"Our Dear Heavenly Mother Mary"

Blessed Marianne’s Devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes
Testimony of Sister Grace Anne Dillenschneider, OSF

On May 14, 2007, in Lourdes, we celebrated the 3rd anniversary of the beatification of Blessed Marianne Cope, a Sister of St. Francis named in honor of Our Blessed Mother. Blessed Marianne had a great devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes and in the power of Lourdes water, coupled with faith and prayer. Sister Leopoldina Burns, who worked for many years with Blessed Marianne, recounts in her journal that Blessed Marianne often told our early Sisters to have faith and to use the holy water from Lourdes to ease the pain of those who were suffering and to heal the hearts of those who were depressed or angry. Sister Leopoldina writes of at least four incidents where there was no hope of healing using the conventional forms of treatment, but where she attributes the use of prayer and the holy water of Lourdes to having saved the life of one woman, eased the pain of two others, and healed the spirit of a fourth woman. “Our dear heavenly Mother Mary,” said Mother Marianne in 1891, “…how little do our trials and sorrows appear when compared to her bitter sufferings.”

Fayne Ansley

From a brief story in Sister Leopoldina’s Journals
“Annie” – August, 1918
“Poor Annie was so very sick, her temperature went so high and there was no getting it down. She was at the point of death, and even the Doctor said he could not understand her case. I had a very pretty picture of Our Lady of Lourdes and placed it over her bed where she could look at it, and we commenced a novena. When she took the water of Lourdes the first day of her novena, her temperature began to go down, and on the last day, she was well. The Doctor said all the credit should be given to Our Lady of Lourdes.”

  Mother Marianne