then a great shaking ran through the crowd; but there for a few instants
it boiled like a pot. A sudden cry had broken out, and it ran through
the whole space; waxing in volume as it ran, till the heads beneath my
window shook with it also; hands clapped, voices shouted: "_Un miracle!
Un miracle!_"
I was on my feet, staring and crying out. Then quietly the shaking
ceased, and the shouting died to a murmur; and the _ombrellino_ moved
on; and again the voice of the priest thrilled thin and clear, with a
touch of triumphant thankfulness: "_Vous etes la Resurrection et la
Vie!_" And again, with entreaty once more--since there still were two
thousand sick untouched by that Power, and time pressed--that infinitely
moving plea: "_Seigneur, celui qui vous aime est malade!_" And:
"_Seigneur, faites que je marche! Seigneur, faites que j'entende!_"
And then again the finger of God flashed down, and again and again; and
each time a sick and broken body sprang from its bed of pain and stood
upright; and the crowd smiled and roared and sobbed. Five times I saw
that swirl and rush; the last when the _Te Deum_ pealed out from the
church steps as Jesus in His Sacrament came home again. And there were
two that I did not see. There were seven in all that afternoon.
Now, is it of any use to comment on all this? I am not sure; and yet,
for my own satisfaction if for no one else's, I wish to set down some of
the thoughts that came to me both then and after I had sat at the window
and seen God's loving-kindness with my own eyes.
The first overwhelming impression that remained with me is this--that I
had been present, in my own body, in the twentieth century, and seen
Jesus pass along by the sick folk, as He passed two thousand years
before. That, in a word, is the supreme fact of Lourdes. More than once
as I sat there that afternoon I contrasted the manner in which I was
spending it with that in which the average believing Christian spends
Sunday afternoon. As a child, I used to walk with my father, and he used
to read and talk on religious subjects; on our return we used to have a
short Bible-class in his study. As an Anglican clergyman, I used to
teach in Sunday schools or preach to children. As a Catholic priest, I
used occasionally to attend at catechism. At all these times the
miraculous seemed singularly far away; we looked at it across twenty
centuries; it was something from which lessons might be drawn, upon
which the imagination might feed, but it was a state of affairs as
remote as the life of prehistoric man; one assented to it, and that was
all. And here at Lourdes it was a present, vivid event. I sat at an
ordinary glass window, in a soutane made by an English tailor, with
another Englishman beside me, and saw the miraculous happen. Time and
space disappeared; the centuries shrank and vanished; and behold we saw
that which "prophets and kings have desired to see and have not seen!"
Of course "scientific" arguments, of the sort which I have related, can
be brought forward in an attempt to explain Lourdes; but they are the
same arguments that can be, and are, brought forward against the
miracles of Jesus Christ Himself. I say nothing to those here; I leave
that to scientists such as Dr. Boissarie; but what I cannot understand
is that professing Christians are able to bring _a priori_ arguments
against the fact that Our Lord is the same yesterday, to-day, and for
ever--the same in Galilee and in France. "These signs shall follow them
that believe," He said Himself; and the history of the Catholic Church
is an exact fulfilment of the words. It was so, St. Augustine tells us,
at the tombs of the martyrs; five hundred miracles were reported at
Canterbury within a few years of St. Thomas' martyrdom. And now here is
Lourdes, as it has been for fifty years, in this little corner of poor
France!
I have been asked since my return: "Why cannot miracles be done in
England?" My answer is, firstly, that they are done in England, in
Liverpool, and at Holywell, for example; secondly, I answer by another
question as to why Jesus Christ was not born in Rome; and if He had been
born in Rome, why not in Nineveh and Jerusalem? Thirdly, I answer that
perhaps more would be done in England, if there were more faith there.
It is surely a little unreasonable to ask that, in a country which
three hundred and fifty years ago deliberately repudiated Christ's
Revelation of Himself, banished the Blessed Sacrament and tore down
Mary's shrines, Christ and His Mother should cooperate supernaturally in
marvels that are rather the rewards of the faithful. "It is not meet to
take the children's bread and to cast it to the dogs"--these are the
words of our Lord Himself. If London is not yet tolerant enough to allow
an Eucharistic Procession in her streets, she is scarcely justified in
demanding that our Eucharistic Lord should manifest His power. "He could
do no mighty work there," says the Evangelist, of Capharnaum, "because
of their unbelief."
