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Show , t Some Wonderful Cures -at Lourdes. , . The Munificence of God's Reward to the Faithful for Their Homage to Hkn and Our Divine Mother. The Institution of the Na- tional Pilgrimage. During the Past Twenty-five Tear3 8S1,708 Masses Have Been Celebrated at the Shrine, and 6,853,180 Communions Administered. THE AVERAGE NUMBER OF i CURES AT A PILGRIMAGE. ! The introduction of this solemn cult- ! us of the Eucharist in Lourdes. extended ex-tended later on to nocturnal adoration, j has given a marvelous stimulus to the pilgrimages. In 1SSS there were 105 j in 3S96 they had increased to 225; in j 1SSS the number of communions -dis- j trbuited in the shrine was 233.000 in ! lfcSC the number of communions had ascended as-cended to 400. GOO. During the national pilgrimage of l&SS we noted only thrity j cures in 1S1:S during the three days of ' the same pilgrimage we were enabled : to examine thoroughly ninety-eight. Formerly the doctors who visited our j bureau and assisted at our invesiiga- J tions did not exceed twenty-five or i thirty in the year 1S9S we counted 2'jO of them. ! Mt-anwhile our experience and the ex- ! amir.ation of facts have shown us one j thing very clearly they have proved that the prodigious cures which take ' place are nether in the hand nor the I will of man. but comes from a hand i and a will which grants them when, how and to whom it pleases. We have seen pilgrimages ' magnificently ar- j ranged make the most solemn and de- : vout processions in which the blessed I sacrament was borne in front of 300 or 350 sick persons, without a single f cure taking place. Why? The only j reason that can be alleged is that such i was the will of our Lord. The argument argu-ment of auto-suggestion, the battle- j horse of the sceptics, can hardly "get I over the fact. I THE FALLACY OF THE SUGGES-TKtN SUGGES-TKtN THEORY." Eight or ten of those favored by a rure at once instantaneous and inexplicable inex-plicable on natural grounds, came to m:r bureau to have it verified. The cases presented to us included' ad"-vanced ad"-vanced consumption, tuberculosis, peritonitis, peri-tonitis, white tumors, brain diseases, caries of the spinal column in a word, cases of illness not curable by suggestion, sug-gestion, and jet certainly cured. Now what happened in the instances of nervous ner-vous maladies which might have been susceptible of being cured by suggestion? sugges-tion? Out there in the double row of invalids which stretched all along the esplanade were lying at least three hundred persons suffering from nerve disease. Why was it that not one of these rose to his feet cured by the emotions of a spectacle so extraordinarily extraordi-narily exciting? Or must we imagine, to explain the circumstances, a sort of inverted miracle to hinder their cure? The fact is we assisted at the Complete Com-plete failure of suggestion as a healing heal-ing force on this occasion. Too long ' have the ideas on this subject been alsified, even to the extent of endeavoring endeav-oring to force upon us the equally false iilemma either the facts are not true, or suggestion has produced the effects verified. In the present case the facts were palpable, and suggestion was impossible. im-possible. The secret that was sought for in the waters of the Grotto was not found in them; worse still has been the effort to seek it in suggestion, which cannot extend to the sudden cure of organic disease. Certain it is that the programme of the cures which take place in the Eucharistic feasts of Lourdes has not been written by human hu-man hand; every one of them is like a divine poem wherein are revealed a mind and a hand that are not of earth in proof whereof witness the story of these few by way of example: A CURE THAT WAS THE RESULT OF A NOBLE ACT OF CHARITY. The girl Giovanna Toulaine of the city of Tours, suffering from Pott's disease, dis-ease, had traveled to Lourdes lying on a mattress within a long basket made of willow rods. Three times she had been immersed in the pools, but without with-out profit. Finally she was carried to the front of the Church of the Rosary n the line of the procession of the Iilessed Sacrament. Her father and mother stood by her side, but very Jit-tle Jit-tle hope was to be read on their faces. Not so, however, with their daughter her features expressed the most lively live-ly hopfulness. The Ostensory was borne in the hands of her pastor, the Archbishop Arch-bishop of Tours, who knew her and felt warm sympathy for her. Coming to i where she lay he stopped for a few I moments, waiting to see if the Divine Master would graciously hear the cry that was being