where took place what is called the _primer milagro_ of St. Ignatius.
Tradition says, as he was crossing the principal street of the city,
called Sobreroca, on his way from the Carmen to the hospital of Santa
Lucia, he met a child crying for fear of her mother, because the hen
she was carrying home had escaped and fallen into an old well close by.
Touched by her grief, the saint paused a moment, as if in prayer, and,
while he stood, the water in the well rose to the brim, bringing with
it the hen, which with a smile he restored to the child and went on his
way. An oratory was afterwards built here, and the healing virtues of
the water—such is the power of charity—have often been experienced by
the people of Manresa, as is testified by the inscription from the pen
of the learned Padre Ramon Solá:
Disce, viator, amor quid sit quo Ignatius ardet
Testis aqua est, supplex hanc bibe, doctus abi.
S. Ignacio de Loyola
en el año del Señor de 1522
hizo aqui el primer milagro
sacando viva á flote hasta el
borde una gallina ya ahogada.
This favored hen naturally became an object of special care, and it
seems to have become the ancestress of an illustrious breed which kings
did not disdain to have set before them at table.
We can fancy this _gallina resucitada_ laying now and then an egg, as
Hawthorne says of the Pyncheon hens, “not for any pleasure of her own,
but that the world might not absolutely lose so admirable a breed.”
Brillat-Savarin pretended that the redeeming merit of the Jesuits was
the discovery and introduction of the turkey into Europe.[201] Had he
only known of this race of hens, rendered meet for the palates of
princes by their great founder, they might have had an additional title
to his approbation. Father Prout, speaking of the Jesuits being accused
of having a hand in every political disturbance for the last three
hundred years, compares them to Mother Carey’s chickens, which always
make their appearance in a storm, and, for this reason, give rise to a
belief among sailors that it is the _fowl_ that has raised the tempest!
How ominous, then, was this Spanish hen of Manresa! We could not find
out whether there are any scions of this time-honored race still living
in their ancestral coops, or whether they were all suppressed with the
order as dangerous to the state; but we do know that six of the
breed—three _pollos_ and three _pollas_—in a line direct from the
famous hen, were, in the beginning of the year 1603 (the miracle of the
Pozo, it must be remembered, took place in 1522), sent to her Catholic
majesty, Queen Margaret of Austria, who received them with as many
demonstrations of pleasure as would have been consistent with royal
etiquette in Spain.
We trust no supposititious egg was ever smuggled into the nest of this
illustrious _gallina_ to deteriorate the breed. Père Vanière, a learned
French Jesuit of note in the last century, has described in an able
Latin poem, part of which has been translated by Delille, the sorrows
of a poor old hen when she found, for instance, that she had hatched a
brood of ducks, which became the torment of her life by their
inclination for water. As Hood has it:
“The thing was strange—a contradiction
It seemed of nature and her works,
For little chicks beyond conviction
To float without the aid of corks.”
Imagine, then, the woes of this maternal hen, in her new-fledged pride
of race, should any Moorish or Guinea fowl taint her ennobled Spanish
blood!
There is a hotel at Manresa, called the Chicken, of about the same
stamp as the San Domingo, though Mr. Bayard Taylor, whose experience in
such matters transcends ours, satisfied himself that, “although the
Saint has altogether a better sound than the Chicken, the Chicken is
really better than the Saint!”
It was one of St. Ignatius’ favorite devotions, while at Manresa, to
visit the sanctuary of Our Lady of Viladordis, on the banks of the
Llobregat, about three miles from the city. The last time he went there
he gave his hempen girdle of three strands to the tenant of a
neighboring farm-house who had often offered him hospitality, and
assured him that as long as he and his posterity should continue to aid
the poor they would never lack the means of a decent livelihood, and,
though they might not attain great wealth, they would never be reduced
to absolute poverty; which prophecy has been fulfilled to the present
day, for the family still continues to exist. In this rural church a
solemn jubilee is celebrated every year on Whitmonday in memory of St.
Ignatius. Over the altar is a picture of the saint inscribed: “St.
Ignatius, founder of the Jesuits, in the year 1522, the first of his
conversion, frequented this church of Our Lady of Viladordis, and here
received singular favors from Heaven, in memory of which this devout
and grateful parish dedicates this portrait, Feb. 19, 1632.”
