Book 5 - Part 4

Easter-Sunday had arrived. Notwithstanding the pious apprehensions of the Minister of Public Worship, the marvellous occurrences at Lourdes had not, "weakened the religious feeling of the population of the district." Numerous conversions had taken place, and the confessionals were in a state of siege. Usurers and robbers had made restitution of their ill-gotten gains, and many scandals had ceased. The Faithful crowded to the Holy Table.

On Easter-Monday, the fifth of April, that is to say the very day the Prefect had visited the Bishop, the Mother of God had once more by an internal call, summoned the daughter of the miller, and the child, soon followed by an immense crowd, had repaired to the Grotto, where, as on the preceding days, the Heavens had opened themselves before her eyes, and displayed to her the Virgin Mary in a state of glory.

That day a very singular occurrence took place before the wonder-struck eyes of the multitude.

The taper, which Bernadette had either brought with her, or received from one of the bystanders, was of considerable size and she had rested it on the ground, supporting it at the bottom between the fingers of her hands, which were half clasped. The Virgin appeared to her. And behold, by an instinctive movement of adoration, the youthful Seer, falling in a state of ecstacy before the Immaculate Beauty, slightly raised her hands and let them rest calmly, and without thinking of what she was doing, on the lighted end of the taper. And then the flame began to pass between her fingers, which were half open, and to mount above them, flickering in different directions, according as the light breeze blew. Bernadette, however, remained motionless and absorbed in the heavenly contemplation, utterly unconscious of the phenomenon which caused so much astonishment to the multitude around her. Those who witnessed it pressed closely on each other in order to obtain a better view. M.M. Jean-Louis Fourcade, Martinou, Estrade, Caillet, warden of the forest, the demoiselles Tard’hivail, and a hundred other persons were spectators of this unheard of incident. M. Dozons had remarked by his watch that this extraordinary state lasted more than a quarter of an hour. All at once a slight shudder was perceptible in the frame of Bernadette. Her features lost their lofty expression. The Vision had vanished and the child resumed her natural state. The bystanders seized her hand but it presented nothing unusual to the eye. The flame had spared the flesh of the youthful Seer during her ecstasy at the feet of Mary. The crowd, not without sufficient reasons, exclaimed that a Miracle had been performed. One of the spectators however, wishing to test the fact, took the taper which was still lighted and applied it to Bernadette’s hand, without her being aware of what he was doing.

“Ah! Sir,” she exclaimed, drawing back quickly, “you are burning me.”

The occurrences at Lourdes had produced such an excitement in the surrounding districts, and the influx of strangers was so great, that on that day the multitude which had in a moment flocked around Bernadette amounted to nearly ten thousand persons, and these had not been warned beforehand, as was the case during the Quinzaine.

Book 5 - Part 3

Monseigneur Laurence, as we have already observed, was still in a state of doubt as to the judgment he should form on the events which had occurred at Lourdes. Not being on the spot, not seeing directly the marvels which were in process of accomplishment, and deriving what little knowledge he had of them from the reports of ecclesiastics who had not themselves been eye-witnesses of the facts, he had not yet come to any full conviction. He was waiting.

Under these circumstances, to formally prohibit Bernadette from going to the Grotto when she felt herself called to the place by a voice from on high, would have been to attack the most sacred liberty the soul can enjoy, and this, Churchmen can respect even in a child: but to employ words of council and to pledge Bernadette not to repair to the Rocks of Massabielle, unless under the immediate influence of that irresistible suggestion, this was what the Bishop deemed it prudent to order the Curé of Lourdes to undertake, in order to prevent, as far as lay in his power, the Civil Authorities from entering on the dangerous path of persecution, to which his admirable foresight shewed him they were tending.

What in reality held the Prefect back, was not so much a question of principle as a personal consideration. He felt he must look twice before attempting a religious coup d’état with a Prelate so universally venerated as Monseigneur Laurence, more especially after having lived with him up to that moment in the most perfect harmony. Baron Massy was too deeply imbued with the political feeling of the affairs of administration not to hesitate in breaking up this feeling of cordiality, and in violently invading a jurisdiction which belonged of right to the Bishop, and to him only.

