Lourdes, Robert Hugh Benson [good beach reads TXT] 📗

Sancto._"

"_Sicut erat in principio et nunc et semper, et in sæcula sæculorum. Amen._"

Then again the single voice and the multitudinous answer:

"_Vous êtes la Résurrection et la Vie!_"

And then an adjuration to her whom He gave to be our Mother.

"_Mère du Sauveur, priez pour nous!_"

"_Salut des Infirmes, priez pour nous!_"

Then once more the singing; then the cry, more touching than all:

"_Seigneur, guérissez nos malades!_"

"_Seigneur, guérissez nos malades!_"

Then the kindling shout that brought the blood to ten thousand faces:

"_Hosanna! Hosanna au Fils de David!_" (I shook to hear it).

"_Hosanna!_" cried the priest, rising from his knees with arms flung wide.

"_Hosanna!_" roared the people, swift as an echo.

"_Hosanna! Hosanna!_" crashed out again and again, like great artillery.

Yet there was no movement among those piteous prostrate lines. The Bishop, the _ombrellino_ over him, passed on slowly round the circle; and the people cried to Him whom he bore, as they cried two thousand years ago on the road to the city of David. Surely He will be pitiful upon this day--the Jubilee Year of His Mother's graciousness, the octave of her assumption to sit with Him on His throne!

"_Mère du Sauveur, priez pour nous!_"

"_Jésus, vous êtes mon Seigneur et mon Dieu!_"

Yet there was no movement.

If ever "suggestion" could work a miracle, it must work it now. "We expect the miracles during the procession to-morrow and on Sunday," a priest had said to me on the previous day. And there I stood, one of a hundred thousand, confident in expectation, thrilled by that voice, nothing doubting or fearing; there were the sick beneath me, answering weakly and wildly to the crying of the priest; and yet there was no movement, no sudden leap of a sick man from his bed as Jesus went by, no vibrating scream of joy--"_Je suis guéri! Je suis guéri!_"--no tumultuous rush to the place, and the roar of the _Magnificat_, as we had been led to expect.

The end was coming near now. The monstrance had reached the image once again, and was advancing down the middle. The voice of the priest grew more passionate still, as he tossed his arms and cried for mercy

"_Jésus, ayez pitié de nous!--ayez pitié[Transcriber's Note: original had "pitiê"] de nous!_"

And the people, frantic with ardour and desire, answered him in a voice of thunder:

"_Ayez pitié de nous!--ayez pitié de nous!_"

And now up the steps came the grave group to where Jesus would at least bless His own, though He would not heal them; and the priest in the midst, with one last cry, gave glory to Him who must be served through whatever misery:

"_Hosanna! Hosanna au Fils de David!_"

Surely that must touch the Sacred Heart! Will not His Mother say one word?

"_Hosanna! Hosanna au Fils de David!_"

"_Hosanna!_" cried the priest.

"_Hosanna!_" cried the people.

"_Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna!..._"

One articulate roar of disappointed praise, and then--_Tantum ergo Sacramentum!_ rose in its solemnity.

When Benediction was over, I went back to the Bureau; but there was little to be seen there. No, there were no miracles to-day, I was told--or hardly one. Perhaps one in the morning. It was not known.

Several Bishops were there again, listening to the talk of the doctors, and the description of certain cases on previous days. Père Salvator, the Capuchin, was there again; as also the tall bearded Assumptionist Father of whom I have spoken. But there was not a great deal of interest or excitement. I had the pleasure of talking a while with the Bishop of Tarbes, who introduced me again to the Capuchin, and retold his story.

But I was a little unhappy. The miracle was that I was not more so. I had expected so much: I had seen nothing.

I talked to Dr. Cox also before leaving.

"No," he told me, "there is hardly one miracle to-day. We are doubtful, too, about that leg that was seven centimetres too short."

"And is it true that Mademoiselle Bardou is not cured?" (A doctor had been giving us certain evidence a few minutes before).

"I am afraid so. It was probably a case of intense subjective excitement. But it may be an amelioration. We do not know yet. The real work of investigating comes afterwards."

How arbitrary it all seemed, I thought, as I walked home to dinner. That morning, on my way from the Bureau, I had seen a great company of white banners moving together; and, on inquiry, had found that these were the _miraculés_ chiefly of previous years--about three hundred and fifty in number.[6] They formed a considerably large procession. I had looked at their faces: there were many more women than men (as there were upon Calvary). But as I watched them I could not conceive upon what principle the Supernatural had suddenly descended on this and not on that. "Two men in one bed.... Two women grinding at the mill.... One is taken and the other left." Here were persons of all ages--from six to eighty, I should guess--of all characters, ranks, experiences; of both sexes. Some were religious, some grocers, some of the nobility, a retired soldier or two, and so on. They were not distinguished for holiness, it seemed. I had heard heartbreaking little stories of the ten lepers over again--one grateful, nine selfish. One or two of the girls, I heard, had had their heads turned by flattery and congratulation; they had begun to give themselves airs.