This, then, is the supreme fact of Lourdes: that Jesus Christ in His
Sacrament passes along that open square, with the sick laid in beds on
either side; and that at His word the lame walk and lepers are cleansed
and deaf hear--that they are seen leaping and dancing for joy.
Even now, writing within ten days of my return, all seems like a dream;
and yet I know that I saw it. For over thirty years I had been
accustomed to repeat the silly formula that "the age of miracles is
past"; that they were necessary for the establishment of Christianity,
but that they are no longer necessary now, except on extremely rare
occasions perhaps; and in my heart I knew my foolishness. Why, for those
thirty years Lourdes had been in existence! And if I spoke of it at all,
I spoke only of hysteria and auto-suggestion and French imaginativeness,
and the rest of the nonsense. It is impossible for a Christian who has
been at Lourdes to speak like that again.
And as for the unreality, that does not trouble me. I have no doubt that
those who saw the bandages torn from the leper's limbs and the sound
flesh shown beneath, or the once blind man, his eyes now dripping with
water of Siloe, looking on Him who had made him whole, or heard the
marvellous talk of "men like trees walking," and the rest--I have no
doubt that ten days later they sat themselves with unseeing eyes, and
wondered whether it was indeed they who had witnessed those things.
Human nature, like a Leyden jar, cannot hold beyond a fixed quantity;
and this human nature, with experience, instincts, education, common
talk, public opinion, and all the rest of it, echoing round it; the
assumption that miracles _do not happen_; that laws are laws; in other
words, that Deism is the best that can be hoped--well, it is little
wonder that the visible contradiction of all this conventionalism finds
but little room in the soul.
Then there is another point that I should like to make in the presence
of "Evangelical" Christians who shake their heads over Mary's part in
the matter. It is this--that for every miracle that takes place in the
_piscines_, I should guess that a dozen take place while That which we
believe to be Jesus Christ goes by. Catholics, naturally, need no such
reassurance; they know well enough from interior experience that when
Mary comes forward Jesus does not retire! But for those who think as
some Christians do, it is necessary to point out the facts. And again. I
have before me as I write the little card of ejaculations that are used
in the procession. There are twenty-four in all. Of these, twenty-one
are addressed to Jesus Christ; in two more we ask the "Mother of the
Saviour" and the "Health of the Sick" to pray for us; in the last we ask
her to "show herself a Mother." If people will talk of "proportion" in a
matter in which there is no such thing--since there can be no
comparison, without grave irreverence, between the Creator and a
creature--I would ask, Is there "disproportion" here?
In fact, Lourdes, as a whole, is an excellent little compendium of
Catholic theology and Gospel-truth. There was once a marriage feast, and
the Mother of Jesus was there with her Son. There was no wine. She told
her Son what He already knew; He seemed to deprecate her words; but He
obeyed them, and the water became wine.
There is at Lourdes not a marriage feast, but something very like a
deathbed. The Mother of Jesus is there with her Son. It is she again who
takes the initiative. "Here is water," she seems to say; "dig,
Bernadette, and you will find it." But it is no more than water. Then
she turns to her Son. "They have water," she says, "but no more." And
then He comes forth in His power. "Draw out now from all the sick beds
of the world and bear them to the Governor of the Feast. Use the
commonest things in the world--physical pain and common water. Bring
them together, and wait until I pass by." Then Jesus of Nazareth passes
by; and the sick leap from their beds, and the blind see, and the lepers
are cleansed, and devils are cast out.
Oh, yes! the parallel halts; but is it not near enough?
_Seigneur, guerissez nos malades!_
_Salut des Infirmes, priez pour nous!_
VIII.