Book 5 - Part 2

On the strength of this letter, M. Massy addressed himself to the Bishop, begging him, formally, to prohibit Bernadette from repairing to the Grotto. He naturally brought forward the interests of religion, which were compromised by these hallucinations or deceptions, and the deplorable effects which things of this nature were producing on all serious minds, which sincerely sought to reconcile Catholicism with philosophy and modern ideas. As to the supposition of there being any reality in the Apparitions, M. Massy, following in the wake of M. Rouland, did not deign to notice it. The Prefect and the Minister agreed in treating such superstitions with contempt.

The Prefect was clever, but the Bishop in his turn was shrewd, and it was not easy to pass off on him the shadow for the substance. Monseigneur Laurence discerned, clearly, two things:

The first was, that the Authorities (and, by this word, we understood only the Prefect and the Minister, who happened to be in power for the time being), would have been very glad to have put the Clergy prominently forward, while, at the same time, they dictated to them their course of action. Now, Monseigneur Laurence had too high a sense of his duties as Bishop to become a mere tool in the hands of others.

The second was, that the Minister possibly and the Prefect certainly were tempted to have recourse to violent measures, that is to say, to oppose material force to opinion. Now, Monseigneur Laurence was too prudent not to exert every effort in order to avoid an evil of such magnitude.

It was necessary therefore for him, on the one hand to resist energetically the pressure brought to bear upon him by the Civil Authorities, and on the other not to irritate them; to reject their unreasonable demands as inadmissible, and at the same time to maintain a spirit of harmony.

Amidst these difficulties of so opposite a nature, the Bishop succeeded in steering a middle course.

At the same time that he stemmed the popular enthusiasm which urged him to proclaim the Miracle officially, he resisted the Minister and the Prefect, who requested him to condemn it without investigation. Impassible in the midst of the agitations of the multitude, and the blind prejudices of men in power, he was determined not to pronounce his judgment until he was thoroughly acquainted with the merits of the case, to refrain from any premature decision and to keep the future in reserve.

However, perceiving as he did, the undisguisedly hostile disposition of the Administration, he recognized it to be his duty to do all in his power to prevent the Civil Authorities from betaking themselves to deplorable acts of violence. They must be deprived of all pretext for adopting such a line of conduct. Since the Temporal Power inclined towards inconsiderate measures, the Spiritual Power must have prudence for both. Since the Prefect had not prudence enough, the Bishop must have it in excess: it was in his opinion, the only way of having enough.

Book 5 - Part 1

The question which had mounted from M. Jacomet to the Prefect had continued its upward flight, and reached the Ministry of Public Worship.

On the 12th and 26th of March, the Prefect had sent in his reports to his Excellency, confining himself, until an answer was received, to the steps we have already mentioned.

The Ministry of Public Worship was not then, as is the case now, united to the department of Justice, but to that of Public Instruction. Monsieur Rouland was the Minister.

Formerly Procureur General, and at the date of our story, Minister of Public Instruction, M. Rouland had, at one and the same time, in regard to religious matters, the traditional and suspicious formalism of the old parliamentary body, and the ideas and feelings current in the University of France. Of a dogmatic turn of mind, deeply convinced of his own importance, his very philosophy tinged with sectarianism, an extravagant admirer of his own wisdom, and easily irritated against anything which did not square with his own systematic ideas, M. Rouland was unable to admit for one moment the reality of the Visions and Miracles at Lourdes. Such being the case, though at a distance of two hundred and fifty leagues from the spot where the events occurred, and having no other documents than two letters received from the Prefect, he solved the question with that decisive tone which settles matters of importance without even condescending to discuss them. Notwithstanding the advice he gave the Prefect to act prudently, it was plain that he had decided in his own mind not to tolerate either the Apparitions or the Miracles. As was always the case, in similar circumstances, the Minister assumed the attitude of a defender of the interests of religion. We subjoin a copy of the letter written by him to M. Massy, bearing date the twelfth of April.