raised around: "Lord, heal her! Lord, heal her!" Then slowly slow-ly he began to move away, while the sobs of the poor girl followed him Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst heal The prelate continued slowly on his way, with tears in his eyes until he came in front of Madame Kate, also of Tours, worn away with illness and fallen from the condition of ease in which she had once lived. This lady, before becoming ill herself, used to visit Jeanne frequently, and the latter had obtained her parents consent to have her come at their expense to Lourdes with their daughter in order that their charity in doing so might win the lady's prayers for her cure. When the Archbishop Arch-bishop reached Madame Kate's place the poor woman exclaimed: "My God, if only one of us is to be cured, let it be Jeanne!" Just then there was a shout from the crowd. The prelate turns around. Jeanne has been shaken with a violent tremor she has risen to' a sitting posture unaided and is exclaiming: ex-claiming: "I am cured, I am well, I want to get up!" And she did get up at once, from the pains that had tor-1 mented her so long. This cure was the result of a beautiful act of charity an act which was the cause of the miracle. ANOTHER NOTABLE CURE. Young Guy of Monpellier had for a k.g while been treated at the hospital, but without any satisfactory result. One of his arms was paralyzed, withered, with-ered, dead. The skin had become dis-. colored and was falling away in scales. j j While the Sacred Host passed he raised with his sound arm the splints in which I his dseased member was bound until ' they touched the Ostensory. In an instant in-stant he felt a violent shock in the ! withered arm; motion, heat and life j returned to it in full perfection; he took off the splints and was fully cured. In a basket near him was lvingr a boy of 12, who, in all his life, had never put one foot before another, for he had been afflicted from infancy with tuberculous tuber-culous coxalgy, accompanied with suppuration. sup-puration. No sooner had the Archbishop Arch-bishop with the Blessed Sacrament drawn nigh him that he grasned the numeral veil and held tightly to it with his hands. In vain did those around him endeavor to make him let go. "No." he exclaimed, clinging to the veil with more vehemence. "I shall not let go unless un-less I get cured." In another moment mo-ment the boy jumped to his feet healed and began to walk to the great amazement amaze-ment of the crowd that pressed around him and then carried him in triumph. WONDERFUL CASE OF LOUISE DAVID. - To these miraculous cures mentioned by Dr. Boissarie at the Eucharistic congress con-gress it will be worth while to add some notice of another not less wonderful, which was published only in December, 1S99, four months after the congress. '1 ne girl. Louise David, of Pont-l'Eveque, Pont-l'Eveque, had been of that happy number num-ber who had assisted joyfully at the ceremonies of the Jubilee as one of the previously cured. At the age of 14 she had been afflicted with a lesion of the spinal column, which had kept her tied j to a couch for thirty long months, and j during this time internal sores had formed, one of. them at the root of the I nerves, which brought on a' serious nev-ritis nev-ritis to-the left leg, turning it Inward until it could be straightened only with a painful effort. Moreover, the . whole of her left side became so sensitive that the slightest touch became the cause of intense pain. Her foot had become deformed de-formed and turned backward, and her nerves were in such a state that she had hardiy ever a moment of ease. She was forbidden all movement, even with the aid of crutches. After two years and a half of this martyrdom, Louise was taken to Lourdes. but in an almost dying state-so state-so much so, indeed, that her friends and relatives looked upon her parents as mad to. hope for a cure from the Blessed Virgin. Reaching Lourdes on Aug. 20, ,18y5. Louise was twice immersed im-mersed in the pools. The poor child suffered so acutely from the intense cold of the water that the women who attended her could not refrain from tears of compassion. The pity was intensified in-tensified at the sight of the sufferings of Louise during the procession of the Blessed Sacrament. She wanted to go to our Lord on her invalid chair, but the crush of people rendered it impossible. impos-sible. When the Host drew near, her father, taking her in his arms and lifting lift-ing her up, cried out: "O Lord, heal my daughter for me!" and the poor child, in an impetus of faith and love, stretched her head toward the Ostensory Osten-sory and Imprinted three passionate kisses on the