CURE AT LOURDES

New Zealand Tablet, 3 February 1910, Page 179

CURE AT LOURDES

CONFIRMED BY X RAYS

On September 6, 1897 (says a writer in the Catholic limes), a strange procession passed along the streets which lead to the railway station ot Tours. In a narrow wicker bed , lay a young girl, motionless, livid, inanimate. By her side walked her father and mother, cast down though not without hope, their attention riveted upon their dear invalid child, who no longer recognised them; but their souls were turned towards the blessed banks of the Gave where they were going to ask Our Lady Immaculate to restore to them the only child left to their declining years. . Still, was it not tempting Providence to ask such a miracle; and how could they excuse themselves for making a poor sick girl undertake such a journey? She had lost consciousness from the very first jolts of the road. M. and Mme. Tulasne heard these remarks as they passed on. Some even said: ‘Are there no police in Tours to prevent fanatical parents from being so barbarous ?’ ‘ Poor child! They will bring her back in a coffin.’ She who inspired so much pity was about twenty years old. Her name was Jeanne. A few years previously she had seen her brother die of pulmonary tuberculosis. Attacked herself two years ago by spinal tuberculosis, she was following the same road as her brother, and step by step was reaching the same end. In October, 1895, Drs. T. and M. had put a plaster case on her; following the usual treatment of this terrible complaint. Six months after two other doctors, A. and Th., put on a second one. Then they sent their young patient to spend several months at the seaside. The doctor who had charge of her there cut off the corset and cauterised round the bones of the spine consumed by the caries. All was in vain; the disease continued its fatal course. The young girl was obliged to stay absolutely still. An abscess had formed, as often happens in this cruel malady. One foot had twisted. Severe inflammation, with swelling round the ankle, had set in; the leg itself was contracted, so . that there could be no hesitation as to the nature of the evil. Man being powerless, Jeanne then turned towards the Madonna of the rocks of Massabielle—supreme hope of the hopeless. They arrived at Lourdes on Tuesday, September 7, 1897. The next day the Archbishop of Tours officiated at the procession of the Blessed Sacrament. You know that, in this touching ceremony, the Celebrant stops a minute before each sick person, and blesses them, with the monstrance. The Archbishop, Mgr. Ren on, stopped therefore in front of his young parishioner, whom he had visited during the journey at a time when she was supposed to be dying. She was now praying aloud, and the pious Bishop hoped that God would deign to hear her. So he remained before her wicker cradle longer than is customary. He was waiting for the moment ordained by Providence. But that moment came not. ‘ So I went on,’ he told me himself. ‘ It seemed to me that the twelve or fifteen thousand persons who surrounded me already found the scene too long. But whilst I was taking the first step away I thought to myself: I am really afraidafraid lest they should be thinking that this old Archbishop would pass on quicker before an invalid sixty years of age. Then I was ashamed of myself, and told myself that I was a moral coward.’ At this moment the Archbishop, having blessed two sick persons, got to Mme. Catay, who was the third from Jeanne. Mme. Catay was lodging at Lourdes with the Tulasnes, whose generosity had enabled her sick daughter to make the pilgrimage with her mother. Touched by the sick girl’s heart-rending supplications, and seeing that Heaven had not answered her, she looked at the Blessed Sacrament as It came towards her, and offered this heroic prayer: ‘ My God, if only one of us is to get well, let it be Jeanne.’ The magnanimous prayer of the humble work-woman and the manly feeling of the Archbishop met before the Face of God. Suddenly the spectators saw the Celebrant stop; he turned quickly back and held the monstrance towards the young girl Jeanne, to bless her once again one last time. Then the effect was prompt as lightning. Jeanne uprose on her couch with one bound —she, to whom all movement had been impossible for so long. She cried out: ‘I am cured, mother; I am cured!’ and raising her covering, she showed her straightened foot, which moved easily. She passed her hand over her back —over the very seat of the disease — causing herself any pain at all, and she repeated persistently; ‘Let me get up; let me get up. I tell you I am cured!’ There had to be quite a struggle to hold her in her bed. ‘ Wait, my child,’ said her mother, who could not believe in such happiness. ‘ Let the procession finish then we will see.’ But the procession had not finished when the head brancardier (stretcher-bearer) requested the young girl to be taken, away from the sick. Two thousand pilgrims followed behind her, running, carried away by enthusiasm, forming a triumphant procession. Arrived at the courtyard of the hospital, Jeanne jumped to the ground from her bed without any support. They then enter the chapel; she kneels and prays in silence for a moment. Her parents had been separated from

their daughter by the crowd, which ran faster than they id. they arrived at this moment at the closed gate of the courtyard. they were stopped by a pitiless sentry. Open it for me, open to me the gdte,’ cried Mme. c "i sne > the brancardier in charge. ( I am the mother of the cured girl.’ ‘ Oh, that’s all very fine,’ cried the brancardier, unmoved. ‘ln an hour from now twenty persons will have been her mother.’ .But the voice of nature made itself heard so clearly that at last he recognised it, and opened the gate. An _ hour later the family was at table, and Jeanne was dining; sitting up on a chair like the rest, straight and firm upon the vertebral column, which for twenty months had been of no use whatever. .All pain, all infirmity, had disappeared, and in the back, marvellous to relate, there was no longer any lump! It was noticeable that same evening. The next day, in the hall for investigations, the subject of the miraculous cure was examined by doctors strange to the office. When the examination was finished, Dr. P. declared in the name of his fellow doctors that the three vertebrm attacked no longer stuck out! that the twisted foot was no longer so, but straight and healthy; that the movements of the leg, paralysed as it had been, were free. In short, the cure seemed complete. In reality, it was complete, and so it has ever since remained. For eleven years the evil has never reappeared. July, 1908. We may add that the Ecclesiastical Commission appointed by the Archbishop of Tours has declared the above cure to have been a true miracle. This confirms the testimony of several medical experts, who examined Mile. Jeanne Tulasne, and used the X-rays; to make their testimony beyond all cavil or doubt.