On the first day of each month, the Ministry to Malta reaches out to homebound members across New Jersey with a message of care and spiritual support. A beautifully crafted email from John Schweska, KM, offers a monthly prayer and uplifting visuals to bring comfort and connection.
In addition, assigned Knights and Dames make personal phone calls to each member, providing a chance to reconnect, offer encouragement, and pray the rosary together. These simple yet meaningful gestures ensure that our homebound members remain supported, remembered, and held in prayer. See below for February’s email to homebound members.
Dear Fellow Knights and Dames,
February 11th brings us the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes and the World Day of the Sick. How dear to our hearts is the beautiful Lady in white with the blue sash!
For many of us, we have gone on pilgrimage many times caring for the sick, our malades. The Grotto invokes many scriptural images…the gushing fountain of “water”, (Jn 4:13) the solid wall of “rock”, (1 Cor.10:4) the “light” of the candles, (Jn 8:12) and the “cleft” in the upper right side of the cave (Song of Songs 2:14).
Mary Immaculate graciously points us to Jesus Christ in all of these vibrant signs; Jesus is our life, our refreshment, and healing; He is our strength; we find refuge in His Wounds and Sacred Heart–that open cleft in His Side that invites us to intimacy with Him, to trust and hope, and to a place of mercy.
Our Lady of Lourdes speaks to us through the purity of her envoy St. Bernadette to pray for sinners, to do penance, to walk in procession (with and to the Eucharistic Lord!), and to wash in the spring of water renewing our Baptismal promises—re-invigorating our lives in Christ, and continuing our light-filled lives of charity and service for all.
As special devotees of Our Lady of Lourdes we daily live in the virtues of the Beatitudes so wonderfully exemplified in the daily activity of the pilgrims. Oh, Mary Immaculate of Lourdes, pray for us! Make us true disciples of Jesus. St. Bernadette, pray for us!
