LOURDES: SOURCE OF THANKS.

 

The Lourdes grotto today

Note. In previous articles we commented on the apparitions of the Virgin of Guadalupe, now I want to comment on the apparitions of Lourdes where I recently went, I hope you like it and one day those who have not been can go.

—"I am the Immaculate Conception." "What do you say, proud girl?"

—So, suddenly, without greeting, Bernadette had entered the office of the parish priest of Lourdes, Rev. Peyrámale.

—"I am the Immaculate Conception." She told me these words.

-—A lady cannot be called that. You are wrong again. ¿Do you know what that means?

—No, sir priest.

—So, ¿how do you say what you don't understand?

—From the grotto until here I have not stopped repeating: "I am the Immaculate Conception."

—-Well, I'll see what has to be done.

And without further ado she said goodbye to Bernadette and her aunt Basilia who was accompanying her. The priest, who days before called the girl a liar, while maintaining her stern appearance, had become so excited, as he confessed moments after her, that she was on the verge of falling.

It was not be for lowerly. On December 8, 1854, Pius IX with the bull "Ineffabilis Deus" had proclaimed the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Dogma. Virgin, and at the age of four, today, March 25, the feast of the Annunciation, the Queen of Heaven herself deigns to go down to a grotto and, what no theologian had dreamed of, to stamp on that bull, as a rubric, the summarized formula: "I am the Immaculate Conception." (Years before, in 1830, he had signed the introduction to the bull, on the Miraculous Medal shown to an ignorant novice, with those words: "Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us..."

But what things, Lady; things of God! Couldn't you have taken a notary or monsignor as a notary? Any bishop and the Pope himself would have wished for it with all their soul, and we would have given them credit the first time. "I was chosen, St. Bernadette would later say, because she was the most ignorant." What things, Lord! What messengers do you choose: shepherds at your birth, women at the Resurrection..., and of course, it is difficult to believe them, like in Rué du Bac, La Salette, Fátima... Then you extend your hand and it is your prodigies that end up convincing. It's your style from Moses and Pharaoh, through the fishermen who became apostles. Nice lesson for us so lacking in humility, the indispensable virtue if we want to enter the kingdom of heaven like children.

 There are many other lessons that each apparition of the Virgin gives us. But let's start from the beginning in Lourdes, on the beautiful morning of Thursday, February 11, 1858.

Three girls looking for firewood

—What are you doing here with so much cold?

They were asked by a woman who was washing guts next to the Old Bridge, an ancient Roman bridge over the Gave River, which Bernadette, her sister Toneta and Juana Abadíe, a strong and lively 12-year-old friend, were going to cross.

—Let's go look for firewood.

—Go to Mr. Laffitte's meadow, he has pruned many trees and you will find them there.

 This meadow was an island formed below the bridge by the river Gave, the Marlasse stream, its tributary on the left, and the Savy canal, which takes water from the river before the bend it makes, feeds a mill and empties in the stream, from that point converted into a canal.

The girls entered the island by crossing the canal via the mill's walkway, and continued alongside it, collecting firewood for the fire and also bones and other waste, which they sold to a rag factory.

They arrive at Massabielle (or Masse-vieille = old mass), a rocky massif on the side of the mountain, on the other side of the canal. Next to the ground there is a cave about 12 meters wide and 8 meters deep, to the right, 3.5 m away. above the ground a cavity of approximately one and a half meters. In front there is a small beach, full of stones and rocks. The place is rugged and wild. On the beach they see pieces of firewood and a bone. Toneta and Juana take off their clogs, don't wear socks, and walk through the icy water that reaches their knees. Bernadette doesn't dare; She is sick and her mother didn't want to let her get out of it. The others soon disappear from sight, they do not help her cross the riverbed.

She stays alone. Minutes later she will enter History through the front door of God's heroines. Her name will be as well known as the legendary one of St. Joan of Arc and the universals of St. Margaret Ma of Alacoque, St. Catherine Labouré, St. Thérèse of Lisieux... But now, who is that poor and sickly girl who He is 14 years old, although he only looks 12.

 The Soubirous family

Lourdes, among green mountains, was then a town of about 4,100 inhabitants (today it has more than 18,000), rich in forests, livestock and quarries; The head of the party had, in addition to the mayor, a court, an imperial attorney, 60 soldiers in the castle (now a museum) and a gendarmerie detachment with a prison; They even came from Aragon to their livestock fairs in spring. By virtue of a letter of donation from Count Bernard II of Bigorre he recognized Our Lady of Puy as his sovereign, and paid her annual tribute until 1789.

In Lourdes, Bernadette's father, Francisco Soubirous (means: sovereign), had married 17-year-old Luisa Castérot in 1843, at the age of 34. Her father had just died, and someone had to run the Boly mill. The house went well while the mother-in-law and her children lived with them: Bernarda, 18, who will be godmother to our María Bernarda, Basifia, 14, Juan María, 11, and Lucila, 4.

In 1848 the mother-in-law and her children went to another house and Luisa does not know how to manage, she is too generous with clients, she does not charge some, she gives others bread, cheese, wine. She lacks money to repair the sieves, the flour is not of good quality and the clients, women from the surrounding area, go to other mills. Francisco, grinding on a mill wheel, already too smooth, loses his left eye when a splinter falls off. By 1854 the Soubirous could no longer pay the rent.

They were stumbling. The widow Castérot rented the Laborde mill for the two families, but the work is little. When she died in 1855, with the 900 francs inherited from her, the Soubirous rented another mill in Arcizac, 15 km away. of Lourdes. Hope is reborn... for a short time: there is also a lack of clients, and although husband and wife are sometimes employed as day laborers, since Bernadette knows how to take care of her little brothers, they have to leave the mill in 1856 and return to Lourdes. Here work is scarce and wages are miserable: they cannot pay the rent for their poor room either and eventually, in the autumn of 1856, they have to abandon it, leaving their wedding wardrobe in payment of the debt.

Where to go? They are in misery with 4 children: Bernadette, 12 years old (born 7.1.44, f. 16.IV.79), María, familiarly called Toneta, 10 (born 19.IX.46, f. 1892), Juan Maria, 5 (born 13.V.51, d. 1919). and Justino, 20 months old (born 11/28/55, f. 1865). (They will still have three other children: Bernardo Pedro, 1859-1931; Juan, 1864, who will only live a few months; and a girl in 1866, who died as soon as she was born; the previous ones had already died in 1856, —Juan, 13.II 1845-10 IV 1845 and Juan María, 10.XII. 1848-4.1.1851—). They get a cousin to give them a 5 X 4 ms room. that no one wanted (in winter the Spanish braceros used to sleep in it, on straw); It belongs to an old building that had been a prison until it was moved to another one for hygienic reasons. To that "infested and gloomy hovel," as it was described in an official report, and which people continued to call "the dungeon," they transported the trunk, some chairs, and three beds in a handcart: one for the couple, another for the girls and another for the boys.