“MONSIEUR LE PREFET:

“I have examined the reports, which you had the goodness to forward to me on the twelfth and twenty-sixth of April, on the subject of a pretended apparition of the Virgin, said to have occurred in a Grotto at no great distance from the town of Lourdes. It is of importance, in my opinion, to put a stop to proceedings which would result in compromising the true interests of Catholicism, and weakening the religious feeling of the population of the district.

“Legally, no one can establish an oratory or place of public worship, without the double authorization of the civil and religious authorities. We should then be justified, were we to carry out the law rigorously, in immediately closing the Grotto, which has been transformed into a kind of chapel.

“But, serious inconveniences would, in all probability, arise from putting this law suddenly into force. It would, therefore, be better to confine ourselves to preventing the youthful visionary from revisiting the Grotto, and to taking such measures as shall insensibly divert public attention, by rendering the visits to the spot less frequent from day to day. I could not, however, Monsieur le Préfet, give you more precise instructions at the present moment; it is a question which requires most especially tact, prudence and firmness, and, in this respect, any recommendations from me are unnecessary.

“It will be indispensable for you to act in concert with the Clergy; and I cannot lay too much stress on the advisability of your communicating, personally, with the Bishop of Tarbes in this delicate affair, and I authorize you to tell the Prelate, from me, that I do not think it expedient to permit a state of things to continue unchecked, which cannot fail of affording a pretext for fresh attacks on the Clergy and Religion.”

Book 4 - Part 14

The Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ had not said,—“I am Mary, the Immaculate;” She had said,—“I am the Immaculate Conception,” as if to mark the absolute, and, as it were, substantial character of the divine privilege granted to Her alone since Adam and Eve were created by God. It is as if she had said, not, “I am pure,” but, “I am purity itself;” not, “I am a Virgin,” but, “I am the incarnate and living Virginity;” not, “I am white,” but, “I am whiteness!”

Any thing that is white may cease to be so; but, Whiteness is always white. It is its essence and not its quality.

Mary is more than conceived without sin: She is the Immaculate Conception itself; the essential and superior type; the archetype of unsullied humanity, of humanity as it proceeded from the hands of God without having been tainted by the original stain by the impure element which the fault of our first Parents mixed with the very source of that vast river of generations, which has flowed for the last six thousand years, and of which, each of us, is a fleeting wave.

What would you do, if you wished to draw water pure from a muddy spring? You would pass it through a filter, and the water clears itself of its grosser elements. You then pass it through a second filter, then through a third, and so on. The time soon comes when the water becomes entirely pure and clear,—a liquid diamond. In the same manner did God act, when the original Spring was troubled. He chose a particular family in this world, and watched over it from age to age, from Seth unto Noah, from Shem unto David, from David even unto Joachim and Anne, the parents of the Blessed Virgin. And, when this human blood was thus filtered, so to speak, in spite of the accidents of some intermediate guilty persons, through nearly fifty generations of patriarchs and just men, there came into the world a creature absolutely pure; a creature without stain; a daughter of Adam entirely immaculate. She was called Mary, and Her fruitful Virginity produced Jesus Christ.

The Virgin, at that moment, had desired to attest by her presence and her miracles, the last dogma defined by the Church, and proclaimed by St. Peter, speaking by the voice of Pius IX.

It was the first time in her life that the little shepherd-girl, to whom the divine Virgin had just appeared, had heard the words: “Immaculate Conception;” and, being entirely ignorant of their meaning, she exerted herself to the utmost on her way back to Lourdes to retain them in her memory.

“I repeated them to myself all along the road, in order not to forget them,” she told us, one day; “and, up to the very door of the presbytery to which I was going, I kept saying, Immaculate Conception, Immaculate Conception, at each step I made, as I wished to take to the Curé the exact words of the Vision, in order that the chapel might be built.”

Book 4 - Part 13

 

Since the last day of the Quinzaine, Bernadette had several times re-visited the Grotto, but much like any other simple individual, that is to say, without bearing in her heart the irresistible voice which was wont to summon her to the spot.

