Reclaiming My Roots With Our Lady of Lourdes.

Our Lady of Lourdes has been “hiding” in plain sight in my life given I have really never paid significant attention like I should have. It was on 11th February 1990 that I made the decision to proceed to the minor seminary, Bishop Rogan College, Buea to pursue seminary formation. From a tender age, I had nursed the desire to be a priest and now had to make the decision to which high school I would go after secondary school. After I watched a well organized soccer team of minor seminarians defeat the almighty OIC in a thrilling match at the Town Green Stadium, Buea Town, Cameroon. They outclassed the near professional team in a biblical like David-Goliath rematch. I decided to spend the next two years in that institution that produced the master class. Surprisingly, I have never paid attention to Our Lady of Lourdes on whose feast day I took this monumental decision. It is the soccer not Mary that got the better part of me. Might be if I had sought the intercession of Our Lady of Victories through Our Lady of Lourdes I could have succeeded through the journey to the priesthood. Our Lady of Lourdes could have been a primary and constant intercessor. Even through all the years of seminary formation, this truth never crossed my mind till now. 

That same day, 11th February 1990, the nefarious Apartheid system collapsed in South Africa with the release of Nelson Mandela from prison where he had spent 27 years. Most South Africans will not attribute any Marian role in this momentous event but in the grand scheme of things, Our Lady of Lourdes had a hand in the miracle. Think of Our Lady's role in the defeat of communism which St Pope John Paul II credited to Our Lady of Fatima. If you care, take it as mere coincidence. As a Catholic, there are no coincidences in God's plan. Writing from my own prison cell, it took me this journey to see Mary's hand, Our Lady of Lourdes in the miracle of Mandela's release. 

At an even more sentimental level, one of the elite and best All Girls secondary school in Cameroon, Africa is named after  and dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes. A distinguished center of academic excellence notes for its beauty with brains mojo, this Catholic institution has left its mark. I used to love the OLALOCO abbreviation - Our Lady of Lourdes College - which as young boys we yearned to befriend girls from there. Even more significant is the fact that my three sisters, Patience, Maureen and Noela all passed through this “seat of wisdom” following in the footsteps of our mother who is of the second or third batch. Additionally, my paternal uncle, Peter Mbom of happy memory also taught there. I only recently found out when one of his students asked me if we were related and then I got to know he too grew up in the “Lourdes” mold. Yet, in all of this we have never had a deep appreciation of and devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes.

Even my father born on February 14th who had a peculiar priceless valuation of Catholic Education and believed only the best is good for his children missed out on this significant feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. How my family ended up with St Jude is a mystery to be explored. Don't even remember whether while he studied in France in the 80s he ever visited Lourdes? I remember Toulouse is one name that comes to mind and am sure if he had the sheer admiration of Lourdes and the enormity of its influence and impact, he would have instituted Our Lady of Lourdes as a family patron saint. Mary has always been a central figure in our family devotion especially Our Lady of the Rosary and Mary Assumed into Heaven. This is perhaps because the Solemnity of the Assumption is the only Marian feast celebrated at a time all of us would be home. 

With hindsight I believe one other reason is the institution in 1992 by St Pope John Paul II of the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes as World Day of the Sick.

Even through years of visiting the Our Lady of Lourdes grotto replication in the Basilica of the National Shrine of Immaculate Conception, I have never connected the dots. This year, the Jubilee Year seems a particularly good time to pray to, pray through and pray with Our Lady of Lourdes. Over the next nine days, join in the spiritual journey to Lourdes.