When I was still in the equivalent of High School we had to take an examination, done by teachers of a Government approved School, to get our official certificate of studies and then apply to the Bachillerato test to be able to continue studying at a University.

When my classmates and I were preparing for the exams my mother suggested to the group that was studying at my home to do a “manda” to the Virgin of Lourdes so we could pass the exams. A “manda‘ is a vow to a Virgin or Saint so that she or he can intervene and solve a problem. Different saints specialize in a specific cause or miracle.

Only one of my classmates, that was really nervous about the exams, liked the idea. “Let’s pay a manda“, she said, “walking on our knees.”

I took my tests in 1958 and passed them with good results. My friend also passed the tests. Some of the other members of the group that studied together at my home failed.

I suspect my mother suggested that for two reasons. First, I was born the same day the Virgin of Lourdes appeared in France on February 11, 1858, so she was in charge of my wellbeing. Second, because the new Basilica of Lourdes had just been consecrated in Chile on March 25, 1958, the year of the Centennial of the Apparitions of the Virgin in France. Mother was very practical.

So, after the exams, my mother took us one afternoon, on a public bus, to the new Basilica of Lourdes. The story of this place started on May 21, 1892, when the Assumptionist Community was established in Santiago, Chile, under the name Lourdes, a place next to the Quinta Normal park. A year later, on August 15, 1893, the first Temple of Lourdes was consecrated. On February 11, 1908, the Lourdes Grotto was inaugurated and in 1923 the Parish of Our Lady of Lourdes was founded. Then in 1958 it was updated to Basilica.

We walked from the bus stop to the gates of the brand new “Basilica de Lourdes” and then knelt down and “walked” all the way to the front of the Grotto. We were in school uniform and our skirts were almost touching the dirty floor all the way. When we arrived to the Grotto and sat on one of the benches, my mother took a jar with alcohol and cotton and proceeded to cure our bleeding knees. It hurt very much. We prayed the rosary and then took the bus back to my home. We had done the only “deed” I ever did to buy my “luck” on the exams.

Mother, as many other Catholic Christians had been taught that in order to obtain eternal life or even little favors from God you have to pray and do something to obtain it. She was devoted to the Virgin of Lourdes (I really don’t know why) and she and my father asked that Virgin to ask God to allow me to live during my gestation, since she had not been able to carry a baby to term.

Now let’s make something clear. The Virgin is only one, the mother of Jesus, Mary. The different forms the Virgin Mary had taken to appear to people or places, have confused people, even catholics. According to the place Virgin Mary appears at, the Catholic Church gives her another name, thus the different Virgin names. One virgin, many, many, many names, for example Our Lady (Notre Dame), Basilica of St. Mary Major (Basilica Papale di Santa Maria Maggiore), Our Lady of the Angels, Guadalupe Virgin (Virgen de Guadalupe), Pilar Virgin, (Virgen del Pilar), etc.

Of course walking on your knees and hurting a lot is only one of the many forms a “manda” or “deed” or “request through sacrifice” takes place. The “manda” payment can take different forms, such as bringing a donation of money to the image of the Virgin or Saint at one Church, making a written promise, burning candles, giving flowers, performing a pilgrimage on your knees or not, participating in a procession, fasting, etc. In all cases you have to perform a deed, or doing, or action, to obtain the intercession of the Virgin, or the Saint, in front of God for Him to produce a miracle or just protect you from something. Now, no favorable outcome, no “manda” paid. Business is business.

In many cases people do “mandas” for God to let them know why they were created and what are they supposed to do in life.

Few Christians, even those that don’t believe in “mandas”, realize that while they are waiting and praying everyday for God to reveal to them what their mission is in this world, they already have it.

We need to recognize and accept what Christ came to do for us: die! 

In that moment of surrendering to God, through believing in Christ’s death and resurrection, we also died to the suffering and temptations of this world!

However it is up to us to really TAKE IT and RECEIVE IT. Christ left the Holy Spirit to guide us, and asked us to practice (not just read) what His Word tells us to do.

Sometimes our “great commission” is just stopping to ask a child why he is crying, or baking a cake, or giving a gift card to somebody, or taking care of a person with cancer. Some other times our Christian gift is to form a club of gardeners or quilting ladies, go voting for a candidate that has the right platform according to the Word of God, or write a letter to a crooked politician, etc.

Just showing His LOVE and precepts in everything we do.