The moment Benediction was given, the room began rapidly to fill; but I
still watched the singing crowd outside. Among others I noticed a woman,
placid and happy--such a woman as you would see a hundred times a day in
London streets, with jet ornaments in her hat, middle-aged, almost
startlingly commonplace. No, nothing dramatic happened to her; that was
the point. But there she was, taking it all for granted, joining in the
_Magnificat_ with a roving eye, pleased as she would have been pleased
at a circus; interrupting herself to talk to her neighbour; and all the
while gripping in a capable hand, on which shone a wedding ring, the
bars of the Bureau window behind which I sat, that she might make the
best of both worlds--Grace without and Science within. She, as I, had
seen what God had done; now she proposed to see what the doctors would
make of it all; and have, besides, a good view of the _miracules_ when
they appeared.
I suppose it was her astonishing ordinariness that impressed me. It was
surprising to see such a one during such a scene; it was as incongruous
as a man riding a bicycle on the judgment Day. Yet she, too, served to
make it all real. She was like the real tree in the foreground of a
panorama. She served the same purpose as the _Voix de Lourdes_, a
briskly written French newspaper that gives the lists of the miracles.
When I turned round at last, the room was full. Among the people present
I remember an Hungarian canon, and the Brazilian Bishop with six others.
Dr. Deschamps, late of Lille, now of Paris, was in the chair; and I sat
next him.
The first patient to enter was Euphrasie Bosc, a dark girl of
twenty-seven. She rolled a little in her walk as she came in; then she
sat down and described the "white swellings" on her knee, with other
details; she told how she had been impelled to rise during the
procession just now. She was made to walk round the room to show her
state, and was then sent off, and told to return at another time.
Next came Emma Sansen, a pale girl of twenty-five. She had suffered from
endo-pericarditis for five years, as her certificate showed; she had
been confined to her room for two years. She told her story quickly and
went out.
There followed Sister Marguerite Emilie, an Assumptionist, aged
thirty-nine, a brisk, brown-faced, tall woman, in her religious habit.
Her malady had been _mal de Pott_, a severe spinal affliction,
accompanied by abscesses and other horrors. She, too, appeared in the
best of health.
We began then to hear a doctor give news of a certain Irish Religious,
cured that morning in the _piscines_; but we were interrupted by the
entry of Emile Lansman, a solid artisan of twenty-five who came in
walking cheerfully, carrying a crutch and a stick which he no longer
needed. Paralysis of the right leg and traumatism of the spine had been
his, up to that day. Now he carried his crutch.
He was followed by another man whose name I did not catch, and on whose
case I wrote so rapidly that I am scarcely able to read all my notes.
His story, in brief, was as follows. He had had some while ago a severe
accident, which involved a kind of appalling disembowelment. For the
last year or two he had had gastric troubles of all kinds, including
complete loss of appetite. His certificate showed too, that he suffered
from partial paralysis (he himself showed us how little he had been able
to open his fingers), and anaesthesia of the right arm. (I looked over
Dr. Deschamps' shoulder and read on the paper the words _lesion
incurable_). It was certified further that he was incapable of manual
work. Then he described to us how yesterday in the _piscine_, upon
coming out of the bath, he had been aware of a curious sensation of
warmth in the stomach; he had then found that, for the first time for
many months, he wished for food; he was given it, and he enjoyed it. He
moved his fingers in a normal manner, raised his arm and let it fall.
Then for the first time in the Bureau I heard a sharp controversy. One
doctor suddenly broke out, saying that there was no actual proof that it
was not all "hysterical simulation." Another answered him; an appeal was
made to the certificate. Then the first doctor delivered a little
speech, in excellent taste, though casting doubt upon the case; and the
matter was then set aside for investigation with the rest. I heard Dr.
Boissarie afterwards thank him for his admirable little discourse.
Finally, though it was getting late, Honorie Gras, aged thirty-five,
came in to give her evidence. She had suffered till to-day from
"purulent arthritis" and "white swellings" on the left knee. To-day she
walked. Her certificate confirmed her, and she was dismissed.