In 1860 Queen Isabella II., the great-granddaughter of Carlos III.,
came to Manresa, and, after visiting the Santa Cueva, expressed a wish
to the city authorities that a monument so important in the religious
history of Spain, and associated with the chief glory of Manresa,
should be carefully preserved. This excited fresh interest. Spontaneous
contributions from the _devotos de S. Ignacio_ flowed in for the
restoration of the church and the ornamentation of the cave. To the
former was transferred the miraculous image of Nuestra Señora de la
Guia, before which St. Ignatius often used to pray. Pope Pius IX.
conferred new indulgences on the Holy Cave, and its ancient glory had
already revived when the revolution of September, 1868, broke out,
overthrowing the royal government and compelling the Jesuits once more
to take the road of exile. But the bishop of the diocese has watched
over the cave, and it continues to be visited by pilgrims from all
parts of the world.
A visit to the Santa Cueva marks an era in one’s life; for it is one of
those places that produce an ineffaceable impression on the soul. Thank
God! there are such places where the claims of a higher life assert
themselves with irresistible force. Who that ever made a retreat with
the _Spiritual Exercises_ in hand has not turned longingly to the Holy
Cave in which they were written? Followed there, they seem to acquire
new significance and authority. Wonderful book, that for three hundred
years has on the one hand been regarded with admiration and love, and
on the other been the object of distortion and abuse! Some have gone so
far as to declare it a book of servilism and degradation; others, more
happy, look upon it as an inexhaustible mine of wise directions in the
practice of virtue. The sons of St. Ignatius have never ceased to
meditate on the little volume which embodies the religious experience
of their founder. They cherish it the more for giving them so large a
draught in the chalice of ignominy, and they carry it with them through
the wilderness of this world, as the children of Israel did the ark, to
ensure their happy progress in the spiritual life. Pope Paul III., in
his bull _Pastoralis Officii_, says: “Out of our apostolic authority
and certain knowledge, we approve, we praise, we confirm by this
document these teachings and these spiritual exercises, exhorting in
the Lord, with all our might, the faithful of both sexes, one and all,
to make use of these _Exercises_, so full of piety, and to follow their
salutary directions.”
Manresa may well be proud of her Holy Cave, for it was here the great
soul of St. Ignatius was tempered for his vast undertakings. But he did
not indulge in any spiritual dalliance. His work once planned, he went
boldly forth to achieve it.
“Forth to his task the giant sped;
Earth shook abroad beneath his tread,
And idols were laid low.
“India repaired half Europe’s loss;
O’er a new hemisphere the cross
Shone in the azure sky,
And, from the isles of far Japan
To the broad Andes, won o’er man
A bloodless victory!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE MIRACLE OF SEPTEMBER 16, 1877.
ABRIDGED FROM THE FRENCH OF M. HENRI LASSERRE.
In the month of August, 1874, Canon Martignon, previously
_curé-archiprêtre_ of Algiers, arrived at Lourdes. He was a man of
about forty years of age, and while in Africa had been attacked by an
affection of the chest which entirely deprived him of the use of his
voice; he had therefore crossed the Mediterranean to seek healing in
the city of Mary.
At the rocks of Massabielle he prayed, drank of the miraculous font,
and bathed in the piscina, but without obtaining the cure he sought.
Not disheartened, he resolved to make a novena. This, too, was
unaccompanied by any change for the better.
“Well, then,” he said, “I will make a novena of weeks.” And he took up
his abode at Lourdes for sixty-three days.
On the sixty-fourth day, finding himself in absolutely the same state,
he left for Pau, to seek a temporary alleviation in the mildness of its
climate. But soon reproaching himself for having quitted Lourdes, and
regarding his having done so as an act of weakness and a want of faith,
and, moreover, possessing in the depth of his heart a conviction that
sooner or later the Blessed Virgin would grant his prayer, he returned
to the sacred grotto and took up his abode in the town.
An invalid, he constituted himself the guide and guardian of the sick
and suffering. Pilgrims who of late years may have spent any time at
Lourdes will recollect having seen there a priest, still young, with a
long, light beard, a distinguished countenance, with a bright
earnestness and sweetness in the expression of the eyes; a tall, slight
figure, the chest somewhat narrowed and the shoulders bent by
suffering—a priest who led the blind, assisted the lame and infirm, to
the piscina, and spent the whisper of his failing voice in cheering and
consoling the afflicted. This was the Abbé Martignon.
