Every hour in the day he was thinking on the message addressed to him by the Blessed Virgin through the youthful Seer; every hour in the day he was thinking of those prodigious cures which had accompanied and followed the divine Apparition, of those countless miracles which he witnessed daily. He vowed his life to the execution of the orders of the mighty Queen of the Universe, and to the erection of a magnificent monument to her glory. Any delay, any slowness, even the loss of a single moment seemed to him to mark the ingratitude of men; and his heart, devoured with zeal for the house of God, often led to his being indignant, and manifested itself in severe admonitions.
His faith was absolute and replete with grandeur. He regarded with horror the wretched narrowness of human prudence, and he thundered against it with the holy disdain of one accustomed to view things according to the horizon of that sacred mountain, from whose height the Son of God preached the nothingness of earth and the reality of heaven: “Be not troubled. Seek first my kingdom and all the rest shall be added unto you.”
One day, just opposite the miraculous Fountain, in the middle of a group of ecclesiastics and clarics, an architect presented to him a plan—and it was by no means an ungraceful one—of a charming little church which he proposed building over the Grotto. The Curé Peyramale glanced at it and his face became flushed; with a gesture of impatience he crumpled up and tore the plan and threw the fragments into the Gave.
“What are you doing?” exclaimed the astonished architect.
“You see,” replied the priest, “I blushed at what human meanness presumes to offer to the Mother of my God, and I destroyed the miserable design. What we must have here in memory of the great events which have taken place, is not a little confined village church, but a temple of marble as large as the summit of the Rocks of Massabielle will afford room for, and as magnificent as your mind can possibly conceive. Now then, sir, as an architect let your genius indulge in the most daring conceptions, let nothing arrest its upward flight and let it give us a master-piece. Be sure of one thing, that were you Michael Angelo himself, it would be strangely unworthy of the Virgin who has appeared here.”
“But, sir,” observed every one to the Curé, “it would take millions to realize what you are speaking of.”
“He who caused a Spring of living water to gush forth from this barren rock will have no difficulty in rendering the hearts of believers generous,” replied the priest. “Go, and have no fears. Why do you tremble, Christians of little faith?”
The temple was erected in the proportions designed by the man of God.
Often the Curé, considering the different works in progress, used to say, “When will it be granted to me to be present, in the midst of Priests and the faithful, at the first procession which shall come to inaugurate in these blessed places, the public worship of the Catholic Church. Might I not in such a moment chant my Nunc Dimittis and expire with joy at such a feast.”
His eyes used to fill with tears at such thoughts. Never was any desire more ardent and more fondly dwelt on in the depth of a soul than this innocent wish of a heart entirely taken up with God.
Occasionally, at times when there were but few persons at the Rocks of Massabielle, a little girl came to kneel humbly before the place of the Apparition, and to drink at the spring. She was evidently sprung from the people and was poorly dressed. There was nothing to distinguish her from others, and unless some pilgrim happened to know her, or to inform others of her name, no one would have guessed that it was Bernadette. She who had been so highly privileged by the Lord, had returned to her primitive state of silence and obscurity. She continued to attend the schools of the Sisters, where she was the most simple of the scholars and would have wished to have been one of the most in the shade. The countless visits she received there did not trouble her peaceful soul, in which the memory of her glimpse of heaven and the image of the incomparable Virgin lived forever. The people, however, thronged to the spot from every direction, miracles were there accomplished, and the temple rose by degrees. And Bernadette, like the saintly Curé of Lourdes, looked forward to the day—the most fortunate to her next to those of the Divine visit—when she should, with her own eyes, see the Priests of the true God, conducting the faithful, headed by the Cross, and with banners floating in the air, to the Rock of the Apparition.
In fact, notwithstanding the bishop’s pastoral letter, the Church had not yet taken possession by any public ceremony of these forever sacred places. This, however, was solemnly done April 4, 1864, by the inauguration and benediction of a superb statue of the Blessed Virgin, which was placed, with all the pomp usual on such occasions, in the rustic niche wreathed with wild roses, where the Mother of God had made her appearance to the daughter of man.
The weather was magnificent. The sun of early spring had risen and was progressing through the azure dome of heaven, which was not specked with a single cloud.