crystal of It. Then, turning turn-ing to her father, she exclaimed: "Papa, let me down; I am going to walk!" Her father boldly put her down, and Louise, barefooted as she was, followed fol-lowed the baldacchino with a light and joyous step. She had been cured in an instant, and the throng, wrought to enthusiasm en-thusiasm at the sight of the portent, began to cheer and crowd around her so that she would have been suifocated but for the efforts of the attendants, who kept back the press. This same girl, who took part, nine and strong, two years after, that is, m the August of 1897, in the festival during dur-ing which 300 of those who had been healed sang the glories of Mary, --on Nov 30, 1899, when she reached the age of 21 assumed the veil in the Convent Bagneres-de-Bigorre. Her mother, in gratitude for the heavenly favor vouchsafed vouch-safed to her child, made a public declaration de-claration of the cure, signed by twelve authoritative witnesses, among them being the venerated parish Priest of Auvillars. CURES THAT FOLLOW THE TAKING TAK-ING OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. SACRA-MENT. When the sick are heaied at the pools, observes Dr. Boissarie, they experience at the moment violent sensations in the diseased or paralyzed members a prelude pre-lude to the life and motion which im- i mediately return. The same phenomenon phenome-non occurs In the cases of sudden cure which takes place during the passing of the Blessed Sacrament. The fact seems of itself to indicate the intervention inter-vention of a force more than human. The girl, Grimard of Bordeaux, had been a paralytic for seventeen years. At the moment when the Blessed Eucharist Eu-charist was brought to where she was she felt an indefinable sensation, as of a wave, so to speak, which lifted her up and out of her couch. "I can never forget this push," she says, "or explain it, but certain it is that it came from an external force prevailing over my own nature," To quote another example, when Mile Marguerite Ssvoye lately arrived at Lourdes, she looked like a corpse as she was carried in her litter, pallid, speechless, skeleton-like. Though she was 25 years old, she weighed only forty pounds that is to say, as much as a child of 6. She had never left her bed nor eaten solid food. On her departure de-parture for Lourdes her doctor gave her only fifteen days to live, and the doctors who saw her at our bureau did not venture to 'touch her, for she was barely alive. It was not even dreamed of putting her into the pools. Such then, was her state when she was laid at the feet of the Blessed Virgin Vir-gin before the Grotto. At the moment of the passing of the Blessed Sacrament a strong, irresistible push lifted her suddenly out of her litter, causing her to bound out on the ground from -a height of two feet. Marguerite finds herself on her knees by her littter. She rises to her feet and advances swift y and unaided, crying out: I am cured! Her mother, in amazement, runs to her; mother and daughter are-clasped in each other's arms, while the girl repeats, re-peats, exultantly; "Mamma, I am cured!" The same day she entered our office, standing firm and upright on her legs, with her face still pale qnd emaciated, but beaming with the joy which filled her heart. We have said that she weighed forty pounds. A few months after she weighed 110. Her growth, too, resumed its course, and she has gained three inches in height at the age of 23! This, then, is not so much a case of cure as of resurrection. The power of the God of the Eucharists has made her over again. With good reason, then- does Dr. Eoissarie, in his report to the; congress, take occasion from these fatfts to call attention to the munificence of God's reward to the faithful for their homage to Him in the Mystery of His love around the Grotto of Lourdes, and to' the gentle power of the Divine Mother in drawing the multitudes to the feet of Her Son, our Redeemer. Hence it is that the devotion and triumphs with which He is honored in the Eucharist have become inseparable from those with which her own name is honored at her shrine. In perfect harmony with this same conclusion, is the paper read by Father Fournou at the Congress and now printed for the public. From this we gather that during the last twenty-five f years, taking account only of the reg-! reg-! ularly organized pilgrimages to Lourdes Lour-des and excluding all individual visitors, vis-itors, 761,708 Masses have been celebrated cele-brated at the altars of the shrine and 6,863,180 communions have been administeredfigures admin-isteredfigures that give a yearly av-v erage of 24,060 Masses and 233,900 com- j munions. |