“If Our Blessed Lady does not cure me this time,” he would say,
smiling, “I have made up my mind for a novena of years, then a novena
of centuries; and after that I will stop.”
He had the joy of seeing several of the sick of whom he had been the
guide and stay miraculously cured; but he himself, though experiencing
at times some slight alleviation, did not obtain the complete recovery
he sought.
Did he at last feel that there was some secret resistance on the part
of the Blessed Virgin to grant the favor he solicited? We do not know;
but it seemed to us that, while his faith continued the same and his
charity ever on the increase, the virtue of hope was with him gradually
turning into that of resignation—or, to speak more accurately, that he
was _postponing_ his hope. Happy to remain in this corner of the earth,
on which the feet of the Queen of Heaven had rested, and to pray daily
at the sacred grotto, he did not begin the novena of years and of
centuries of which he had smilingly spoken.
“I stay here,” he would say, “at the disposal of Our Lady of Lourdes,
like a person sitting in an ante-chamber waiting for an audience. She
will hear me when she pleases. My turn will come; I shall have my hour
or minute, and will take care not to let it escape me.”
For this hour and this minute he waited three years. Then, a few months
ago, he felt an impulse within him urging him to knock again at the
heavenly gate. He resolved to make a novena which should end on the
Feast of Our Lady of the Seven Dolors. He had not observed that, this
being a movable feast, the first day of the novena would this year
(1877) coincide with the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin,[202] and that
his prayer would thus go, as it were, from the birth of Mary to the
last sigh of Jesus—from the cradle of the Mother to the sepulchre of
her Son.
Had the Abbé Martignon been cured he would have returned to Algeria;
and we imagine that if at first the Blessed Virgin refused his request,
it was because she had no intention of so soon granting leave of
departure to such a servant. Neither God nor his priest were losing
anything by this refusal. When such and such a temporal blessing—that
is to say, the copper coin—is denied to our prayers, it is because the
gold and the rich increase are being laid up in store for us, either in
this world or the world to come. Besides, a new mission had been
imposed on the ardent zeal and charity of the Abbé Martignon: one which
flowed naturally from the function to which he devoted himself of
consoling the afflicted.
From the commencement of his sojourn at Lourdes he had found a man more
suffering than the sick and more tried than the ordinarily afflicted,
and to him also he had ministered aid and support. He to whom we
allude—the Abbé Peyramale—had had the signal honor of receiving a
message from heaven, and of accomplishing, in spite of every obstacle,
the divine command. But the Blessed Virgin, doubtless reserving for him
a higher place, had said: “I will show him how much he must suffer for
love of me”; and the most unlooked-for troubles had been sent to
torture his heroic heart.
By a strange contrast he was at the same time on Calvary and on Thabor.
While his name was celebrated throughout Christendom, while he was
blessed by the people whose beloved father and patriarch he was, he had
also, especially during these latter times, the bitter pain of being
misjudged, forsaken, and obstinately persecuted in that matter which he
had most at heart—in his zeal for the Lord’s house. Like the Cyrenian,
he was the man bearing the cross, and his robust shoulders were bruised
and bleeding beneath the sacred burden, while around his sufferings, as
around those of his Master, many shook their heads, saying: “He has
been the instrument of Mary; let her now help and deliver him!”
When, at the time of the apparitions, now nearly twenty years ago, he
had asked Our Lady to make roses bloom in the time of snow, she, who
was in that same place to work so many miracles, refused this one, and
to the priest whom she had chosen replied by the austere word,
“_Penance_.” The illustrious Abbé Peyramale, the priest of the
Immaculate Conception, had thus been condemned to suffer. It was he of
whom, for some years, the Abbé Martignon was the filial comforter and
the friend of every hour.
It is not our purpose here to dwell on the sorrows beneath the weight
of which sank the venerable curé of Lourdes; we would only call to mind
that, when the basilica of the grotto was completed and enriched with
the gifts of all the world—the basilica which was to be the point of
arrival for the processions commanded by Our Lady—he undertook to
rebuild the parish church, which ought to be their point of departure.
