Grottos of the World -- Big and Small, New and Old
St. Bernadette heard the sweet voice of the Mother of God sound in her ears. She gazed upon Her loveliness… saw Her smile… in the cleft of the rock … in the hollow place of the wall of Massabielle. Yet, this was not the first time Our Lady came to a cave or worked out of a grotto…
The Grotto of all grottos is the Holy Sepulcher in Jersusalem, where an ancient tradition teaches is the center of the world. It is the very spot where Adam was formed by God on the sixth day of creation, where Adam and dwelt after their expulsion from Paradise. It was also the place of their burial. It became known as the "Cave of Treasures" because therein was stored not only the bones of our first parents but also gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Later, as everyone knows, this became Golgatha, the place of the skull, the very place where His Majesty, Jesus Christ the Son of God, died and was buried and rose again. This has an echo in the Gospels: "The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in a field. Which a man having found, hid it, and for joy thereof goeth, and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field" (Matt. 13:44). And out of the Treasure found here, the "householder, ... bringeth forth out of his treasure new things and old" (Matt. 13:52).
According to Tradition and the teaching of the Holy Pontiffs, both Our Lady herself and her blessed Son were conceived in the Holy House in Nazareth, which was partly a cave. The house part is now in Loreto.
An historical depiction of the remnants of the
Holy House in Nazareth
The Shrine of the Holy House in Nazareth
Translation of the Holy House
The Shrine in Loreto housing the Holy House
The marble encasement containing the Holy House
Inside the Holy House
in Loreto
When the fullness of time had come… when the Blessed Virgin Mary was to give birth to Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ… when half spent was the night … when there was no room in the Inn of Bethlehem… tradition tells us the Holy Family resorted to a CAVERN-like stable for the first Christmas. The Virginal Birth of the Word made Flesh… taking place in a CAVE… forever set the pattern for how heavenly restorations of all time are initiated. Being rejected by earthly men, heaven resorts to caves. No wonder Our Lady chose the grotto outside of Lourdes where heavenly men, rejecting worldly ways, can find a cave of refreshment. God and His holy Mother like to work out of caves!
The Shrine in Bethlethem housing
the Cave of the Nativity
From His headquarters in the cavern like stable of Bethlehem, His Royal Majesty, sent angels to the Jewish shepherds… a miraculous star to the Gentile kings. He summed the high and the low alike. They all received grace and healing. The Restoration of all restorations had begun, but before long, the worldly men… that is, the foxes of this world, also responded. King Herod, among the worst of foxes, sought to suppress this heavenly work by killing all the baby boys in Bethlehem, hoping to destroy the Newborn King and His promised restoration in its infancy. Like the demons in the River Gave, he was saying in his own way, “Get out of here! Get out of here!”
Later, the religious authorities, namely Annas and Caiphas, tried to outfox the restoration by putting the Savior to a most undeserved and cruel death through Pontius Pilate. Yet, as we all believe and know, His dead Body, still united to the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, was placed in a virginal TOMB, a CRYPT, on Good Friday… and lo and behold, the heavenly repairs started anew with His Majesty’s glorious Resurrection on first day of the week. And this time it was unstoppable. Heaven resorting to caves… grace and healing flowing therefrom.
Consider a few more examples. King David fled to a cave in his flight from the diabolically possessed King Saul. We read in the First Book of Kings: “All that were in distress, and oppressed with debt, and under affliction of mind, gathered themselves unto [David in the cave of Odollam]: and he became their prince, and there were with him about four hundred men” (22:2). From that grotto of Odollam, King David worked slowly but surely to restore the Promised Land to God’s chosen people.
The prophet St. Elias (Elijah) fought very hard to overcome all that offended God under King Achab (and his cunningly evil queen Jezebel) only to be sent fleeing to a cleft in the rock on Mount Horeb. But from thence, being carefully instructed by God’s gentle voice—in a breeze not unrelated to what Bernadette heard that memorable Feb 11th—St. Elias was able to start a restoration movement (some hold he started Carmel) that continued after he himself was taken up in a fiery chariot.
The prophet Jeremias took the most holy things of the Hebrew Temple, namely the Ark of the Covenant, the altar of Incense and the old Mosaic Tabernacle and hid them in a cavern on Mt. Nebo just prior to the destruction of Solomon’s Temple by the Babylonian infidels. Yet, this very same Ark will someday be found again with the return of St. Elias and from that finding… from that very cave, the Jews will convert en masse to the One True Church and be saved from the grip of the Antichrist.
The prophet Daniel was thrown into a cave filled with hungry lions. He came out unscathed.
This same story of grottos, caves, crypts, caverns as a place of divine refuge, protection, restoration, grace, conversion and healing is repeated over and over again down through the ages. Rome was conquered through the faithful Christians working out of the Catacombs. St. Antony of the Desert and many other desert fathers fled the luxury of the world to live in holes in the ground from which they started a monastic movement that would preserve the Church in the darkest of days ahead.
Roman Catacombs
St. Benedict, the father of Western Monasticism, fled opulent Rome to live in a cavern… called “subiaco.” Coming forth from this earthen shelter, he laid the foundations for 12 Monasteries… 12 foundation stones for Western Culture! St. Benedict is one of the founding fathers of Europe. It all began in a grotto.
Eighth Century Spain was all but lost to the Muslim Moors except for a few hundred faithful Catholics taking refuge in the Cavern of Our Lady… Covadonga in the Northern part of the country. From that hollow place, they began, with the help of their majestic Queen of queens, to repel the infidel Muslims and ultimately cast them out some 770 years later.
Although many many more examples could be provided, we can now see why Our Lady came to Lourdes and appeared to St. Bernadette from the grotto of Massabielle. Heavenly restorations, grace and healing of whole nations, often begin with… and flow from caves! This means Lourdes is a safe place to be looking for heavenly grace, healing and restoration!
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