The Road to Santiago: Pilgrims of St. James

Once inside the gate of la cite religieuse, what a wonderful sensation of peace and serenity in contrast to the turmoil of the town! Here there was green grass and under the trees here and there were white marble statues of Our Lady, and on each side of the park hostels for pilgrims and gardens by the river’s edge. In front of me rose the great Basilica which is built above the grotto in the Massabielle rocks, where La Inmaculada appeared eighteen times to the fourteen-year-old Bernadette. Indeed the mountain itself has actually become the Basilica, for below, it has been tunnelled into a crypt and above rises the Church of the Rosary, finished in 1876 in the style of the thirteenth century, and one mounts to it by a flight of stone steps to the level of the church or by the sloping avenues which have been built for cars. Before visiting the Basilica I made my way to the grotto of Our Lady. About three metres above the ground, in a niche in the cave, stands the white marble statue of Our Lady in the place where she appeared to the Blessed Bernadette.
    In 1858, when Bernadette saw the apparition for the first time, the rock of Massabielle was a mass of bramble thickets and difficult of access, but now the cave is open to all and the pilgrims, after praying in front of the statue, make their way to the altar with candles in their hands, which they light in offering. Above, in the grotto, there were numbers of old crutches and ex votos testifying to cures. From the hundreds of flickering candles smoke arises and the smell of burnt wax. Then a man with a bucket, a mop and a ladder came, while the pilgrims were praying, and after putting the ladder in position, mounted it and began unconcernedly to scrub soot, caused by the candles, from the face, hands and breast of the image. This touch of domestic realism made me smile but not one of the devoted pilgrims praying beside me was disturbed by it. As I knelt in meditation before the image I visualized the scene of the cave on the eleventh of February 1858, at noon when the girl saw the apparition. She had gone out with her sister and a little friend to gather dry wood in the fields. The other two girls took off their shoes and stockings to cross the river, but Bernadette did not follow their example as she was suffering from her chronic complaint, asthma. All of a sudden she heard the wind whistling, and turning round she saw a lady dressed in white standing in a niche in the grotto. This was her first vision. On Sunday, February 14, Bernadette, fearing lest her visions might have been illusions sent by the Devil to torment her, sprinkled holy water three times on the ‘Lady’ as exorcism, but the ‘Lady’ smiled sweetly and told the child to return to the grotto on fifteen successive days, and added the words: “I do not promise you happiness in this world, but in the other”. On the ninth occasion that La Inmaculada appeared to Bernadette there were present a number of villagers and the ‘Lady’ told her to wash her face, and when the child was rushing off to the river, Our Lady told her gently to find the water at her feet. The child dug into the earth with her hands and all of a sudden muddy water bubbled up. She washed her face in the water and drank it.
    Thus originated the miraculous spring, which a few days later developed into a plentiful stream of limpid water and from the spring the water flowed into the celebrated pool which is now divided into two separate piscines for men and women. Close by the grotto the water from the spring can be drawn by the pilgrims from taps, and at all hours of the day I saw men, womeii and children there with their bottles which they have bought in the shops. The bottles they would carry back to their countries, but while they were at Lourdes they would wash their faces and drink the water of the spring, in accordance with Our Lady’s injunction to Bernadette.
    When I arrived in Lourdes my feet were hurting me so much that I could hardly walk, and the severity of the weather brought on continuous attacks of asthma and coughing, which made me fear I should have to take refuge in one of the hospitals. I crawled on the first morning as far as the fountain and as I was filling my bottle from a tap, one of the brancardiers who give devoted service to the sick, seeing that I was suffering, spoke to me and asked me why I did not undergo the immersion in the piscine. So persuasive was he that I returned in the afternoon and put