He died at his work, without having been able to complete it, and
having more than once announced his death as a sort of necessity—a last
sacrifice on his part in the interest of the house of God.
The unfinished church had stopped at the height of the arches. Aid on
which he had been led to rely had failed him, and his efforts had been
impeded by inconceivable hostilities.
“I shall not enter the promised land,” he would say; “I shall only see
it afar off. _I must die to repair the ruin._ When I am here no more,
all difficulties will be smoothed. My death will pay all”—sorrowful
words, which brought tears to his eyes and to the eyes of those who
loved him! We ourselves had the sad consolation of being present at his
departure. God chose the Feast of the Nativity of Our Blessed Lady to
open the gates of eternity to her faithful servant.
Around the death-bed of Mgr. Peyramale were his brother and other
relations, his _vicaires_, friends, and those of his flock who had been
able to penetrate into his room. Among this tearful family was the Abbé
Martignon, broken down with grief, and scarcely thinking of himself,
his malady, or his cure, or yet of his novena to Our Lady of the Seven
Dolors, which, by a curious coincidence, was to begin that same day.
Mgr. Peyramale, after a long agony, had just rendered his last sigh to
earth and his immortal soul to God. In that hour of grief and
desolation his friend, while raising his heart to her who is the
_Consolatrix Afflictorum_, recollected his promised novena.
What was passing in his mind? Kneeling by that bed and holding in his
the lifeless hands of the curé of Lourdes, he remained for some time
bowed down in silence. Then, rising, he said to some of those present:
“I have just said the first prayer of my novena to Our Lady of Sorrows,
and made my request for a cure, in presence of these holy remains; and
I conjure Our Lady of Lourdes to permit that in her own name, and _on
the ninth day_, our friend may himself transmit to me the answer”;
adding: “The choice God has made of the 8th of September to call to
himself the Priest of the Apparitions sufficiently authorizes me to
associate his first remembrance (_souvenir_) with my humble
supplication.”
Side by side with a great sorrow a great hope from this moment entered
in and possessed the heart of the sick priest. The thought of recovery
did not, assuredly, lessen his grief for the loss of his friend; but
seeing himself henceforth alone in France, it was a happiness to him to
know that his protector was in heaven, and that it would be doubtless
owing to the intervention of that friend, next to that of God and Our
Blessed Lady, that he should receive the favor so long solicited.
He spoke of this with conviction. It seemed to him that, with such an
intercessor, the Blessed Virgin would, _on the ninth day_, put herself
in some sort at the disposal of his prayer. He even wrote to Paris, to
the Rev. Père Picard of the Assumption, to tell him of his hope.
Already he spoke of what he would do when he was cured, and how he
would employ himself in furthering the unfinished work of the curé of
Lourdes. He prayed with fervor; friends joined him in his novena; and
thus the time went on until Saturday, the 15th of September—the eve of
_the ninth day_.
On this Saturday, in the morning, he received a telegram to tell him
that M. and Mme. Guerrier were on their way to Lourdes, and to ask if
he would kindly meet them at the station with a carriage.
M. and Mme. Guerrier were utterly unknown to him. A letter only, which
he had received from the curé of St. Gobain twenty-four hours before
the telegram, informed him that Mme. Guerrier had for several years
been suffering from a very serious illness, and was starting for
Lourdes to seek a cure, full of faith that it would be granted. This
lady and her husband were earnestly recommended to the Abbé Martignon,
as this was their first visit to the city of the Blessed Virgin.
The canon gladly undertook this act of charity, and went to the station
in good time to meet the three o’clock train. Leaving him for a time
occupied with his Breviary in the waiting-room, we will relate by what
series of circumstances M. and Mme. Guerrier were brought to Lourdes on
that day.
M. Edouard Guerrier, judge of the peace at Beaune, married, about
fifteen years ago, Mlle. Justine Biver, a religious and excellent lady.
Her father was a distinguished physician, and her two brothers occupied
high commercial positions, one being general director of the Company of
St. Gobain, and the other director of the celebrated glass
manufactories of St. Gobain and Chauny.
God had blessed this union with three children, healthy and
intelligent, to whose training and education their mother devoted
herself, bringing them up especially in the love of God and of the
poor.
Thus passed eleven years of unbroken happiness. In 1874, however, a
dark cloud suddenly over-shadowed this clear sky. The health of Mme.
