A PILGRIMAGE TO LOURDES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 342, 7 November 1879, Page 7

A PILGRIMAGE TO LOURDES.

The Standard correspondent telegraphs from Paris on Monday night : It is now time to return to the pilgrims whose departure from Paris I recorded last week, and give you some information as to their progress. On that occasion I left them at Poitiers. Their stay in that town was enlivened by the Reverend Father Bailly, who related to them the life of St. Martin. Thj departuie from that place occasioned some difficulty, on account of the number of the sick, the lame, and the blind, who hope to be miraculously cured in the famous grotto. This is proved by the following telegram published by tie Monde :—: — " It was rather a painful business to get the six hundred sick into the carnages again at Poitiers ; but the hospitality and attention of the townspeople were admirable. It would have been impossible to show more generosity and delicacy. A person who had been blind for several years was suddenly cured on the way, while the Rosary was being recited for the sick. The five trains bringing the sick arrived at Lourdes without any accident. A train from Carcasone and one from Bordeaux joined them. All the pilgiims went immediately to the grotto, where the miraculous cures at once began. The cripples, restored to activity, left their crutches in the grotto. All the pilgrims expressed sentiments of faith, hope, and gratitude." The correspondent of the Unirers, the Viscount de Chaulnes, writes as follows :—: — The arrival of the Holy Grotto was what it ought to be, universal prayer with alternate singing of hymns and inexpressible entrain. It was an admirable sight to look upon the Grotto, surrounded by the sick lying down, or seated, or supporting themselves on their friends, surrounded by robust pilgrims alternately singing hymns and reciting the rosary. That was an unspeakable scene which dominates all the absurd arguments of free thought and rationalism. The real France is here, and in the midst of the Alps, as at the foot of the Pyrenees, we pray to God with all our might. That is our answer to the persecution that has begun. I leave you to mount guard at the Holy Grotto. The rain that has been falling all tbe morning leaves the pilgiims indifferent. They surround the sanctuary with the same zeal as if a glorious sun were shining. The programme is not very varied and yet it is always changing. We pray to God, and sing in honour of Mary. There aie no variations on these two exercises, and yet we live on emotions ; emotions at the Masses in the Grotto where Mary lavishes her favouis — emotions at the sermons vhen the preacheis have but to let their hearts speak — emotions at the procession which yesterday presented the most magnificent sight it is possible to imagine. I give M. Spuler a rendezvous for tomoriow, or after to-morrow at nine in the morning, at the Grotto of Lourdes, near those wietched beds on which men lie suffering, or at the enhance of the miraculous pool, from which he will be able to see those who were cairicd in on stretchers walk out on their feet. I invite him as well as 31. Ferry and M. Paul Bert to come here at seven in the evening, and I shall ask those gentlemen to what cause they attribute this enthusiasm of twenty thousand or thirty thousand persons singing with faith for two hours the praise of Mary, and carrying wax candles. They may vainly give what scientific explanations they please, a single word answers them all— faith in God, who can do all things, and who always hears tbe prayers of those wbo invoke him. Everything lies in that. The whole of repentant and suppliant France is represented at Lourdes. That France tells its beads. I also recommend those who demand the beads of the religious to reflect on the power of the rosary recited at the Grotto of Lourdes. It is a dynamical question the church has long since solved. Notre Dame de Lourdes will kill the revolution. It is done, in fact, since Mary has crushed the serpent. The bastard reptiles which now raise their heads cannot deny this Catholic assertion.