Miraculous Waters

Next to St. Therese of Lisieux, the "Little Flower" of the Infant Jesus who died in young, frail sanctity in 1897, no woman of modern times is more famed among Roman Catholics than another frail young Frenchwoman who died in 1879. All the vast majesty of St. Peter's at Rome was needed for the ceremonies which will make a saint of Bernadette Soubirous of Lourdes this week (Dec. 10).

Into St. Peter's, hung with red-&-gold draperies and flaming with myriad chandeliers, are to crowd Roman and foreign notables, thousands of plain folk and pilgrims from all lands. On its lofty walls they behold enormous oil paintings of Bernadette Soubirous and her good works in life. Pope Pius XI enters, in triple crown and embroidered white cope, borne aloft on his sedia gestatoria. He proceeds to the altar, followed by cardinals, archbishops, patriarchs, bishops, monsignori and priests, who kiss his ring and the cross on his slipper. The air is heavy with incense.

A cardinal-advocate approaches, petitions the Pope that Bernadette be added to the calendar of saints--"instanter." The Pope replies that God's guidance must be asked. The congregation chants the Litany of Saints. The advocate repeats his petition--"instanter, instantius." The Pope repeats his reply. The choir sings Veni Creator. Once more the advocate pleads --"instanter, instantius, instantissime." Thereupon the Pope pronounces:

"To the honor of the holy and undivided Trinity, for the exaltation of the Catholic faith and the increase of the Christian religion, by the authority of Our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and of Ourselves. . . . We decree and define that Bernadette is a saint, and We insert her name upon the catalog of saints, commanding that her memory be annually venerated by the Universal Church. . . ."

The advocate retires giving thanks. The choir bursts into a mighty Te Deum. All the churches in Rome send up a joyful pealing of bells. The Pope sings Mass, during which he accepts offerings from his cardinals--candles, loaves, silver and gold casks of water and wine, three cages of doves, sparrows, finches and larks, which set up a melodious cooing and twittering throughout St. Peter's.

Saint Bernadette's day in the catalog of Catholic saints: Feb. 11.

Daughter of a poor miller of Lourdes in the edge of the Pyrenees, Bernadette Soubirous at 14 was a pious, illiterate child, frail and asthmatic. One February day 75 years ago she went out looking for firewood with her sister Marie and a friend named Jeanne. When they reached the icy river Gave de Pau the other two waded in but Bernadette fearfully hung back. Then, she recounted later, she heard a terrific rumbling, a rushing as of wind. In a nearby grotto she beheld a golden cloud in which appeared a "beautiful lady," in a blue-sashed white gown, a rosary and gold crucifix hanging from her arm. The "lady" smiled, said nothing, disappeared. Bernadette called to her companions but they only laughed, said they had heard and seen nothing.

Thereafter Bernadette returned repeatedly to the grotto where she saw the Blessed Virgin, in all, 18 times. The Virgin promised her happiness "not in this world but in the next." She uttered such commands as: "Pray for sinners!", "Penance! Penance! Penance!", "Go drink at the spring, wash yourself there, and eat of the grass beside it!", "Tell the priests to build a chapel here!" Bernadette obeyed as best she could. Finding no spring in the grotto she dug her nails into the rock until one sprang forth.

Before she went into a convent, aged 22, a chapel had been built at the Lourdes grotto and a statue of the Virgin installed on the rock-side. Before she died of tuberculosis, aged 35, the first trickle of pilgrims had swelled into a pious stream, requiring many an inn and two big churches. Today, it is a mighty river of modern Catholics that pours into Lourdes, at the rate of 1,000,000 a year, to sing, to chant, to parade and, above all, to cleanse itself in the waters of St. Bernadette's little spring.

This spring is now sluiced into three baths. Many a pilgrim, clean or diseased, awaits his turn to undress and wrap himself in a towel used by dozens of others, and to sit for a brief moment in one of the baths. Volunteer workers (some of them women of culture) care for the lame and the blind.

But only about 10,000 a year come for miraculous cures. Of these only about 150 profess themselves healed by virtue of the waters. Of these, about ten each year are attested by the nonecclesiastical Lourdes medical bureau as "incurable." The Roman Catholic Church certifies these as miracles--"exceptions to the order of nature as known in our common experience." Skeptics attribute some '"cures" to hysteria, an unknown potency in the Lourdes waters, hypnotism, or charlatanry by local doctors who certify incurable certain cases before they reach Lourdes. But no material explanation covers all the wonders reported to and investigated by the bureau: growth of good tissue, swift knitting of broken bones, immediate disappearance of cysts, sores, tumors, tuberculosis, blindness, paralysis, deafness. And of the 500 doctors who come to observe, many of the best are amazed.

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