Flora Cantábrica

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A CONVERSION

 The same interested party, Count Bruissard, tells it: I was in Cauterets when there was so much talk of the apparitions of Lourdes. He did not believe in the existence of God; he was an unbeliever and, worse, an atheist. He had read in a newspaper in the country that Bernardita, on July 16, had had an apparition and that the Virgin had smiled at him. I determined to go to Lourdes as curious and see if I could catch the little girl in flagrante delicto of lying.

I went to the Soubirous’ house and found Bernardita at the door, busy in socks. After a long interrogation about the apparitions, I asked him: – Let’s see, how did that beautiful Lady smile?  

The shepherdess looked at me with surprise and, having kept a short silence, said to me: – O sir! You would have to be from heaven to be able to smile in such a way. 

 – Couldn’t you do something similar for me? I am an unbeliever and do not believe in his appearances. 

 The girl’s face was overshadowed.  – So, sir, do you think I’m a liar?   I felt unarmed. No, Bernardita wasn’t a liar, and I almost nearly came to my knees to ask for forgiveness.  – Since you are a sinner, he said, I will imitate the smile of the Virgin

The girl got up very slowly, put her hands together and drew a heavenly smile like I had never seen on mortal lips. His face was filled with a disturbing reflection. He kept smiling, his eyes staring at the sky. I stood motionless in front of her, persuaded to have seen the Virgin smile through the face of the seer. 

   Since then, I have kept this divine memory in the intimacy of my soul. I have lost my wife and two daughters, but it seems to me that I am not alone in the world. I live with the smile of the Virgin

UNEXPLAINED CURES

Luis, 22, and his brother José, were working in the quarry, busy making a hole to put gunpowder and make some rocks explode. The gunpowder exploded ahead of time. Luis was left with his face burned and his right eye badly wounded by a piece of stone. This accident caused him great suffering and he had to be in bed for three months in a straitjacket, because he was raving about the great suffering. His brain nervous system was in continuous irritation, he was almost two years attacked with madness. He was improving, little by little, but, when he wanted to start working, his right eye was with a very weak vision. The eye was almost lost

He heard of the wonders of the water of Lourdes and sent his daughter to the grotto to fetch water. As soon as he applied it to his eye, he saw a light, two hours later he distinguished the objects and assured that he could have read with some difficulty. On the third day, after washing with the water from the grotto, he looked as perfectly as if he had never had the slightest accident. And with this cured eye he saw better than with the other, that he was not hurt. He was convinced that the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, had given the water of the grotto the power to heal

Another case. Croixine Duconte, 38, a resident of Lourdes, testified before the Commission on 17 November 1858, under oath, that her two-year-old son had been habitually ill since shortly after his birth; and I was already thinking of looking for the means to bury it, because it had a cadaveric color and barely breathed Croixine told her husband about taking their son to the grotto to submerge him in the water.

The husband hesitated, as he believed that the child could not bear the fatigue of the journey, but he accepted, because his son seemed incurable. They came to the grotto, where there were a lot of people. The mother immediately immersed the child in the pool of water to the astonishment of the people at such an act of cruelty in the middle of winter. Having prayed, he returned to the village.

Upon arriving home, he put the child in the crib and the child fell asleep peacefully until the next morning without even sucking or taking another diet. In the morning, the child woke up and asked to suckle, asking to get up as if he wanted to walk; which I had never done. He kept him in the crib, but the next day, after having slept peacefully, when he lifted him up, the boy walked for the first time in his life with the greatest ease, to the astonishment of his father, his mother, his relatives and his neighbors. Since that day, the child has not had even the slightest discomfort. Dr. Vergez, who examined it on June 27, 1860, recognized as supernatural this healing, which occurred suddenly in the conditions noted

Father Peyramale, parish priest of Lourdes, wrote to secretary Fourcade, of the Commission of Inquiry, a letter on May 17, 1860, in which he communicated a dozen cures that medical science could not explain 74

In another letter of November 2, 1860, she wrote: On the last Wednesday, October 31, a lady of Garlin came to thank the Virgin of the grotto for her husband’s healing. Her husband was almost desperate for vomiting of blood and intolerable pains in his bowels and head. Seeing that all the remedies taken were ineffective, he put a cloth wet with the water of Lourdes. At the second compress, the evil disappeared as if by charm, the patient fell asleep and woke up totally cured

INCORRUPT BODY

One of the things that most attracts the attention of visitors to Bernardita’s tomb in Nevers is the wonderful preservation of her incorrupt body, which is exposed to the sight of all in a crista urn