The Sisters at the school, who had never witnessed the ecstasies of Bernadette, placed little or no faith in the Apparitions and detained her there longer than usual.
Besides, in matters of this nature, if the common people sometimes exhibit too much credulity, it is a fact—and the phenomenon, however surprising it appears at first, is indisputable—that Ecclesiastics and Religious of both sexes are very sceptical and loath to believe, and that, while admitting theoretically the possibility of such divine manifestations, they often demand a severity of proof which may be regarded as excessive. The Sisters accordingly, added their formal interdiction to that of Bernadette’s parents, telling her that all these visions were destitute of reality, and that either her brain was affected or she was guilty of falsehoods. One of them suspecting an imposture in things of so grave and sacred a nature, displayed much severity and treated the whole affair as a piece of trickery.
“Naughty child,” said she to her, “this is a pretty Carnival you are making in the holy season of Lent.”
Other persons who saw her during the hours of recreation, accused her of wishing to pass herself off as a saint, and of making sport of sacred things. The taunts of some of the children at the school were added to the bitter reproaches and humiliations with which she was already overwhelmed.
It was the will of God to try Bernadette. Having on the preceding days inundated her with consolation, He intended, in His wisdom, to leave her for a certain reason in a state of complete abandonment, a prey to railleries and insults, and to bring her in contact, alone and deserted as she was, with the hostility of all those by whom she was surrounded.
The unfortunate little girl suffered cruelly, not only from these external contrarieties, but perhaps still more from the internal anguish of her mind.
This childish shepherd-girl, unacquainted hitherto in her short life with any thing but physical evils, was now entering on a higher path and was beginning to experience tortures and distractions of another nature. On the one hand, she was unwilling to disobey the authority of her father or of the Sisters: while on the other, she could not endure the thought of failing in the promise she had made to the divine Apparition at the Grotto. A cruel struggle ensued in her young soul, hitherto so peaceful. It seemed to her as if she was oscillating hopelessly between two abysses equally fatal. To go to the Grotto was a sin against her father, not to go there was a sin against the vision which had come from on high. In either case, in her own point of view, it was evidently a sin against God. And yet, situated as she was, she must choose between the two; there was no middle course and it was impossible to avoid so fatal a choice. It is true, as we are informed by the Gospel, that what is impossible to man is possible to God. The morning passed away in distress of this nature, which was rendered the more painful and distracting from the fact of its arriving in a soul entirely fresh, at an age, habitually calm and pure, when impressions take such deep root and when the delicate fibres of the heart have not yet been rendered callous by long acquaintance with human suffering.
Towards the middle of the day the children returned home for a few moments to partake of their frugal meal.
Bernadette, her soul crushed between the two alternatives presented by her irremediable situation, walked slowly towards her home. From the tower of the Church at Lourdes the mid-day Angelus had just sounded.
At that moment an unaccountable power took possession of her all at once, acting not on her mind but her body, as an invisible arm might have done, and, driving her out of the road she was taking, forced her irresistibly in the direction of the path which lay on her right. She was impelled by it, seemingly, in the same way as a leaf, lying on the ground, is hurried along by the imperious blast of the wind. She could no more prevent herself advancing than if she had been placed suddenly on a most rapid descent. Her whole physical being was dragged towards the Grotto, to which this path led. She could not but walk, she was even obliged to run.
And yet the movement by which she was carried along was neither violent nor rough. It was irresistible; but it had nothing in it harsh or shocking to her who was under its control; on the contrary, it was supreme force co-existing with supreme mildness. The almighty hand rendered itself as soft as that of a mother, as if it had feared to injure so frail a child.
Providence, therefore, which directs all things, had solved the insoluble problem. The child, submitting to the will of her father, was not going to the Grotto, where her heart yearned to be; and yet carried away forcibly by the Angel of the Lord, she arrived there notwithstanding, thus fulfilling her promise to the Virgin without having willfully disobeyed the paternal command.
Such phenomena have been remarked more than once in the life of certain souls, whose deep purity has been pleasing to the heart of God. Saint Philip Neri, Saint Ida of Louvain, Saint Joseph of Cupertino, Saint Rose of Lima experienced impulses of a similar or analogous nature.
The humble heart of the child, bruised and deserted, began already to smile with hope in proportion as her steps approached the Grotto.
“There,” said she to herself, “I shall see the beloved Apparition once more; there I shall be consoled for everything—there I shall contemplate that beautiful countenance, the sight of which ravishes me with happiness. Boundless joy will ere long succeed these cruel sorrows, for the Lady will never desert me.”
Owing to her inexperience she was not aware that the Spirit of God breathes where it wills.
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