The apparitions of Lourdes told by Bernadette

Da Paolo Tessione - August 15, 2019

FIRST APPEARANCE - 11 FEBRUARY 1858. The first time I was at the cave was on Thursday 11 February. I went to collect wood with two other girls. When we were at the mill I asked them if they wanted to see where the water of the canal was going to join the Gave. They answered yes. From there we followed the canal and found ourselves in front of a cave, not being able to go further. My two companions were able to cross the water that was in front of the cave. They crossed the water. They started to cry. I asked them why they were crying. They told me that the water was cold. I asked her to help me throw some stones into the water to see if I could pass without taking my feet off. They told me to do like them if I wanted to. I went a little further to see if I could pass without taking my feet but I could not. Then I went back to the cave and started to undo myself. I had just taken off the first sock that I heard a noise as if there had been a gust of wind. Then I turned my head to the side of the lawn (on the opposite side of the cave). I saw that the trees were not moving. Then I continued to undermine myself. I still heard the same noise. As soon as I looked up at the cave, I saw a lady in white. He had a white dress, a white veil and a blue belt and a rose on each foot, the color of the chain of his rosary. Then I was a little impressed. I thought I was wrong. I rubbed my eyes. I looked again and always saw the same lady. I put my hand in my pocket; I found my rosary there. I wanted to make the sign of the cross. I could not reach my forehead with my hand. My hand was falling. Then the bewilderment took hold more strongly than I did. My hand was shaking. However, I did not run away. The lady took the rosary in her hands and made the sign of the cross. Then I tried a second time to do it and I could. As soon as I had made the sign of the cross, the great dismay I felt was gone. I went to my knees. I recited the rosary in the presence of that beautiful lady. The vision ran the grains of his, but did not move his lips. When I had finished my rosary, he motioned for me to come closer, but I didn't dare. Then he disappeared suddenly. I took off the other sock to go through the little water that was in front of the cave (to go to join my companions) and we withdrew. On the way, I asked my companions if they hadn't seen anything. - No - they answered. I asked them again. They told me they hadn't seen anything. Then they added: "And did you see anything?" Then I said to them, "If you haven't seen anything, neither have I." I thought I was wrong. But on the way back they asked me what I had seen. They always came back to that. I didn't want to tell them, but they prayed to me so much that I decided to say it: but on condition that they didn't tell anyone about it. They promised to keep me secret. But as soon as you get home, nothing more urgent than saying what I had seen.

SECOND APPARITION - FEBRUARY 14, 1858. The second time was the following Sunday. I went back because I felt pushed inside. My mother had forbidden me to go there. After the sung mass, the other two girls and I were still asking my mother. He did not want to. He told me he feared I would fall into the water. She feared that I would not return to attend vespers. I promised I would. He then gave me permission to go. I went to the parish to take a bottle of blessed water to throw it to the vision when I was in the cave, if I saw it. Once there, each took her rosary and we went down on our knees to say it. I had just said the first ten that I saw the same lady. Then I began to pour out the blessed water telling her, if it came from God to stay, if not to leave; and I always hurried to throw them away. She began to smile, to bow and the more I watered, the more she smiled and bowed her head and the more I saw her making those signs ... and then taken in fear I hurriedly sprinkled it and I did it until the bottle was finished. When I had finished reciting my rosary, it disappeared. Here is for the second time.

THIRD APPARITION - FEBRUARY 18, 1858. The third time, the following Thursday: there were some important people who advised me to take some paper and ink and to ask her, if she had anything to tell me, to have the goodness to put it in writing. I said the same words to the lady. He smiled and told me that what he had to say was not necessary to write it, but if I wanted to have the pleasure of going there for fifteen days. I answered yes. He also told me that he didn't promise to make me happy in this world, but in the other.

THE FORTNIGHT - FROM 19 FEBRUARY TO 4 MARCH 1858. I returned there fifteen days. The vision appeared every day except for a Monday and a Friday. One day he told me that I had to go and drink at the fountain. Not seeing her, I went to the Gave. He told me he wasn't there. He gestured with his finger to show me the fountain. I went there. I saw only a little water that looked like mud. I brought your hand; I couldn't take it. I started to dig; then I could take it. Three times I threw it. On the fourth time I could. It also made me eat a herb that was where I was drinking (once only). Then the vision disappeared and I retired.

