Our Lady of Lourdes - First Book - Part 15

  DURING the first days of the week, many persons of the lower classes came to the house of the Souberous’ to put questions to Bernadette.  The child’s answers were clear and precise.  She might possibly be laboring under an illusion, but no one could see her or hear her speak without being convinced of her good faith.  Her perfect simplicity, her innocent youth, and the irresistible emphasis on her language, something,—what I know not, in all this,—inspired confidence, and most frequently produced conviction.  All those who saw her and conversed with her, were entirely convinced of her veracity, and fully persuaded that something very extraordinary had taken place at the Rocks of Massabielle.

  However, the mere declaration of a little ignorant girl could not suffice to establish a fact so entirely out of the ordinary course of things.  Stronger proofs were necessary than the word of a child. 

  Besides, what was the nature of this Apparition, even granting its reality?  Was it a spirit of light, or an angel from the abyss?  Was it not some soul in a state of suffering wandering to and fro and demanding the prayers of others?  Or further, such or such a one who had died long ago in the country in the odor of piety, and whose glory was now being made manifest?  Faith and superstition–each proposed their hypotheses.

  Might it have been the funereal ceremonies of Ash-Wednesday which served to incline a young girl and a lady of Lourdes to one of these solutions? Did the glittering whiteness of the attire of the Apparition suggest to their minds the idea of a shroud and a phantom?  We know not. The young girl was called Antoinette Peyret, a member of the Congregation of the Children of Mary;  the other was Madame Millet.

  “It is doubtless some soul from Purgatory which entreats for Masses,” thought they.

  And they went in search of Bernadette.

  “Ask this Lady who she is and what she wishes,” said they to her.  “Let her explain this to you, or, as you may not be able to understand her well, let her commit it to writing, which would be still better.”

  Bernadette, who was strongly urged by some internal impulse to re-visit the Grotto, obtained fresh permission from her parents, and the following morning at about six o’clock, with the break of dawn, after having assisted in the church at the half-past five o'clock Mass, she proceeded in the direction of the Grotto, accompanied by Antoinette Peyret and Madam Millet.