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"I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not
walk in darkness." - John 8:12
The
Candle That Healed a City
In
1095, the city of Arras in northern France was in the grip of a terrible
epidemic. A disease called the Sacred Fire, ergotism, caused by a fungal
infection of rye, was burning through the population. The symptoms were agonizing
burning sensations in the limbs, gangrene, and convulsions. The people were
terrified and helpless.
According to the tradition of Arras, Our Lady appeared separately to two men, a
bishop and a troubadour, and instructed them to meet. When they came together,
each bearing an account of the same apparition, their stories confirmed one
another. Our Lady gave them a candle and instructed that the wax, dissolved in
water, be given to the sick. Those who drank the water were healed.
The epidemic ceased. A shrine was built. Our Lady of Ardents, Our Lady of the
Burning Ones, was honored as the one who had brought light into the darkness
of that burning city. The Holy Candle of Arras became one of the most venerated
objects in northern France, brought out in times of pestilence for centuries afterward.
The name is perfect and terrible and beautiful all at once. Our Lady of the
Burning Ones. She came not to the well and comfortable but to the ones who were
on fire with suffering. She came with a candle. And the burning stopped.
Today's Gospel - Mark 11:11-26
Jesus
said to the fig tree: "May no one ever eat fruit from you again", and
it withered. Then He cleared the Temple, overturning the tables. Then He spoke
about faith and prayer: "Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you
have received it and it will be yours."
Believe that you have received it. Past tense. The prayer is already answered
in the mind of God, faith is the act of living as if it is already so.
The people of Arras, dying from a burning disease, asked in faith. They
received a candle. They drank the wax in water and were healed. They believed
before they understood how it could possibly work.
That is the faith Jesus described: not the faith that waits for proof, but the
faith that acts as if the answer has already arrived.
A Prayer
Our
Lady of Ardents, you who brought a healing candle to a burning city, bring your
light to our darkness.
Whatever is burning in our lives, whatever consumes us with anxiety, with pain,
with grief that will not lift, let the water of your intercession extinguish
it. You came to the burning ones. We are sometimes among them.
And where the fire of the Holy Spirit needs to burn brighter in us, where we
have grown cold, where we have grown comfortable, where we have stopped being
set on fire by the Gospel, fan those flames.
Be both things at once: the one who quenches what should not burn, and the one
who kindles what should.
Our Lady of Ardents, pray for us. Amen.
Reflection
The
people of Arras were healed when they drank water containing the wax of a
candle Our Lady had given. It was a strange remedy, but they used it in faith
and were healed.
Is there a remedy God or Our Lady has placed in your hands that you have not
yet been willing to use because it seems too simple, too strange, or too small?
What would it mean to receive it in faith and act?
Rosary Man Jim 🌹
Freely given. Freely shared.
