tension, anxiety and other forms of neurosis become visible.

It is in such conditions of brokenness that one looks for a place to escape to, a lonely place to sit quietly and to gain peace of mind. People, who can afford it, go on a holiday; some undertake a pilgrimage to some holy place. In Nagpur there is a place of peace and blessing which is visited by hundreds of people every day. It is the Lourd Mata Mandir on the Seminary Hills. People who come here belong to different castes and creeds. They love to walk along the narrow road lined with tall Ashoka trees on both sides, which leads to the small Mandir where they find the Blessed Virgin Mary praying to God with folded hands. A cool breeze that blows in every now and then caresses their weary limbs bringing comfort and consolation. The grace of God surrounds the place. People burn candles, light agarbattis, make prostrations, walk around the shrine or sit silently under the canopy of green branches above. A little stream flows in front of the Mandir; there is also a large pond with fish in it.

Every year the feast of the Mandir is celebrated in the month of February in remembrance of the apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary to a 14 year old girl named Bernadette at Lourdes in France between February 11th and July 16th, 1885. The shrine soon became famous for numerous miraculous cures, and Lourdes became one of the most popular shrines of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the whole world, and little shrines to the mother of God came to be built, usually near churches, all over the world. The Lourd Mata Mandir in Nagpur is one such shrine which was built in 1892. From 1962 an annual pilgrimage service has been held at the Mandir on the Sunday closest to February 11th.

In 1975 the Mandir was entrusted to the Rosary parish and under the leadership of Fr. C. J. Sebastian, the pastor of the parish, the surroundings of the Mandir were developed and beautified. In the Jubilee year 2000 Archbishop Abraham Viruthakulangara declared the Mandir as the Archdiocesan pilgrimage centre.

Year after year the feast of at the Lourd Mata Mandir is a powerful sign of unity and brotherhood among people of divers’ faiths and beliefs. All flock to the Mandir, forgetting their divisions, seeking peace, healing and blessings through the intercession of the mother of God. In the Bible, it is reported that the first miracle of Jesus was worked by him at the request of his mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Christian people do not consider the Blessed Virgin Mary as a Goddess. Instead, she is considered to be a human being who powerfully intercedes before God for fellow human beings. The Bible also reports that as Jesus was dying on the cross, he entrusted his disciple to her and from them all Christians consider her to be their mother. However, after the protestant revolution and the multiplication of Christian’s denominations, many protestant groups do not give great importance to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Catholic Church honors her and trusts in her motherly intercession before God on behalf of those who call on her for help.