THE MAGIC OF LOURDES

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXV, Issue 3960, 17 June 1913, Page 3

THE MAGIC OF LOURDES

(By H. Scheffiaur in “T.lVs Weekly”) The tUftin, heaving and panting like a sick thing, brouglifc me down from I’arbes to tile bank's of the Cave. I mingled, with the life of Lourdes and . breathed its estatic, mediaeval air. The town - began to reveal the sources of its power.- I was plunged into an atmosphere of flame, flame ,by whose light strange texts might be deciphered. In 1858 this .astonishing Lourdes was a tiny hamlet with a handful of peasants, whose primitive houses huddled at the foot of its picturesque old citadel close to the foreposts of the Pyrenees. Now it is a gleaming stronghold of the Homan Church. There the red coal of faith has been blown into a colossal beacon which draws multitures of the miserable from the ends of the earth. It has become the greatest clinic in the world. The city is itself a miracle. All its glory has grown out of the vision which the dull-witted, illiterate, sickly little peasant girl, Barnadette Soubirous, declared she had seen 'in the Grotto of -Mass ahiel I e on the afternoon of February 11th, 185 S. An apparition rose before her in a great burst of light, said Bernadette—a woman of snow-white loveliness, clad im shimmering robes, with a blue scarf and a rosary. Golden roses quivered upon her feet. >She appeared to the little shepherdess on eighteen different occasions. ‘T desire that a church be built on this rock,” the Virgin remarked one day. Then, later; ‘T wish many people to come hither in processions.” The church, after many bitter feuds, was built, the people flocked to the Cave, Bernadette became a nun. Now, year after year, vast multitudes of pilgrims come to worship the Lady of- Lourdes. The pretty .town is black with the swarms of the faithful. Incessantly the hosannahs, the aves and invocations go whirling up past the mountain peaks. The altars and the grotto blaze with galaxies of candle-flames. Heaven is stormed by assaults of prayer, by clouds of incense, by salvoes of song, and the fierce, fathomless lusting of the sick after health. The clearest, most scientific mind cannot escape this hurricane of- emotion, wonder, and superstition. All things help to subdue the reason and play upon the naked nerves of faith and feeling. 'The romantic situation of the town, with its central eminence and old fortress, the stupendous background of the snow-draped Pyrenees, and .the 'everlasting chant of the turbulent Cave, furnish a most dramatic setting. The imposing esplanades, approaches, and terraces of the Basilica are like a scene set by Reinhardt for some immense mediaeval spectacle. The hosts of rapt worshippers wind in endless processions, or mass themselves into human seas, over which sweep tempests of prayer. The pitiful pageants of the sick and crippled are full of the wild and formless drama life flings into the world, the blunders of the gods, the raw stuff or human tragedy, contrasted with the pomp and splendour of the Princes of the Church. There were no sensational ‘miracles.” Rarely it happens that some cripple throws his crutches into the air with a shout, or that some wasted body feels the overwhelming ecstasy that blazes like lightning through the stricken flesh, r.nd makes it bloom anew. In the history of Lcaides, there have been only some six or seven miracles accepted as authentic by the Church, and the greatness of those took place in Belgium, at the Lourdes Grotto of Oostaeker. Still, every week fresh crutches and trusses are added: to the trophies that hang above the smoke-blackened mouth of the Grotto. The famous annual White Train- from Paris-, with its ‘‘grands malades” and many other rolling Lazarettos, bring their burdens of the mortally sick to be laid at the feet of the Madonna in her rocky niche under the Basilica —that gorgeous treasure-house of gold, marble, and bronze' of silken banners and wax lights. Blandly the Virgin smiles above the eloucls of incense, the piles of flowers, the blazing pyramids of tapers—tiny papers that burn for an hour, and gigante pillars of wax that burn for a month. Her oblivious eyes are directed to Heaven, and not upon the eager faces and bowed forms of the priests and pilgrims. A heart-broken-mother holds up her shrivelled babe to the placid Madonna, and the babe dies like a moth in her arms; a gross “roue,” rolling in torment from the effects of his excesses, grows suddenly well. Here, an old- beggar with distorted limbs, kisses the rock, worn smooth and blank by human lips. Beside him kneels a bearded man with a stern and rugged face. If is England’s premier nobleman, the Duke of Norfolk.

The .litter-bearers, many of tliem wealthy and distinguished men, or of noble birth, help to transport the sick on stretchers, or in wheel-chairs. It is a melancholy procession. Here are livid consumptives, women with cancers or tumors, victims of the terrible lupus, paralytics, epileptics, rheumatic sufferers, the lame, the halt, the blind, and many blighted children with withered limbs like human spiders. There are also the sick of soul, and those who lie pent in hells of hopeless love, or writhe beneath the curse of nervous disorders. Lourdes flaunts its thousands of sufferers in the face of Heaven, stretches them like human sacrifices at the feet' of the Virgin—tho Holy Woman who was born of woman, and like themselves, torn by affliction. In their simple hearts, they feel that she must understand their pitiful cries, and fill up with mercy tho abysses of their desire! Every afternoon there is the Procession of the Holy Sacrament. It is then that most of the cures are said to take place. The.sick border the great square in front of the Rosary Chapel. A bishop or cardinal, in brilliant stole and alb, holds' aloft the glittering monstrance, passes before the afflicted, and blesses them with the sign of the cross. Priests chant, incense fumes, the huge crowd falls to its knees. In the centre of the open space stands an abbe invoking Heaven with incessant, reiterating cries :

“Mother of our Saviour, pray for us.” “Mother most pure, pray for us!” “Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us!” The crowd repeats the passionate, hypnotic, words, a deep mutter„ rolls up to the clouds. At night there is always a torchlight procession—a. majestic spectacle. I shall never forget tho great pageant of fifteen thousand Basque pilgrims from Bayonne, all men. They carried tapers with paper shields, and sang the “Ave Maria.” They made a broad river of dancing flame that poured down the avenues and up again, then ascended the inclines towards the white Basilica, and wound down once more until it gathered into a great lake of golden stars before the broacl steps of the Rosary Chapel. On the summit of the Pic du Jer an enormous cross blazed against the skies, and the entire front of the Basilica stood theoretically outlined in electric light. A pale, unearthly glow from a concealed reflector bathed the -spire. “Ave! Ave! Ave! Ma—-ri— a!”—the anthem mounted to the stars. An emotion of thrilling ecstasy, abandon, and exultation seized every heart. Aiid all that night those sturdy, primitive Basques lay in the open, sleeping or praying in the face of the mountains. Every year, these hopeful pilgrimages in quest of the Holy Grail of Health wind their way to Lourdes. Thus countless souls who believe and question "not have their iron afflictions gilded with the light of a sun which never sst&' until it goes down beyond the horizons of death.