THE child, in the first moment of astonishment, had seized her chaplet, and holding it between her fingers, wished to make the sign of the Cross and carry her hand to her bosom. But she trembled to such a degree that she had not the faculty of raising her arm; it fell powerless on her bended knees.
Nolite timere, “do no fear,” said Jesus to his diciples, when he came to them walking on the waves of the sea of Tiberias.
The fixed gaze, and the smile of the incomparable Virgin, seemed to say the same thing to the little, terrified shepherd-girl.
With a grave and sweet gesture, which had the air of an all-powerful benediction for earth and heaven, she herself made the sign of the Cross, as with the view of re-assuring the child. The hand of Bernadette, raising itself by degrees, as if invisibly lifted by Her who is called the Succor of Christians, made the sacred sign at the same moment.
Ego sum: nolite timere. “It is I, be not afraid,” said Jesus to his disciples. The child was no longer afraid. Dazzled, fascinated, having nevertheless occasional doubts about herself, and rubbing her eyes, her gaze constantly attracted by this celestial apparition, she humbly recited her chaplet: “I believe in God: Hail Mary, full of Grace—”
At the moment of her closing it by singing “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost,: etc., etc., the Virgin, so radiant with light, all at once disappeared, and doubtless re-entered the eternal Heavens, the abode of the Holy Trinity.
Bernadette experienced the feeling of one decending or falling from a great height. She glanced around her. The Gave was pursuing its murmuring course over the pebbles and broken rocks; but its murmur seemed to her hoarser than before, the waters more sombre, the landscape dull, and the light of the sun even not so clear. Before her were extended the Rocks of Massabielle, beneath which her companions were busily occupied in gathering morsels of wood. Above the Grotto, the niche where the wild rose trailed its branches was always open; but nothing unwonted appeared about it. There remained in it no trace of the divine visit, and it was no longer the Gate of Heaven.
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