THE ANGEL OF LOURDES
One lovely summer evening I was standing in a hotel bedroom, washing my
hands. I was in Lourdes, and I was pondering upon a certain long flight
of stone steps that I could see quite clearly from my window. At the top
of the steps, which were cut in the face of the wooded hillside, stood a
great Calvary, and from dawn till darkness pilgrims made the hard ascent
upon their knees. The stones were worn and grooved by the stream of
human beings making their painful way to the foot of the Cross.
The atmosphere of Lourdes is very impressive to the Psychic. One
breathes the concentrated essence of prayer. No one goes there who is
not on prayer intent, and in the public streets, gardens and churches
one comes across kneeling figures lost in Divine contemplation. No one
heeds them; all are on a like mission, and sometimes men and women stand
for hours with outstretched arms. Human crosses, oblivious to all, lost
in a mystic rapture which takes count of neither time nor place.
I turned my head towards the window. The sun had just set behind the
mountains, and the sky was illuminated by a rosy afterglow. Down in the
valley the shadows were beginning to lengthen, but I could still see the
Calvary on the hillside, and the dark human stream slowly moving up the
stony way, the _Via Dolorosa_ of the Cross.
At that moment the sense of a presence swung into my field of
consciousness, and contracted my vague faculties to focus. Something
moving in the sky above caught my eye.
How shall I describe the sight?
I saw an angel floating above the mountains.
The figure, wingless, yet floating in erect grace, was of great size,
and wrapped entirely in cloudy gray. The head was bare and slightly
bent, as if looking down on earth. The movements were smooth and
gliding, as a feather floats in the wind. The distance was too great--I
judged about a quarter of a mile--for me to distinguish the features,
but owing to its great size the figure was clearly visible and deeply
inspiring.
It was a vision on which none could look intently without feeling the
weight of a mighty awe. It gathered up the wandering emotions of the
heart, and all a lifetime's ideals of beauty, grandeur, sublimity, in
one serene presentation.
The vision floated on majestically, across the valley and the little
town with its praying multitudes. In about three minutes It had passed,
and was lost in the pearly mists of the gathering night.
And whilst the vision lasted I was acutely conscious of that innumerable
concourse of kneeling forms below, all struggling upwards to the Cross.
It seems to me that the devout, of other faiths than that of Rome, lose
much by not taking advantage of Lourdes. For many years, thousands of
pilgrims from all corners of the earth have bent their steps towards the
shrine, and poured out their souls in a passion of supplication. This
tremendous concentration of faith, love and fervent adoration, often
ecstatic thanksgiving for answered prayer, must find an echo in the
Heaven World to which they are sent.
It is so easy at Lourdes to feel that the Throne of Grace has been
actually reached, because one can sense the pathway, the ladder made by
human love, praise and faith, down which, I doubt not, the Angels of God
are always passing. It is easier to concentrate the mind in a place
where religious thought has been poured out for many years, because one
insensibly becomes calmed, and tranquilized, and aided by the atmosphere
thousands of others have created.
At Lourdes there is nothing to attract the scoffer, and thousands of
hearts filled with reverence and devotion reenforce each year the
already powerful vibrations, and leave the place the better and richer
for their presence.
How few people realize that they have never seen themselves? How many
can tell what they really look like?
A very, very few can, and I am amongst the number.
I wakened one morning in summer, and opened my eyes on my sunlit bedroom
at home. Instantly I saw something which thrilled me with vivid
interest. I saw myself!
I was emerging out of a corner of the room, and composedly approaching
the bed. There was no doubt as to recognition. I knew instantly I was
looking on my own face for the first time, and it was something of a
shock to discover that I was more or less of a stranger to myself. I saw
how false a looking-glass can be. I had not begun to know myself.
With absorbed interest I stared very hard, in my intense desire to
imprint on my memory my own image. I approached the bed, and as I did
so, I seemed to shrink, fade, and waver. Then suddenly I vanished--into
my recumbent body.
For a few minutes afterwards I was too concerned with my physical
condition to ponder on the vision of my real self. I was tossing
violently in the bed, in an inner distraughtness which was most
disturbing. Then, as my nervous system began to calm down, I strove to
imprint on my memory the recollection of what I really looked like.
My face, even in the wonder of those few moments in which I had seen it,
expressed emotions I had never seemed to know. Nothing was as I had
believed it to be. All the traits that went to form my character needed
readjusting, and all seemed curiously imperfect. I could not remember
how I was clothed, though I had seen myself from head to foot. I suppose
I was too engrossed in studying my face to think of my body.
The vision left me with a blank sense of utter disillusionment and
failure. Nothing in me was finished or complete. My expression suggested
a character which was horribly crude, imperfect and rudimentary. Looking
at myself afterwards in the mirror, I came to the conclusion that it
lied, or that in waking life I wear a mask.
It is salutary to behold one's spiritual portrait, a thing not visible
to the mind alone but to the physical sight. In a flash comes the
knowledge that dwelling in us are forces, not yet grasped by mortal
mind, that cry for recognition. There have been moments in all lives, I
believe, when a glimpse is caught of the Olympian heights to which it is
possible to rise. Glimpses, alas! of the evanescent thing we know
ourselves in truth to be.
Sometimes, on the Astral plane, it happens that friends meet under
strange circumstances, and one figures largely in the doings of another.
The memory of those nocturnal adventures is brought through and clearly
recollected in the morning.
One such occurrence I will relate, and it is peculiar and unusual.