FROM THE CURATE LORD - MARCH 2, 1858. He told me to go and tell the priests to have a chapel built there. I met the curate to tell him. He looked at me for a moment and said in a not very gentle tone: - What is this lady? I replied that I didn't know. Then he instructed me to ask her his name. The next day I asked him. But she did nothing but smile. On my return I was at the curate's and told him that I had done the errand, but that I had had no other answer. Then he told me that he was making fun of me and that I would do well to never go back; but I couldn't stop myself from going there.

THE APPEARANCE OF MARCH 25, 1858. She repeated to me several times that I had to tell the priests that they had to make them a chapel and to go to the fountain to wash me and that I had to pray for the conversion of sinners. In the space of these fifteen days he gave me three secrets that he forbade me to tell. I have been faithful so far. After fifteen days I asked her again who she was. He always smiled. Finally I ventured a fourth time. Then, keeping his two arms open, he looked up at the sky, then said to me, reaching his hands at chest level, which was the Immaculate Conception. These are the last words he addressed to me. He had blue eyes ...

"FROM THE COMMISSIONER ..." On the first Sunday of the fortnight, as soon as I left the church, a guard took me by the hood and ordered me to follow her. I followed her and walking along she said that they were going to throw me in prison. I listened in silence and so we came to the police commissioner. He led me to a room where he was alone. He gave me a chair and sat down. He then took some paper and told me to tell him what had happened to the cave. I did it. After putting a few lines as I dictated them, he put other things that were foreign to me. Then he said he would read me to see if he was wrong. And what he did; but he had just read a few lines that there were errors. Then I replied: - Sir, I have not told you this! Then he went into anger by assuring himself; and I always said no. These discussions lasted for a few minutes and when he saw that I persisted in telling him that he had been wrong, that I had not told him that, he went a little further and began to read again what I had never spoken of; and me to argue that it was not so. It was always the same repetition. I stayed there an hour or a half hour. From time to time I heard treads near the doors and windows and the voices of men shouting: - If you don't let her out, let's break the door. When the time came to leave, the commissioner accompanied me, opened the door and there I saw my father waiting impatiently for me and a crowd of other people who had followed me from the church. Here is the first time that I was forced to appear before these gentlemen.

"FROM THE LORD PROSECUTOR ..." The second time, by the Imperial Prosecutor. In the same week, he sent the same agent to have me told that I was at six by the Imperial Prosecutor. I went with my mother; he asked me what had happened to the cave. I told him everything and wrote it down. Then he read it to me as the police commissioner had done, that is, he had put certain things I hadn't told him. Then I said to him: - Lord, I have not told you this! He said yes; and in response I said no. Finally, after having fought hard enough, he told me he was wrong. Then he continued reading; and he always made new mistakes by telling me that he had the commissioner's papers and that it was not the same thing. I told him that I had (well) told him the same thing and that if the commissioner had been wrong so much worse for him! Then he told his wife to send to find the commissioner and a guard to go to sleep in prison. My poor mom had been crying for a while and looked at me from time to time. When he felt that it was necessary to sleep in prison his tears fell more abundantly. But I consoled her by saying: - You are very good to cry because we go to prison! We have done no wrong to anyone. Then he offered us some chairs, at the moment of leaving, to wait for the answer. My mother took one because it was all shaky since we were standing there. I thanked Mr. Prosecutor for me and sat down on the ground like the tailors. There were men who looked that way and when they saw that we never went out, they began to knock on the door, with treads, although there was a guard: he was not the master. The Procurator came out from time to time to the window to tell them to be quiet. He was told to let us out, otherwise he wouldn't finish! Then he decided to send us back and told us that the commissioner had no time and that it was postponed until tomorrow.

WORDS ADDRESSED BY THE VIRGIN TO BERNARDETTA SOUBIROUS. The other words that are added sometimes are not authentic. February 18. Bernadette handed pen and paper to the lady, saying: "Would you like to have the goodness of putting your name in writing? ». She replies: "It is not necessary" - "Do you want to have the courtesy of coming here for fifteen days?" - "I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the other". February 21: "Pray to God for sinners." On February 23 or 24: "Penance, penance, penance". On February 25: "Go and drink at the fountain and wash yourself" - "Go eat of that grass that is there" - "Go and kiss the earth as a penance for sinners". 11 March 2: "Go tell the priests to have a chapel built here" - "That you will come in procession". During the fortnight, the Virgin taught a prayer to Bernadette and said to her three things that concerned only her, then added in a severe tone: "I forbid you to say this to anyone". March 25: "I am the Immaculate Conception".