She heard this voice, however, once more on the twenty-fifth of March, in the course of the morning and immediately proceeded towards the Rocks of Massabielle. Her countenance was beaming with hope. She felt within herself that she was going to see the Apparition once more, and that Paradise would throw its eternal gates half open to her ravished eyes.

It may be easily conceived that she had become ere this an object of general attention at Lourdes, and she could not take a step without becoming “the observed of all observers.”

“Bernadette is going to the Grotto,” was the observation of the one to the other as she was seen passing by.

A moment afterwards, a crowd, issuing from all the houses and collecting from all the alleys, rushed in the same direction and reached the Grotto at the same time with the child.

In the valley, the snow had melted within the last two or three days, but still remained on the crests of the neighboring peaks. The weather was fine and clear, and not a speck was to be seen in the calm blue of the firmament. The sun seemed to rise with royal pomp from the bosom of the white mountains and threw a splendor over his cradle of snow.

It was the anniversary of the day on which the Angel Gabriel had descended to the purest of virgins, the Virgin of Nazareth, and had saluted her in the name of the Lord. The Church was celebrating the feast of the Annunciation.

While the crowd was hurrying to the Grotto, and amongst it might be noticed the greater number of those who had been cured—Louis Bourriette, the widow Crouzat, Blaisette Soupene, Benoite Cazeaux, Auguste Bordes, and twenty more, the Catholic Church, at the close of her morning office, was intoning those wonderful words, “At that moment shall the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf shall recover their hearing, the lame shall leap like the deer, for the waters have burst forth in the desert, and torrents in the wilderness.”

Bernadette had not been deceived by the joyful presentiment she had felt. The voice which had called her was the voice of the faithful Virgin.

As soon as the child had fallen on her knees the Apparition made herself manifest. As ever before, an ineffable aureole beamed around her, of boundless splendor and infinite sweetness; it was like the eternal glory of absolute peace. As ever before, her veil and her robe falling in chaste folds were white like the glistening snow. The two roses which blossomed on her feet had the yellow tinge which pervades the base of heaven at the first light of the virgin dawn. Her girdle was blue as the azure firmament.

Bernadette, plunged in ecstasy, had forgotten earth in the presence of her spotless beauty.

“O Lady,” she said to her, “would you have the goodness to inform me who you are and what is your name?”

The queenly Apparition smiled but gave no reply.

But at that very moment, the Universal Church proceeding with the solemn prayers of her Office, was exclaiming:

“O holy and immaculate Virginity, what praises can I give unto Thee? In truth, I know not, for thou hast borne in thy womb Him whom the Heavens cannot contain.”

Bernadette heard not these distant voices, nor could she surmise these profound harmonies. Notwithstanding the silence on the part of the Vision, she urged her request, and repeated:

“O Lady, would you have the kindness to inform me who you are and what is your name?”

The Apparition appeared to become more radiant, as if her joy kept increasing, and yet she did not reply to the child’s question. But the Church, spread over the whole of Christendom, was continuing her prayers and chants and had reached those words:

“Wish me joy, all ye who love the Lord, for when I was yet a child, the Most High hath loved me, and from my womb was produced the God-Man. All generations shall proclaim me Blessed, for God hath deigned to regard the lowliness of his hand-maiden; and from my womb was produced the God-Man.”

Bernadette redoubled the urgency of her request and pronounced for the third time the words:

“O Lady, would you have the kindness to inform me who you are and what is your name?”

The Apparition appeared to enter more and more into the glory of beatitude, and as if absorbed in her own felicity, continued to return no answer.

But, by an extraordinary coincidence the universal choir of the Church was at that moment bursting forth into a song of joy and pronouncing the earthly name of the marvelous Apparition, “Hail Mary full of Grace, the Lord is with Thee, blessed art Thou among women.”

Bernadette pronounced once more these suppliant words:

“O Lady, I beseech you, have the kindness to inform me who you are and what is your name?”

