THE miraculous cures were counted by the hundreds. It was impossible to attempt to establish the truth of all. The Episcopal Commissioners subjected thirty of them to a most minute scrutiny. They displayed extreme strictness in their investigation, and only admitted the Supernatural when it would have been impossible to have done otherwise. They rejected, for instance, all such cures as could not claim to have been effected almost instantaneously, but had been accomplished by slow degrees, as also all such as had been obtained in union with medical treatment, however unavailing the latter might have been up to that period. “Although the inefficacy of the remedies prescribed by medical science had been satisfactorily shown,”―we quote from the Report drawn up by the Secretary of the Commission,―“it was not possible, in that case, strictly and exclusively, to attribute the cure to the supernatural virtue of the water of the Grotto, which had been used simultaneously.”
Further, there had been pointed out to the Commissioners, as possessing a miraculous character, sundry favors of a spiritual nature, singular graces and unhoped-for conversions. It was difficult to establish judicially these dramas which were enacted in the secret recesses of the human soul, and were therefore not subject to any external control. Although such occurrences, such changes of heart are sometimes more marvelous and astonishing than the straightening of a limb or the cessation of some physical malady, the Commissioners judged wisely that they ought not to be included in the solemn and public inquiry with which the Bishop had charged them.
In their report to Monseigneur Laurence, the Commissioners, in concert with the medical men, divided into three categories the cures which they had investigated and of which they had furnished ample details in their official documents, which were all signed by the persons cured and by numerous witnesses.
The first category comprehended such cures as, however striking their nature, were susceptible of a natural explanation. They were in number six, and comprised those of Jeanne Marie Araquè, the widow of M. Crozat, Blaise Maumus, and of a child called Lafitte, all three residents at Lourdes; of a child called Lasbareilles, of Gez; of Jean Crasus, of Arcizan-Avant, and lastly of Jeanne Pomièr, of Loubajac.
The second category was composed of cures with regard to which the Commissioners were inclined to admit supernatural agency. In this number we find as follows: Jean Pierre Malon, Jeanne Marie Daube, wife of a man called Vendome, Bernarde Soubies and Pauline Bordeaux, all of Lourdes; Jean-Marie Amaré, of Beaucens; Marcelle Peyrègne, of Agos; Jeanne-Marie Massot Bordenave, of Arras; Jeanne Gezma and Auguste Bordes, of Pontacq.
“The majority of these facts”―as we learn from the medical investigation―“furnish almost all the conditions necessary for their admission into the supernatural order of things. It may be considered that, in rejecting them, we have acted with too much caution and have pushed our conscientiousness to extremes. But far from complaining of being so reproached, we congratulate ourselves on it, being fully convinced that in matters of this importance to be strict is to follow the dictates of prudence.”
Under such circumstances, a natural explanation, however improbable, but still within the range of possibility, sufficed to prevent the Commissioners from declaring the Miracle. The fact was then ranked by them in the category we have just pointed out.
The third class comprised those cures which displayed in the most evident and undeniable manner the supernatural character. There were fifteen of them, and we subjoin the names of those cured: Blaisette Soupenne, Benoite Cazeaux, Jeanne Crassus, wife of a man called Crozat, Louis Bourriette, the child Justin Beauhohorts, Fabien and Suzanne Baron, all of Lourdes; Mme. Rizan and Henry Busquet of Nay; Catherine Latapie, of Loubajac; Madam Lanou of Bordères; Marianne Garrot and Denys Bouchet of Lamarque; Jean-Maria Tambourné of Saint Justin; Mlle. Moreau de Sazenay of Tartas; and Paschaline Abbadee of Rabastens. All these cures were pronounced to have been incontestably miraculous.
“The maladies by which those who were favored with such sudden and striking cures were for the most part of very different natures,” as we gather from the report of the Commission. They assumed very different characters. Some of them belonged to internal, others to external pathology.
These affections, however, though of such different kinds have been cured by the use of one and the same element, sometimes externally, sometimes internally, and in some cases in both ways simultaneously.
“Now, in the natural and scientific order, besides the fact of each remedy only being applied in a particular manner, it is clear that it only possesses one special virtue adapted to such or such a malady, but which is inefficacious, if not injurious, in all other cases. It is not, therefore, owing to any peculiar property inherent in its composition, that the water of Massabielle has succeeded in producing such numerous, extraordinary and different cures, and in suddenly putting to flight so many maladies of different and sometimes diametrically opposite nature.
“And this is the more remarkable,” the report added, “since Science has authoritatively declared on the analysis furnished by the most eminent men, that this water does not in itself contain any mineral or therapeutic properties, and that, chemically speaking, it is nothing but pure water.”
Medical science did not arrive less decidedly at the same conclusions after a mature and conscientious examination of these miraculous cures.
“On glancing at these cures as a whole,” said the medical report, “one is struck at once with the facility, promptitude, and instantaneousness with which they issue from the bosom of their producing cause; with the violation and utter upsetting of all therapeutic methods which prevail in their accomplishment; with the contradictions which the precepts and previsions of science meet with; with that kind of disdain which makes sport of the long continuance, extent and resistance of the malady; with the hidden, but at the same time, real care with which the circumstances are arranged and combined, in order to show that in the cure which is being effected there is something going on quite out of the ordinary course of nature. Such phenomena are beyond the range of human intellect. How, in fact, can it comprehend the opposition which exists:
“Between the simplicity of the means and the grandeur of the result?
“Between the unity of the remedy and the diversity of the maladies?
“Between the short duration of the application of the curative agent and the slowness of the treatment prescribed by art or science?
“Between the sudden efficacy of the former and the tedious failure of the latter?
“Between the chronic nature of the disease and the instantaneousness of the cure?
“There is in all this a contingent Force superior to those which have been dispensed to nature and consequently foreign to the water which it employs for the manifestation of its power.”
All these striking facts, so carefully and publicly verified; this investigation which had been so completely, conscientiously and minutely pursued by the Commission, and the declarations and conclusions which had been so decidedly pronounced by men deeply versed in medical and chemical science, could not fail of producing conviction in the mind of the bishop. His doubts were entirely cleared up.
However, actuated by that spirit of extreme prudence which we have often had occasion to point out to our readers in the course of this narration, Mgr. Laurence, before solemnly pronouncing the Episcopal Verdict on this important question, wished that a new sanction should be conferred on these miraculous events―the sanction of time.
He suffered three years to elapse without taking any further steps.
A second investigation was then instituted. The cures, which we indicated above as supernatural, still remained in full force. No one came forward to withdraw his original testimony or to contest the facts. The works of Him who reigns in eternity have nothing to fear from the test of time.
At length, furnished with such a superabundant series of demonstrations and proofs amounting to certainty, Mgr. Laurence pronounced the judgment which was expected from him. We give a general summary of it in Part VII.
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