And, now again, here was this day, this almost obvious occasion. It was the Jubilee Year; everything was about on a double scale. And nothing had happened! Further, five of the sick had actually died at Lourdes during their first night there. To come so far and to die!

On what principle, then, did God act? Then I suddenly understood, not God's principles, but my own; and I went home both ashamed and comforted.


FOOTNOTES:

[6] The official numbers of those at the afternoon procession were 341.



VI.


I said a midnight Mass that night in the same chapel of the Rosary Church as on the previous morning. Again the crush was terrific. On the steps of the church I saw a friar hearing a confession; and on entering I found High Mass proceeding in the body of the church itself, with a congregation so large and so worn-out that many were sleeping in constrained attitudes among the seats. In fact, I was informed, since the sleeping accommodation of Lourdes could not possibly provide for so large a pilgrimage, there were many hundreds, at least, who slept where they could--on the steps of churches, under trees and rocks, and by the banks of the river.

I was served at my Mass by a Scottish priest, immediately afterwards I served his at the same altar. While vesting, I noticed a priest at the high altar of this little chapel reading out acts of prayer, to which the congregation responded; and learned that two persons who had been received into the Church on that day were to make their First Communion. As midnight struck, simultaneously from the seven altars came seven voices:

"_In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen._"

Once more, on returning home and going to bed a little after one o'clock in the morning, the last sound that I heard was of the "_Gloria Patri_" being sung by other pilgrims also returning to their lodging.

After coffee, a few hours later, I went down again to the square. It was Sunday, and a Pontifical High Mass was being sung on the steps of the Rosary Church. As usual, the crowd filled the square, and I could hardly penetrate for a while beyond the fringe; but it was a new experience to hear that vast congregation in the open air responding with one giant voice to the plain-song of the Mass. It was astonishing what expression showed itself in the singing. The _Sanctus_ was one of the most impressive peals of worship and adoration that I have ever heard. At the close of the Mass, all the bishops present near the altar--I counted six or seven--turned and gave the blessing simultaneously. On the two great curves that led up to the basilica were grouped the white banners of the _miraculés_.

Soon after arriving at the Bureau a very strange and quiet little incident happened. A woman with a yellowish face, to which the colour was slowly returning, came in and sat down to give her evidence. She declared to us that during the procession yesterday she had been cured of a tumour on the liver. She had suddenly experienced an overwhelming sense of relief, and had walked home completely restored to health. On being asked why she did not present herself at the Bureau, she answered that she did not think of it: she had just gone home. I have not yet heard whether this was a true cure or not; all I can say at present is I was as much impressed by her simple and natural bearing, her entire self-possession, and the absence of excitement, as by anything I saw at Lourdes. I cannot conceive such a woman suffering from an illusion.

A few minutes later Dr. Cox called to me, and writing on a card, handed it to me, telling me it would admit me to the _piscines_ for a bath. I had asked for this previously; but had been told it was not certain, owing to the crush of patients, whether it could be granted. I set out immediately to the _piscines_.

There are, as I have said, three compartments in the building called the _piscines_. That on the left is for women; in the middle, for children and for those who do not undergo complete immersion; on the right, for men. It was into this last, then, that I went, when I had forced my way through the crowd, and passed the open court where the priests prayed. It was a little paved place like a chapel, with a curtain hung immediately before the door. When I had passed this, I saw at the farther end, three or four yards away, was a deepish trough, wide and long enough to hold one person. Steps went down on either side of it, for the attendants. Immediately above the bath, on the wall, was a statue of Our Lady; and beneath it a placard of prayers, large enough to be read at a little distance.

There were about half a dozen people in the place--two or three priests and three or four patients. One of the priests, I was relieved to see, was the Scotsman whose Mass I had served the previous midnight. He was in his soutane, with his sleeves rolled up to the elbow. He gave me my directions, and while I made ready I watched the patients. There was one lame man, just beside me, beginning to dress; two tiny boys, and a young man who touched me more than I can say. He was standing by the head of the bath, holding a basin in one hand and a little image of our Lady in the other, and was splashing water ingeniously with his fingers into his eyes; these were horribly inflamed, and I could see that he was blind. I cannot describe the passion with which he did this, seeming to stare all the while towards the image he held, and whispering out prayers in a quick undertone--hoping, no doubt, that his first sight would be the image of