The hands of the Apparition were clasped with fervor and her countenance was radiant with the splendors of infinite beatitude. It was Humility crowned with Glory. At the same time that Bernadette was contemplating the Vision, the Vision was doubtless contemplating, in the bosom of the divine Trinity, God the Father of whom She was the daughter; God the Holy Ghost of whom She was the Spouse, and God the Son of whom She was the Mother.

At the last question of the child She unclasped her hands, slipping over Her right arm the chaplet, whose alabaster beads were strung on a golden thread. She then opened both of Her arms and bent them towards the ground, as if to show to the earth Her Virgin hands, full of blessings. Afterwards, raising them towards the eternal region, from which on that very day centuries before the divine Messenger of the Annunciation had descended, She joined them again fervently, and gazing up to Heaven with an expression of unspeakable gratitude, She pronounced the following words:

“I am the Immaculate Conception.”

The Vision disappeared, and the child, like the multitude, found herself opposite a solitary rock.

At her side, the miraculous Fountain, falling through its wooden conduit into its rustic basin, soothed the ear with the peaceful murmur of its waters.

It was the day and the hour, when Holy Church was intoning in her Office the magnificent hymn—

“O most glorious of Virgins:

Sublimis inter sidera.”
(Exalted above the stars)

Book 4 - Part 12

 

During the period of the manifestation of the Apparitions, the popular movement had been favored with the most magnificent weather. There had been an uninterrupted series of fine days, such as had not been experienced for many years past.

From the fifth of March, there was a change in the weather and a heavy fall of snow. The severity of the season naturally abated for some days the concourse of visitors to the Grotto.

The miraculous cures, however, increased in number. Benoîte Cazeaux, a most respectable inhabitant of Lourdes, had been confined to her bed for three years by a slow fever accompanied with pains in her side, and all her applications to the medical men of the place had been fruitless. A course of baths at Gazost had proved equally unavailing towards the recovery of her health.

The medical men had become disheartened by the unsuccessful issue of all their efforts, and had ceased to visit the poor woman, regarding her as incurable. Finding herself in this desperate situation, she had had recourse to Our Lady of Lourdes, and her supposed incurable malady had suddenly disappeared in consequence of drinking one or two glasses of water from the Grotto, and the application of some lotions.

Another woman, Blaisette Soupenne, of Lourdes, about fifty years of age, had been suffering for several years from a chronic affection in her eyes, and her state was truly pitiable. In technical terms, it was a blepharitis accompanied with atrophy. A continual flow of tears from the eyes, severe smarting pains sometimes at the same time, sometimes alternately; an eversion of the eyelids and total disappearance of the eye-lashes, the two lower lids being covered with a multitude of fleshy warts—such was the disastrous state of this unfortunate woman. It was in vain she applied lotions of cold water several times a day to her eyes, employed all the remedies prescribed by her medical advisers, or sought some relief at the baths of Barèges, Cauterets and Gazost—everything had been a failure.

Abandoned by man, she had turned herself towards the Divine Goodness which had manifested itself at the Grotto. Pronounced incurable by medical science, she had addressed herself to Faith, and had besought the miraculous Lady to remove from her that cruel malady which had defied the skill of men and the agency of natural remedies. She received great relief on the application of the first lotion. At the second application, which took place the following day, the cure was complete. Tears ceased to flow from her eyes, the eyelids resumed their natural form, and the fleshy warts disappeared. From that very day the eye-lashes grew again.

In the opinion of the medical men called in to examine the above case, the supernatural effect in this marvelous cure was rendered more obvious from the fact “that the material injury,” they said, “was more striking, and that to the rapid re-establishment of the tissues in their normal and organic condition, was added the restoration of the eyelids to their original form and position. The importance of this fact is so much the greater as the malady in question is one of the most difficult to treat successfully, and in the stage it had reached in the case of Blaisette Soupenne, necessitated a surgical operation, such as the excision of the palpebral mucous membrane, or at least a severe cauterization of the swellings and fleshy pimples of that membrane.”

These wonderful events increased daily in number.

God proceeded in His work. The Blessed Virgin afforded ample display of her omnipotence.