ELEVEN years have now elapsed since the Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin. The vast temple is nearly finished. It only requires to be roofed, and for a long time the Holy Sacrifice has been celebrated at all the altars of the subterranean crypt. Diocesan Missionaries from the house of Garaison have been installed by the bishop at a few paces from the Grotto and the Church, in order to distribute to the pilgrims the apostolic word, the sacraments and the body of our Lord.
The pilgrimages have become developed in proportions perhaps unexampled in the universe, for never, until our own time, had these vast movements of popular faith the omnipotent means of transport invented by modern science at their disposal. The railroad of the Pyrenees―for which a line more direct and less costly had been marked before hand between Tarbes and Pau―has made a detour in order to have a station at Lourdes, where it sets down incessantly innumerable travelers, who come from every point of the horizon to invoke the Virgin who appeared at the Grotto, and to seek the cure of their maladies. They throng there not only from the different provinces of France, but even from England, Belgium, Spain, Russia and Germany. From the interior of distant America―both north and south―pious Christians have started and traversed oceans in order to repair to the Grotto of Lourdes and kneel before those celebrated Rocks, which the Mother of God has sanctified by touching them. Often those who cannot come themselves, write to the missionaries requesting them to forward a little of this miraculous water to their homes. It is sent to every part of the world.
Although Lourdes is but a small town, there is on the road leading to the Grotto, a perpetual transit to and fro, a prodigious movement of men, women, priests, and carriages, as in the streets of a thickly populous city.
As soon as the fine weather returns and the sun, having put winter to flight, opens in the midst of flowers, the azure and golden gates of spring, the Christians of those districts commence to move in order to make their pilgrimage to Massabielle, no longer, as during the winter, singly, but in immense caravans. From a circumference of ten, twelve or fifteen leagues, the hardy people of the Mountain arrive on foot in troops of a thousand or two thousand. They start the day before in the evening, and march through the night by starlight, like the shepherds of Judæa going to the crib of Bethlehem to adore the birth of the Infant God. They descend from the lofty mountain peaks, toil up the deep valleys, and file along the banks of streams and rivers, singing hymns to God. And as they pass, the sleeping herds of cattle awake, and the melancholy sound of their sonorous bells echo through the lonely wastes. At day-break, the pilgrims arrive at Lourdes. They form themselves into a procession, and unfurl their banners to proceed to the Grotto. The men in blue caps, with coarse nailed shoes covered with the dust of their midnight march, support themselves on their knotted staves, bearing for the most part on their shoulders the provisions necessary for their journey. The women wear the white or red capulet. Some of them are laden with the sweet burden of their infants. All this multitude advances slowly in a state of recollection chanting the Litanies of the Blessed Virgin.
At Massabielle, they listen to the Mass, kneel at the holy table and drink at the miraculous Fountain. Afterwards they disperse in groups, of their own family or of their friends, on the lawns which surround the Grotto, and, spreading on the grass the provisions they have brought with them, seat themselves on the verdant carpet of the meadows. Thus, on the banks of the Gave, beneath the shade of those blessed rocks, they realize, in their frugal repast, those fraternal love-feasts of which the Christians of primitive times have left us the tradition. Then, after having received the benediction afresh, and having kneeled down for the last time, they resume, with happy hearts, the road homewards.
Thus do the people of the Pyrenees come to the Grotto. But it is not from that quarter that the greatest multitudes arrive. From a distance of sixty to eighty leagues there arrive every day immense processions, transported on the swift wings of steam. We have seen them come from Bayonne, Peyrehorade, La Teste, Arcachon and Bordeaux. They will come from Paris. At the request of the Faithful, the railroad of the South organizes special trains, devoted exclusively to this vast and pious movement of Catholic Faith. On the arrival of these trains, the bells of Lourdes are pealed. And from these black cars there issue and arrange themselves in procession, in the court of the railway-station, young girls dressed in white, wives, widows, children, men of mature age, as well as those bent with years, and the Clergy clothed in their sacred robes. Banners and standards float in the air. There is seen passing by the Cross of Christ, the statue of the Virgin, the image of the Saints. Chants to the honor of Mary burst from the lips of all. The endless procession traverses the town, which, on those days, presents the appearance of a holy city, like Rome or Jerusalem. The heart swells at the sight; it mounts towards God, and feels carried, of its own accord, to those sublime heights where tears come to the eye and where the soul is deliciously oppressed by the sensible presence of the Lord Jesus. For a moment one believes he has had a Vision of Paradise.