An old friend of ours, a man who has devoted his life to the development
of his spiritual faculties (not to be confused with the development of
mediumship and phenomena), had a series of dreams in which he appeared
to be two people. He himself was the same tall, slender man he is in
daily life, but in this psychic experience a much smaller man moved
always on his left side, and somehow seemed to symbolize his waking
personality.
The central figure in one of these unusual experiences was a young man
who was unknown to our friend, and who had died abroad. His body had
been embalmed and brought home for burial, and our friend had been shown
photographs of him, and had also communicated with him through automatic
writing. This much was imprinted on his physical memory.
Now, whilst lying asleep one night, the spiritual counterpart of our
friend became aware that the body of the young man was exposed and could
be seen. His companion, or other self, the shorter man who moved by his
side, shrank back with horror from such a suggestion, just as our friend
would instinctively have done in waking consciousness, but he himself
was determined to see the body, and went straight through a door facing
him, into a room where it was lying on a low table.
Now comes the moment when I began to figure in this experience. I was
standing on the opposite side of the table, making vigorous passes over
the young man's body, which appeared to be fashioned out of pinkish
clay. The trunk and legs looked as though I had roughly modeled them
with my hands. The head was more highly finished. It was sharp and
distinct in outline, and our friend recognized it instantly as being a
representation of the young man whose portraits he had seen. He stared
at the face with great interest, and taking up a cloth, gently wiped the
cheek where a fleck of foam lay. This action seemed to vivify the body,
for it began to mutter and murmur indistinctly. Apparently it was alive,
and not dead.
Our friend relates that this discovery gave him such a shock that he
lost the thread of memory which he was bringing back to his physical
body on the bed. The next moment he woke up. My recollection, a
perfectly clear one, of these happenings, was that he simply vanished
from the scene, leaving me alone with the body, which I continued to
manipulate.
Afterwards, through automatic writing, our friend was told by the
departed young man, that this astral vision signified the collecting of
etheric matter to fashion a body in which he could function on etheric
planes.
On another occasion our friend had the experience of walking about on
the other side with the young man, who was dressed in an ordinary tweed
suit, and being taken by him to various acquaintances, to whom he was
introduced. With the exception of the above experience, he believes that
this was the first time he had ever seen him. The interesting point of
both experiences is, that both I and our friend brought back on waking,
a clear and similar recollection of the episode in which we were jointly
concerned.
This friend of ours is a disciple of "The Flaming Heart," called by
Catholics "The Sacred Heart." He writes to me thus:--
"I see now more clearly than before that the Christ self within uses its
powers as a whole, just as the personal man uses intellect, will, and
feeling, all three being energized by love, which is the element of
interest in the several activities."
"So the self of love works out and manifests as--
Love and Life Beauty.
Love and Power Goodness.
Love and Knowledge Wisdom.
"The Love element saves us from wrong living, wrong doing or wrong
thinking. So we go from strength to strength, by yielding the lower self
to the transmuting power of the Higher."
It was long before I came to understand the full significance of the
Flaming Heart. It was plain to see what its realization meant to our
friend. He radiates an extraordinary serenity of mind, an atmosphere of
strength and peace, a calm in the midst of storm which apparently
nothing can shake. Pre-eminently, when in his presence, one is conscious
of a commanding power which will only be used for exalted purposes. This
clear subjection of the lower self, to the transmuting power of the
Higher self, has worked such marvels in him that one longs to grasp the
secret of his success.
A few years passed, and still the heart of the mystery eluded me. This
year, 1918, it came to me in a flash.
The experience I am about to relate may have happened to many others. To
me, it was a tremendous revelation.
I was kneeling one morning in front of the Altar, at Early Celebration.
I have always felt, through the Eucharist, the possibility of great
spiritual development, and often there comes to me at such moments, a
mystical response to the inner mysteries of the Sacrament. I have never
looked for supernatural happenings, hallucinations, or psychic
excitements, but my spiritual instincts are always alive and craving
satisfaction. This they have never before received in any really lasting
degree.
Now came a new Divine illumination.
Two clergymen were officiating at the celebration. I had just received
the bread from the one, and had raised my head and hands to receive the
cup from the other, when suddenly I went quite blind.
The vicar, who was moving towards me, was blotted out. I stared at a
black veil utterly impenetrable, and I was aware of a tremendous
internal dislocation. My heart beat tumultuously, and felt as if thrust
out of place. Then my sight was restored.
I saw before me, not the man, bearing in his hands the chalice, but a
flaming heart of fire, from which radiated out living, scintillating
streams of golden light. They filled the background with their quivering
radiance, and I was conscious of shrinking back, and bowing my head as
the supernal vision approached me and enveloped me in Its aura.
The cup had been transmuted by Divine alchemy into the Flaming Heart of
love's sacrifice, and I was given to taste of the living waters of Life.
For a few minutes I was quite unconscious of where I was. I had been,
indeed, caught up into the seventh Heaven. I know now that I acted
mechanically, and to outward semblance I behaved in the orthodox manner,
but when I raised my head again the vicar had passed on and the vision
had vanished. Nothing had happened to distract the attention of others.
I returned to my seat conscious that I had been taught the meaning and
marvelous significance of the Flaming Heart. I understood the words of
the great mystic, St. John.
"In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
"And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness overcame
it not.
"There was the true light, even the light which lighteth every man,
coming into the world."
I know that the Flaming Heart of Divinity dwells in the breasts of all
humanity, that the soul is no empty shell, but the shrine of the Divine
Presence, and that Presence is the Guide and Light of Life.
I have seen revealed the inner mystery of the sacramental life. Through
a rift in the veil of the material, the hidden life of eternity was
symbolized for me in the Flaming Heart, the true Eucharistic Mystery.