Spring Water Over the World
Atlanta, GA
May 10, 2022
For those who believe in God, no explanation is necessary. For those who don’t believe in God, no explanation is possible.
– From The Song of Bernadette
Jefferson speculated that were we to ask any well-traveled person in which country he’d prefer to live, he’d likely say his own…where he’d find his friends, relations, and earliest and sweetest affections of life.
And if asked a second choice? – France.
I’ve made no secret of my affinity for France. For years, the food, culture, history, and wine…in opposite order…all kept me coming back.
A couple decades ago, so did my work. Most months I’d spend a week in the Air France offices, developing transatlantic pricing and plans during the day…and delving into Paris by night.
For a couple consecutive autumns, I was fortunate to foray into the south of France, for an annual conference with airline peers. My franco-phile wife and I also ventured to that idyllic region, sampling the pleasures of Provence and the beautiful towns of the Côte d’Azur. Separate trips took us to the Loire Valley and throughout the Île de France.
I’d return anywhere in France, and there are many regions where we’d still like to go – Bordeaux, Burgundy, and Bretagne among them. But to one remote village, we’ve always been drawn, as if by an invisible hand from a vital force.
Nestled in the Pyrenees piedmont, the village of Lourdes has pre-historic roots, and was settled in Roman antiquity. Centuries later, it adopted and adapted the baptismal name “Lorus”, chosen by a Muslim leader who converted to Christianity after succumbing to Charlemagne. After the 16th century Wars of Religion, Lourdes luxuriated for almost three hundred years in the undisturbed peace of quiet isolation.
But France didn’t.
Every country has problems, usually self-inflicted political wounds. But the Franks have had more than their fill. War, massacres, debt, disease, economic calamity, and social upheaval have all sullied the lily of France. Yet a persistent institution has preserved its ingrained gild.
Catholicism entered Gaul in the second century, earning France her sobriquet as “Eldest Daughter of the Church”. It’s been a tumultuous relationship. That’s not surprising. After all, any child will throw an occasional fit. But a couple hundred years ago, France tossed a tantrum…and the world is still cleaning the mess.
The eldest daughter denounced her Mother, and suffered the consequences of committing such a sin. The arrogance, atrocities, and absurdities of Revolution, Empire, Restoration, and more Revolution exhausted France, and left her spiritually bereft. Or, rather, her spiritual bereavement begat those decades of despair.
France lost her faith before the deluge. A rapacious state and rampant starvation can make a sincere skeptic of the most devout disciple. Man can’t live on bread alone. But he won’t survive without bread at all. The peasants were starving. With the nobles and the royals, the priests paid the price.
During the Terror, anti-Catholic barbarity abounded. From Nantes to Nîmes, Christian believers were murdered en masse. Statues of saints were decapitated, sacraments were desecrated, and blasphemy was enshrined.
At the apex of revolutionary insanity, Nôtre Dame de Paris was re-dedicated by the lunatics to be a temple of “reason.” Priests were tortured and nuns defiled before both were massacred. Not till Napoleon used the Pope to claim his crown did the savagery subside. But then the new emperor carried his carnage across the continent.
The French Church prevailed against the Gates of Hell, and survived. But her wounds were deep and the scars severe. She tread cautiously into the 19th century. Until the papacies of Gregory XVI and Pius IX, she receded behind secular scepters as she warily whispered the Gospel of Christ.
The Revolutionary upheavals elicited diabolical screams that reached heavenly ears. Our Lady responded with a series of apparitions that…like Rosary beads…would connect the next ten decades, and compose the “Marian Century”.
From the Miraculous Medal of Catherine Labouré, to the visitation at La Salette, and the vision at Knock, the Virgin graced a world that had forgotten its faith. In 1917, she pierced the fog of war with her presence…and prescience…at Fatima. During the depths of Depression and on behalf of the poor, she appeared in consecutive years at Beauraing and Banneux, in what was once Catholic Belgium.
And in 1858, The Immaculate Conception visited an unsuspecting girl at a Pyrenees grotto.
The doctrine proclaiming that Mary was conceived without sin had been declared by Pius IX just four years earlier. Bernadette Soubirous would not have known. In a slow-motion world nourished by a dearth of news, most people didn’t. But a 15 year-old peasant girl, far from the world on the French frontier, would’ve had no clue about an obscure doctrine describing the unsoiled soul of Mother of God.
During one of a series of apparitions that only she could see, Bernadette asked the woman who she was. Receiving her answer, she returned to town.
When asked by her parish priest what The Lady had said, Bernadette repeated verbatim what the woman told her. The vision at the grotto was “the Immaculate Conception”. That an ignorant girl would know this monicker was all the proof the priest would need.
Bernadette had seen Our Lady at Lourdes.
Between February and July, she’d see her eighteen times. During the ninth appearance, Mary told Bernadette to “drink from the fountain and bathe in it”. There was no visible fountain. But blessed are those who believe, yet do not see. Bernadette dug into the gravely ground till she reached moist soil, and washed it on her face. From the earth, a spring bubbled up. The flow increased, and has continued to this day.
Miracle cures came almost immediately…including three within the first weeks of the initial apparitions. A blind man was cured after the water washed his eyes. A woman whose hand had been paralyzed for ten years was once again able to use it. And a child suffering the scourge of tuberculosis recovered completely after his total immersion, and lived till 1935.
Scientists at the time and since have corroborated the miracles, which have continued to occur. Pilgrims proliferated, and they’ve come to Lourdes ever since. At the grotto and the Marian church that’s risen upon it, they visit Our Lady to honor her Son. From them they receive physical relief and spiritual redemption by taking the waters and touching the rocks.
Between the Revolutions of 1848 and the Commune of 1871, France was in trouble. And so was the Church. As if to preserve both, Our Lady came to Lourdes. And last week, a few days before Mother’s Day, in a country reeling from its own self-inflicted wounds, Lourdes came to us.
Holy Spirit Catholic Church was blessed for three days to host the relics of St Bernadette, and to offer its parishioners the healing touch of the precious water and special rocks that lure the world to Lourdes. More than any time since the Soviet demise, the world hasn’t needed it more.
In the central sanctuary of the main church, the local flock venerated the saintly relics of this simple girl. We were treated to a virtual experience amid the village, grotto, and chapel of Lourdes, and proceeded in prayer to the Adoration of Our Lord. And, in a moving scene that elicited tears, the faithful dipped their hands and pressed their fingers into samples of water and pieces rock that came from Lourdes.
Sick kids, the frail elderly, and suffering souls approached these enduring symbols of a girl’s faith and God’s embrace.
CS Lewis ostensibly said that we don’t have a soul. We are soul; we have a body.
We don’t know whether any bodies were healed after physical contact with these wondrous signs from Our Lady of Lourdes. But no one in that church on that night doubted that every soul was. If only that water could be spread over the world.
May is the maternal month, and Sunday was Mother’s Day. The world needs its Mother more than ever. Fortunately, she’s here. She always is.
We just need to know where to look. And to want to.
JD