THE MIRACLES AT LOURDES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 352, 16 January 1880, Page 7

THE MIRACLES AT LOURDES.

On Sunday night, Oct. 26th, Father Ring, 0.M.1., preached in the Church of the English Martyrs. Prescot street, Tower Hill, to a crowded congregation. Father Eing formerly held the position of missionary rector of the Tower Hill mission, a post whose duties are now so worthily fulfilled by the venerable Father Cooke. During the cholera years his noble efforts to save the stricken people won mm the admiration of all, even those most bitterly opposed to the taitn of which he is a minister. He has just returned from Lourdes, and. naturally enough, his visit to the world-famed shrine formed the subject of his discourse. Having traced the story of the miracu'ous spot, a story now familiar to the Catholic world, he continued : Who is she who appeared to the little child, and said, " I am the Immaculate Conception ?" Her miracles make answer. What is her power ■with God ? Her miracles make answer. What is her holiness— what its height, and depth, and breadth? Her miracles make answer. What is the measure of her love and compassion and charity towards God's Creatures? Her miracles make answer What are her relations with us ? Her miracles make answer. How should we honour her, how should we love her ? Her miracles make answer. God has spoken ; to all those questions an answer is given us by the miracles which God has been pleased to work in the holy sanctuary at Lourdes. Should he try to recount the number of miracles that have there been wrought since the time the vision appeared to the little girl ? It were an endless task. He could not tell the story of ten thousand miracles. Other sanctuaries have been rendered famous by one great miracle that led to the erection of some ereat temple, some stately church ; but at Lourdes the miracles began twenty years ago ; day after day, month after month, and year after year, the stream of miraculous cures has flowed on without interruption, and still continues so to flow. Other sanctuaries have been remarkable for a certain class of miracles. At Lourdes the miracles have been wrought in regard to every kind of suffering, to every class of malady. After his arrival at Lourdes he saw a procession passing towards the grotto. And in that procession, and in a conspicuous position, he saw a little girl of some eleven or twelve years. That morning the little girl K\ i been carried helpless and powerless to the holy waters where th». wk are bathed, and the little child, who for two years had been unable to move, left the bath perfectly cured. The Blessed Virgin had prayed for her young client; the little child left her crutches in the grotto, and took her place in the prcession. On the following day he went towards the grotto, and, as he took his place beside the kneeling pilgrims, he saw a young man of powerful frame borne past him from the arms of his wife and mother. They bore him towards the grotto that they might offer up prayers before the statue that now marks the spot where the Blessed Virgin appeared. His limbs hung powerless, and almost lifeless as they carried him along. He watched him. The others saw him pass by, and many were they who offered up prayers in his behalf. Then their thoughts were carried away to something else, and he was for the moment forgotten. He saw him return in a little while, accompanied by his wife and his mother, all three hastening to give thanks to God for the restoration to health of one who had been unable to walk in unaided. During his stay a young girl came, who a year before haa lost the sight of one eye. She had undergone a surgical operation. Skilfully had that operation been performed, and for a while the affected organ had been cured. After a few weeks had passed by a change took place, and she lost the sight of that eye. She returned to the surgeon, but he said he could do nothing more for her, the pupil being destroyed. " Now," said the young patient, " I will go to our Lady of Lourdes and ask her to exercise her power on my behalf." She went ; she entered the bath. For a moment she suffered an agony so terrible that she, in describing it, said, " I felt as if my eye was torn through my head." That agony over, she came forth thanking God and blessing His Holy Mother. Another day, being near the grotto, he saw a number of persons gathered ronnd a young girl. They were congratulating her, and with their cougratulations were mingled words of earnest thanksgiving to God. He spoke to a priest who knew the girl well and this is the tale he told. " Ten years ago," he said— and ten years is a long time—" I saw her struck down— paralysed. During the past five years she has been altogether deprived of the use of her limbs. I used to visit her in her poor home and to bring her Holy Communion, for she was unable to come to church, unable to leave her home. It was arranged that she should com* to Lourdes. She came here but once to the bath, from which she came forth just as you now see her." He had had seen her walk away upright, as strong, as firm, as if she had not known what sickness meant. He should never forget the appearance of one woman who had been restored to health during his stay. Her cry of joy attracted his attention towards the bath. And as he looked he saw a woman, joy lighting up her face, joy illuming every feature, holding aloft her two crutches. She had been that morning helped to the bath by a friend. Her crutches were laid there in order that she might use them on leaving the bath. When she came forth, he saw her holding thf>m aloft and heard her returning thanks to God for the miracle He had been pleased to work in her behalf. And miracles such as these were witnessed every day • ten thousand miracles, not less wonderful than these which had been worked under his own eyes and in his own presence, so to say attested the power of God's Immaculate Mother, and demonstrated the truth of the tale told by the humble shepherdess. By these miracles God honours the Blessed Virgin ; by these miracles God enkindles devotion to the Blessed Virgin ; by these miracles God proves that thost who pray to the Blessed Virgin do something which is pleasing to His Divine Majesty and for which He Himself is willing to reward them. There are other wonders to be seen in this holy place of a different kind from these miracles, but not less strange and striking five-and-twenty years ago the little town of Lourdes was unknown and unnoticed. It had a parish church— a poor, a miserable he might almost say a wretched structure, and now it possesses a church which is one of the.most beautiful on the face of God's earth, and on which there were expended, not a few, but one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. 4. few years ago Lourdes was unknown— now

pilgrims flock thither from all parts of France, Spain, Italy, and all portions of the globe, so that the trains that approach from the North, csouth, and West are so many pilgrimage processions to its famous sanstuary. The fountain at Lourdes may now be regarded as the mainspring of a mighty stream that spreads throughout the whole oat&olic world, for wherever Catholics are that water has been carried, and wondrous have been the miracles wrought through it. lhese miracles prove that Catholic devotion to the Blessed Virgin is pleasing to the great and good God. And what are the fruits of these miracles 1 What was the fruit of Our Lord's miracles— what was the result of the first great miracle He wrought ? By that miracle our Divine Saviour manifested His glory to His disciples, and they believed in Him. It confirmed their faith, strengthened their hope, and increased the love of God in their hearts. So at Lourdes faith and hope and charity are strengthened in the Christian heart. After the sermon there was a procession in honour of the Blessed Virgin, in which all the religious confraternities connected with the church took part, The hymn to Our Lady of Lourdes was sweetly rendered as it wound its way round the sacred edifice. Benedictiou of the Blessed Sacrament followed. — Universe.