On the morning of the next day, the crowd was assembled at the Grotto before the sun had risen. Bernadette repaired to her post with that calm simplicity of manner which remained unchanged amid the threatening hostility of some and the enthusiastic veneration of others. The sorrow and anguish of the previous day had left some traces on her countenance. She still feared she should see the Apparition no more; and whatever were her hopes, she scarcely dared to give way to them.
She kneeled down with humility, supporting in one hand a taper which she had brought with her, or had been given to her, while, in the other, she held her chaplet.
The weather was calm, and the flame of the taper did not mount more straight to heaven than did the prayer of this soul towards those invisible regions from which the blessed Apparition was wont to descend. Doubtless it must have been so; for scarcely had the child prostrated herself, when the ineffable Beauty, whose return she was then so ardently invoking, manifested herself to her eyes and transported her with ravishment. The august Sovereign of Paradise gazed on the child of this world with an expression of indescribable tenderness, appearing to love her still more since she had suffered. She, the greatest, the most sublime, the most powerful of created Beings; She, whose glory swaying all ages and filling eternity, makes all other glory grow pale, or rather disappear; She, the Daughter, Spouse and Mother of God, seemed to wish to introduce, as it were, a kind of intimacy and familiarity into the feelings which united her with this little unknown and ignorant child, this lowly shepherd-girl. She addressed her by her name, with that sweet, harmonious voice, the deep charm of which ravishes the ear of the Angels.
“Bernadette,” said the divine Mother.
“I am here,” replied the child.
“I have to tell you a secret, for you alone and concerning you alone. Do you promise me never to repeat it to anyone in the world?”
“I promise you,” said Bernadette.
The dialogue continued, and entered into a profound mystery, which it is neither possible nor allowable for us to fathom.
Whatever it may have been, when this kind of intimacy had been established, the Queen of the eternal Realm gazed on this little girl, who the day before had suffered, and was destined again to suffer, for love of Her; and it pleased Her to choose her as an embassadress to communicate one of Her wishes to mankind.
“And now, my child,” said she to Bernadette, “go, go to the Priests and tell them to raise a chapel to me here.” And as She pronounced these words the expression of her countenance, her glance and her gesture, seemed to promise that she would pour out there numberless graces.
After these words, she disappeared and the countenance of Bernadette re-entered into the shade, as the earth at night, when the sun has gradually worn away in the depths of the horizon.
The multitude pressed round the child, who had but just now been transfigured in ecstacy. The hearts of all were touched with emotion. Questions were showered upon her from all quarters. They did not ask her if the vision had taken place; for at the moment of her ecstacy, all had understood, had been conscious that the Apparition was there; but they wished to know the words which had been uttered. Every one made efforts to approach the child and to hear what she said.
“What did she say to you? What did the Vision say to you?” was a question which escaped from the mouths of all.
“She told me two things—the one for myself alone, the other for the Priests; and I am going to them immediately,” replied Bernadette, who was in haste to take the road to Lourdes in order to deliver her message.
She was astonished on that, as on the preceding days, that every one did not hear the dialogue and see the “Lady.” “The vision speaks loud enough for others to hear,” she said; “and I also speak in my ordinary tone of voice.” In fact, during the ecstacy, every one perceived the child’s lips to move, but that was all; no one could distinguish any words. In this mystic state, the senses are, in a manner, spiritualized, and the realities which strike them are absolutely imperceptible by the gross organs of our fallen nature. Bernadette saw and heard, she spoke herself; and yet no one around her could distinguish the sound of her voice or the form of the Apparition. Was Bernadette, then, mistaken? No; she alone grasped the truth. She alone, aided by spiritual succor and ecstatic grace, perceived momentarily that which escaped the senses of all others; precisely as the astronomer, furnished with the material assistance of his telescope, contemplates for an instant in the heavens the vast yet distant star which is invisible to the eyes of the vulgar. Outside her state of ecstacy she saw nothing; exactly as the astronomer without the powerful optical instrument, which increases a hundred-fold the power of his eye, is as powerless to discover a hidden star as his next neighbor.