It was all very matter-of-fact. There is no reason to fear that Lourdes
is all hymn-singing and adjurations. It is a pleasure to think that, on
the right of the Rosary Church, and within a hundred yards of the
Grotto, there is this little room, filled with keen-eyed doctors from
every school of faith and science, who have only to present their cards
and be made free of all that Lourdes has to show. They are keen-brained
as well as keen-eyed. I heard one of them say quietly that if the Mother
of God, as it appeared, cured incurable cases, it was hard to deny to
her the power of curing curable cases also. It does not prove, that is
to say, that a cure is not miraculous, if it might have been cured by
human aid. And it is interesting and suggestive to remember that of such
cases one hears little or nothing. For every startling miracle that is
verified in the Bureau, I wonder how many persons go home quietly, freed
from some maddening little illness by the mercy of Mary--some illness
that is worthless as a "case" in scientific eyes, yet none the less as
real as is its cure?
Of course one element that tends to keep from the grasp of the
imagination all the miracles of the place is all this scientific
phraseology. In the simple story of the Gospel, it seems almost
supernaturally natural that a man should have "lain with an infirmity
for forty years," and should, at the word of Jesus Christ, have taken up
his bed and walked; or that, as in the "Acts," another's "feet and
ankle-bones should receive strength" by the power of the Holy Name. But
when we come to tuberculosis and _mal de Pott_ and _lesion incurable_
and "hysterical simulation," in some manner we seem to find ourselves in
rather a breathless and stuffy room, where the white flower of the
supernatural appears strangely languid to the eye of the imagination.
That, however, is all as it should be. We are bound to have these
things. Perhaps the most startling miracle of all is that the Bureau and
the Grotto stand side by side, and that neither stifles the other. Is it
possible that here at last Science and Religion will come to terms, and
each confess with wonder the capacities of the other, and, with awe,
that divine power that makes them what they are, and has "set them their
bounds which they shall not pass?" It would be remarkable if France, of
all countries, should be the scene of that reconciliation between these
estranged sisters.
That night, after dinner, I went out once more to see the procession
with torches; and this time my friend and I each took a candle, that we
might join in that act of worship. First, however, I went down to the
_robinets_--the taps which flow between the Grotto and the
_piscines_--and, after a heartcrushing struggle, succeeded in filling my
bottle with the holy water. It was astonishing how selfish one felt
while still in the battle, and how magnanimous when one had gained the
victory. I filled also the bottle of a voluble French priest, who
despairingly extended it toward me as he still fought in the turmoil.
"_Eh, bien!_" cried a stalwart Frenchwoman at my side, who had filled
her bottle and could not extricate herself. "If you will not permit me
to depart, I remain!" The argument was irresistible; the crowd laughed
childishly and let her out.
Now, I regret to say that once more the churches were outlined in fairy
electric lamps, that the metallic garlands round our Mother's statue
blazed with them; that, even worse, the old castle on the hill and the
far away Calvary were also illuminated; and, worst of all, that the
procession concluded with fireworks--rockets and bombs. Miracles in the
afternoon; fireworks in the evening!
Yet the more I think of it, the less am I displeased. When one reflects
that more than half of the enormous crowd came, probably, from tiny
villages in France--where a rocket is as rare as an angelic visitation;
and, on the carnal side, as beautiful in their eyes--it seems a very
narrow-minded thing to object. It is true that you and I connect
fireworks with Mafeking night or Queen Victoria's Jubilee; and that they
seem therefore incongruous when used to celebrate a visitation of God.
But it is not so with these people. For them it is a natural and
beautiful way of telling the glory of Him who is the Dayspring from on
high, who is the Light to lighten the Gentiles, whose Mother is the
_Stella Matutina_, whose people once walked in darkness and now have
seen a great Light. It is their answer--the reflection in the depths of
their sea--to the myriad lights of that heaven which shines over
Lourdes. Therefore let us leave the fireworks in peace.
It was a very moving thing to walk in that procession, with a candle in
one hand and a little paper book in the other, and help to sing the
story of Bernadette, with the unforgettable _Aves_ at the end of each
verse, and the _Laudate Mariam_, and the Nicene Creed. _Credo in ...
unam sanctam Catholicam et Apostolicam Ecclesiam._ My heart leaped at
that. For where else but in the Catholic Church do such things happen as
these that I had seen? Imagine, if you please, miracles in Manchester!
Certainly they might happen there, if there were sufficient Catholics
gathered in His Name; but put for Manchester, Exeter Hall or St. Paul's
Cathedral! The thought is blindingly absurd. No; the Christianity of
Jesus Christ lives only in the Catholic Church.