The town of Lourdes was dressed with flowers, banners, garlands and triumphal arches. From the high tower of the parish church, from all the chapels of the town, and from all the churches of the neighborhood, joyous peals of bells burst forth. Vast multitudes had assembled to take part in this grand fête of earth and heaven. A procession such as never had been seen within the memory of man, started in order to proceed from the parish church of Lourdes to the Grotto of the Apparition. Bodies of troops, in all the splendor of military equipment, led the way. Immediately following them were the Brotherhoods of Lourdes, the mutual-aid societies; all the corporations of the adjoining districts, bearing their banners and cross; the Congregation of the Children of Mary, whose flowing robes shone like snow; the Sisters of Nevers with their long black veils; the Sisters of Charity, in large white caps; the Sisters of Saint Joseph, enveloped in their dark cloaks; the religious orders of men, Carmelites and teaching Brothers of the Christian Schools, immense multitudes of pilgrims, men, women and children, not forgetting old men: in all, fifty to sixty thousand human beings, ranged in two interminable files, wound along the road, strewed with flowers, leading to the illustrious Rocks of Massabielle. At intervals, choruses of human voices and bands of instrumental music made the air resound with triumphal marches, canticles, and all the outbursts of popular enthusiasm. Lastly, bringing up the rear of this unheard-of procession, the most eminent Prelate, Monseigneur Bertrand-Sévère Laurence, Bishop of Tarbes, surrounded by four hundred priests in full canonicals, by his grand vicars, and by the dignitaries of the chapter of his cathedral church, marched with solemn steps, wearing his mitre and attired in his pontifical robes, blessing with one hand the assembled people, while with the other he supported himself on his large golden crozier.
An indescribable emotion, a kind of intoxication such as is only known by Christian multitudes assembled in the sight of God, filled all hearts. In fact, the day of solemn triumph had come, after so many difficulties, so many struggles, so many obstacles. Tears of happiness, enthusiasm, and love, trickled down the cheeks of these masses of people, agitated by the breath of God.
What ineffable joy must, in the midst of this fête, have filled the heart of Bernadette, who, doubtless, marched at the head of the Congregation of the Children of Mary! What feelings of overwhelming felicity must have inundated the soul of the venerable Curé of Lourdes, as he chanted, without doubt, at the bishop’s side, the Hosanna of the Divine victory? Both of them having been partakers of the affliction, the moment was now come for both of them to be present at the glory.
Alas! Bernadette was sought for in vain among the Children of Mary; the Curé Peyramale was sought for in vain among the clergy who surrounded the Prelate. There are joys too great for earth and which are reserved for heaven. Here below, God refuses them even to his dearest sons.
At the very time when everything wore a festal air and the sun shone joyously on the triumph of the faithful, the Curé of Lourdes, attacked with a malady which was pronounced mortal, was the victim of the most terrible physical sufferings. He was lying stretched on his bed of pain, at the foot of which two religieuses connected with the hospital, prayed and watched day and night. He wished to have been lifted from his bed to have seen the grand cortège, but his strength failed him, and he had not even a passing glimpse of all its splendor. Through the closed curtains of his apartment, the joyous sound of the silvery bells only reached him like a funeral knell.
As to Bernadette, God marked His predilection for her—as is His wont to do with His elect—by causing her to pass through the grand trial of pain. While, presiding over the immense procession of the faithful, Monseigneur Laurence, Bishop of Tarbes, was going in the name of the Church to take possession of the Rocks of Massabielle and solemnly inaugurate the worship of the Virgin who had appeared to her, Bernadette, like the eminent Priest of whom we have just spoken, was brought low by sickness; and maternal Providence, fearing perhaps for her much-loved child the temptation of vain-glory, deprived her of the sight of those unheard-of fêtes, where she would have heard her own name re-echoed with acclamation by thousands of voices, and celebrated from the Christian pulpit by the ardent words of those who preached on the occasion. Too poor to receive proper attention at home, where neither she nor any of her family had ever wished to receive any pecuniary aid, Bernadette had been carried to the hospital, where she lay on the humble pallet of public charity, in the midst of poor creatures, whom this transitory world terms wretched, but whom Jesus Christ has blessed, by declaring them the inheritors of His eternal kingdom.
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