BERNADETTE had just set out on her return to Lourdes. In the immense crowd, which we have attempted to describe, and which was now slowly dispersing, the question was continually recurring, diversified with a thousand commentaries, “What could be the signification of the strange mysterious order given by the Apparition to the child the week before, an order reiterated several times and more especially that very day.” They examined all its details and weighed all its circumstances.
The Blessed Virgin, addressing herself to the daughter of man, and speaking perhaps to us all through her, had commanded Bernadette to turn her back on the Gave, to ascend towards the rock, even to the farthest corner of the Grotto, to drink, to eat of the plant, and to wash in the Fountain, which at that time was invisible to all eyes. The child had obeyed in every particular the divine voice. She had scaled the steep ascent. She had eaten of the plant. She had scooped out the earth. The water had burst forth, at first feeble and turbid, afterwards in greater abundance and clearer; and in proportion as it was drawn, it had become in a few days a copious and magnificent jet-ď eau, clear as crystal—a stream of life for the sick and infirm.
It required no profound knowledge of the science of Symbolism to comprehend the deep meaning, so admirably adapted to the times, of this order, in which the imbecility of philosophy could detect only what was fantastic.
What is the evil of modern societies? In the order of ideas, is it not pride? We are now living in days when man makes himself God. In the order of morals, is it not the most unbridled sensuality, the love of everything which is in its nature transitory? What is the cause, and what is the object of this prodigious activity, this marvelous industry which distracts the world? Man wishes enjoyment. Through so many fatigues, he seeks physical comforts, pleasures, and the satisfaction of his most material and most selfish instincts. He places the aim and object of his wishes here below, as if he were to live for ever. And this is why he never dreams of directing his steps towards the Church, the suspicion never having once crossed him that She alone possesses the secret of true life and endless happiness.
“O senseless mortals,” says the Mother of the human race, “go not to quench your thirst at the Gave, whose waters fleet rapidly by; with those ephemeral passions which falsely promise you ‘always,’ while the apparent life of the senses is but a kind of death; with those material joys, which destroy the spirit; with those waters which irritate your thirst instead of appeasing it; with those unavailing waters which afford you but a momentary illusion, and leave you in the same state of misery, wretchedness and want you experienced before! Forsake those tumultuous and agitated waves, turn your back on those billows which soon sink for ever, and on that torrent which flings itself headlong into the abyss. Come to the Fountain which quenches your thirst and calms your mind, which heals you and brings you back to life. Come and drink at the Fountain which dispenses true joy and true life, that Fountain which gushes from the unchangeable Rock on which the Church has laid her eternal foundations. Come and drink from and wash yourselves in the gushing Fountain. . . .
“Drink at the Fountain! But where is it? Where, then, in the rock of the Church is that Spring of unheard-of graces? Alas! the times are past and gone when the Church restored the power of walking to the paralytic, and sight to the blind! In vain do we fix our eyes on the unchangeable rock, our eyes do not perceive that miraculous Fountain in which the sick are healed. Either it never was in existence or its source has been dry for the last eighteen hundred years.”
Such is the view taken by the world.
“Ask and you shall receive,” say the Holy Scriptures. “If prodigies do not arise in the midst of you, as in the time of the Apostles, it is so because, being devoted to mere sensual existence, and refusing to admit anything you cannot actually see with your eyes, you do not seek for the miraculous fountain in the secrets of divine goodness. You do not see the water, you say, gush forth in the mysterious corner of the Sanctuary? Notwithstanding this, only believe, O Bernadette, and all ye children of men. Come and draw from it with the entire faith which the sucking-babe has when he glues his lips to his mother’s breast. What is Providence but our Mother? See, then, the Fountain how it gushes forth and increases in volume as its water is drawn from it, precisely in the same manner as the milk of a mother flows to the lips of her infant.”
“Drink! But this water which issues from the rock passes through impure elements! The Clergy have a thousand human thoughts and peculiar ideas which have naught to do with heaven. They have impregnated the divine Spring with earth. Wash myself in it? Ah! I am more highly educated, less sullied by vice and more noble-minded than this priest!”
“Proud wretch, art thou not also formed of earthly clay? Memento quod pulvis es. Eat of the plant, humiliate thyself, and be mindful of thy origin. Does not everything with which thou art nourished pass through the earth, and does not thy daily subsistence proceed always from the clay of which thou wert formed?
“Is the Spring dried up? Humble faith will cause it to gush forth anew. Is it muddy? Is it impure? Drink, then, copious draughts from it, and it will become clear, transparent and luminous, and the sick and the infirm will be healed by its waters. How plain is the teaching given to all the faithful! Would you bring them back to a state of Apostolical virtue? Would you sanctify the human element of the Church? Partake of the Sacraments which are dispensed by the Priesthood. Be only sheep, and you will have pastors. Wash yourselves in the soul of your priest, and it will purify itself while it is working your purification. You have suffered the Fountain of Miracles to be lost, owing to your not availing yourselves of its use. It is by the reverse of this conduct, it is by using it that you must find it again. Quærite et invenietis. If you would have the gate opened to you, you must knock. If you would receive, you must demand.”