There alone in the whole round world do you find that combination of
lofty doctrine, magnificent moral teaching, the frank recognition of the
Cross; sacramentalism logically carried out, yet gripping the heart as
no amateur mysticism can do; and miracles. "Mercy and Truth have met
together." "These signs shall follow them that believe.... Faith can
remove mountains.... All things are possible to him that believes....
Whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in My Name.... Where two or three
are gathered together in My Name, there am I in the midst of them."
There alone, where souls are built upon Peter, do these things really
happen.
I have been asked lately whether I am "happy" in the Catholic Church.
Happy! What can one say to a question like that? Does one ask a man who
wakes up from a foolish dream to sunshine in his room, and to life and
reality, whether he is happy? Of course many non-Catholics are happy. I
was happy myself as an Anglican; but as a Catholic one does not use the
word; one does not think about it. The whole of life is different; that
is all that can be said. Faith is faith, not hope; God is Light, not
twilight; eternity, heaven, hell, purgatory, sin and its
consequences--these things are facts, not guesses and conjectures and
suspicions desperately clung to. "How hard it is to be a Christian!"
moans the persevering non-Catholic. "How impossible it is to be anything
else!" cries the Catholic.
We went round, then, singing. The procession was so huge that it seemed
to have no head and no tail. It involved itself a hundred times over; it
swirled in the square, it humped itself over the Rosary Church; it
elongated itself half a mile away up beyond our Mother's garlanded
statue; it eddied round the Grotto. It was one immense pool and river of
lights and song. Each group sang by itself till it was overpowered by
another; men and women and children strolled along patiently singing and
walking, knowing nothing of where they went, nothing of what they would
be singing five minutes hence. It depended on the voice-power of their
neighbours.
For myself, I found myself in a dozen groups, before, at last, after an
hour or so, I fell out of the procession and went home. Now I walked
cheek by jowl with a retired officer; now with an artisan; once there
came swiftly up behind a company of "Noelites"--those vast organizations
of boys and girls in France--singing the _Laudate Mariam_ to my _Ave
Maria_; now in the middle of a group of shop-girls who exchanged remarks
with one another whenever they could fetch breath. I think it was all
the most joyous and the most spontaneous (as it was certainly the
largest) human function in which I have ever taken part. I have no idea
whether there were any organizers of it all--at least I saw none. Once
or twice a solitary priest in the midst, walking backward and waving
his arms, attempted to reconcile conflicting melodies; once a very old
priest; with a voice like the tuba stop on the organ, turned a
humorously furious face over his shoulder to quell some mistake--from
his mouth, the while issuing this amazingly pungent volume of sound. But
I think these were the only attempts at organization that I saw.
And so at last I dropped out and went home, hoarse but very well
content. I had walked for more than an hour--from the statue, over the
lower church and down again, up the long avenue, and back again to the
statue. The fireworks were over, the illuminations died, and the day was
done; yet still the crowds went round and the voice of conflicting
melody went up without cessation. As I went home the sound was still in
my ears. As I dropped off to sleep, I still heard it.
IX.
Next morning I awoke with a heavy heart, for we were to leave in the
motor at half-past eight, I had still a few errands to do, and had made
no arrangements for saying Mass; so I went out quickly, a little after
seven, and up to the Rosary Church to get some pious objects blessed. It
was useless: I could not find the priest of whom I had been told, whose
business it is perpetually to bless such things. I went to the basilica,
then round by the hill-path down to the Grotto, where I became wedged
suddenly and inextricably into a silent crowd.
For a while I did not understand what they were doing beyond hearing
Mass; for I knew that, of course, a Mass was proceeding just round the
corner in the cave. But presently I perceived that these were intending
communicants. So I made what preparation I could, standing there; and
thanked God and His Mother for this unexpected opportunity of saying
good-bye in the best way--for I was as sad as a school-boy going the
rounds of the house on Black Monday--and after a quarter of an hour or
so I was kneeling at the grill, beneath the very image of Mary. After
making my thanksgiving, still standing on the other side, I blessed the
objects myself--strictly against all rules, I imagine--and came home to
breakfast; and before nine we were on our way.