Guerrier broke down rapidly, and violent headaches, frequent faintings,
and increasing weakness were succeeded by a general state of paralysis,
which seized successively several important organs of the frame. The
spine and lower limbs became powerless, and the sight dim and
enfeebled. The sufferer was unable to sit up in bed, and obliged to
remain always lying down. Finally the lower limbs became not only
incapable of movement but insensible to pain, so that, if pinched or
pricked, they remained without feeling. During the long fits of
fainting it often seemed as if life must become extinct. Death was
knocking at the door, and mourning had already entered the home lately
so bright with happiness.
Unable to continue the education of her children, the poor mother could
only assist them in their religious duties. Night and morning they
knelt at her bedside, adding to their prayers an earnest petition for
her recovery.
In this state Mme. Guerrier had continued about two years, when Alice,
her eldest girl, was about to make her First Communion, on April 2,
1876. This great day constantly occupied the thoughts of this Christian
mother. She thought of it for her child, and also a little for herself.
It seemed to her as if, in coming to take possession of this young
heart, the compassionate Saviour would surely bring some relief to her
own great needs, and leave in the house some royal token of his visit
and sojourn there. Had he not, on entering the house of Simon Peter,
healed the sick mother-in-law, enabling her to rise and serve him?
“I am certain of it,” she said. “On that day I shall get up and walk.”
Alice made her First Communion on the appointed day; and in the evening
the priest who had prepared her, and a few members of the family, were
assembled at dinner. No change, however, had taken place in the state
of the sick lady, and her place was remaining empty, as for so many
months past, when, at the moment the party were about to sit down to
table, suddenly recovering her lost powers, she rose, dressed, and came
to take her place amid her family circle. Her sight was clear, the
spine had recovered its strength, and she walked and moved with the
same ease as before her illness.
The priest intoned a hymn of thanksgiving, all present answering. Every
one felt that He who that morning had given himself in the divine
Banquet was invisibly present at the family feast. During the night
Mme. Guerrier’s sleep was calm and profound; but in the morning, when
she attempted to rise, her limbs refused their service, having fallen
back into their helpless state. Was it, then, a dream or an illusion?
Was it an effect of the nerves, the imagination, or the will?
The day of her daughter’s First Communion He would not disappoint the
mother’s hope and faith.... But afterwards he willed her to understand
that, for purposes known to him alone, she was still to bear the weight
of her trial. The intolerable headaches returned no more, the faintings
ceased, and the sight remained clear and distinct. From this day the
resignation of Mme. Guerrier, already very great, became greater still.
Her soul as well as her body had received grace from on high. The
dimness of vision which had hidden from her the faces of her husband
and children had disappeared before the breath of Heaven, and, although
she remained infirm and always stretched upon her bed, she was filled
with thankfulness and joy. From the beginning of her illness she had
never seen her aged parents. She lived at Beaune, in the Côte d’Or, and
they at St. Gobain, in the department of Aisne, one hundred and forty
leagues away, and, Dr. Biver being then in his eighty-second year, any
journey was a difficulty to him. His daughter longed to see him once
more, and from April to September this longing continued to increase.
In vain the exceeding risk as well as difficulty of travelling in her
state was represented to her; she at last persuaded her husband to
consent to the imprudent undertaking upon which she had set her heart.
As the physicians had foreseen, the journey very seriously aggravated
Mme. Guerrier’s sufferings, which increased to such a degree that, even
after some weeks of repose, it was impossible for her to attempt to
return to Beaune. The slightest movement often brought on an alarming
crisis.
The consequence of such a state, under existing circumstances, was
nothing less than the breaking up of the family. The husband, on
account of his duties as judge of the peace, was compelled to reside at
Beaune, while the condition of his wife rendered it impossible for her
to quit St. Gobain. She had asked to have her children with her, and
thus, between every two audiences, when possible, M. Guerrier took a
journey of one hundred and forty leagues and back, in order to spend a
few days with those who made all the happiness of his life.
Nearly a year passed in this way. A moment of improvement was
constantly watched for which might permit Mme. Guerrier to travel; but
this moment was waited for in vain. On the contrary, the paralysis was
beginning to affect the left arm, and the thought of her journey
thither made that of the homeward one very alarming.