THE APPARITIONS TOLD BY ESTRADE.

At the time of the apparitions, I was in Lourdes as an employee in the administration of indirect taxes. The first news from the cave left me completely indifferent; I thought they were lies and disdained to take care of them. Yet popular emotion increased day by day and, so to speak, hour by hour; the inhabitants of Lourdes, especially the women, carried themselves in a crowd to the rocks of Massabielle and later told their impressions with an enthusiasm that seemed delirious. The spontaneous faith and enthusiasm of these good people inspired me only pity and I mocked them, scorned them and without study, without investigation, without the slightest investigation, I continued to do so until the day of the seventh apparition. That day, oh unforgettable memory of my life! the Immaculate Virgin, with secret skills in which I recognize today the attentions of her ineffable tenderness, attracted me to her taking my hand and like an anxious mother who puts her misguided boy back in the street led me to the cave. There I saw Bernadette in the splendor and joys of ecstasy! ... It was a heavenly, indescribable, ineffable scene ... Won, overwhelmed by the evidence, I bent my knees and made to go up to the mysterious and heavenly Lady, of whom I felt the presence, the first homage of my faith. In the blink of an eye all my preventions were gone; not only did I no longer doubt, but from that moment a secret impulse invincibly drew me to the Grotto. Upon reaching the blessed rock, I joined the crowd and as she manifested my admirations and convictions. When my job duties forced me to leave Lourdes, this happened from time to time, my sister - a beloved sister who lived with me and who followed all the events of Massabielle for her - told me in the evening, after my return, what he had seen and heard during the day and we exchanged all our observations.

I wrote them according to their date so as not to forget them and it happened so that at the end of the fifteenth visit, promised by Bernadette to the Lady of the Grotto, we had a small treasure of notes, undoubtedly inform, but authentic and safe, to which we attached great importance. These observations made by ourselves, however, did not give perfect knowledge of the wonderful facts of Massabielle. With the exception of the visionary's tale, which I had learned from the police commissioner, which we will discuss later, I knew almost nothing about the first six appearances and since my notes remained incomplete, I worried a lot. An unexpected circumstance came to calm my anxieties and serve me in the best possible way. After ecstasies, Bernadette often came to my sister; she was a little friend of ours, one of the family and I had the pleasure of questioning her. We asked her for all the most precise, most detailed information, and this dear girl told us everything with that naturalness and simplicity, which was her characteristic. This is how I collected, among a thousand other things, the moving details of her first encounters with the Queen of Heaven. The special story of the visions, as exposed in my book, is therefore not in reality, except perhaps a few peculiarities, that the story of Bernadette's statements and the faithful narrative of what my sister and I had personally noticed. Without a doubt, in such important events, there are things that fatally escape the direct action of the most attentive observer. One cannot observe everything, not understand everything, and the historian is obliged to resort to borrowed information. I questioned around me, I abandoned myself to a deep investigation to separate the tares from good wheat and not to insert anything in my story that was not true. But, after careful consideration, I have accepted, on the whole, only the information of my main witness, Bernadette, that of my sister and mine. Throughout the period in which the apparitions lasted, the city of Lourdes was always in the joy and expansion of its religious fervor. Then all of a sudden the horizon darkened, a kind of anguish gripped all hearts; the storm was approaching. And in fact, after a few days, this storm broke. The high dignitaries of power and the powers of hell seemed to ally and join forces to remove the Virgin from her humble and rustic home on the banks of the Gave. The cave was closed. For four long months, I was saddened by the kidnapping of the prodigies. The people of Lourdes were dismayed. Eventually the storm passed; despite threats, prohibitions and trials, barriers were lifted and the Queen of Heaven regained possession of the modest throne she had chosen. Today as then, and more than ever, it is there that she receives, triumphant and blessed, the most cordial tributes of the multitudes who come to her from all parts of the world.

I quote the name of the state officials who conceived and supported this unhappy enterprise. These officials, whom I have known almost all, were not hostile to religious ideas. They deceived themselves, I agree, but in my opinion, in good faith and without believing that they are injuring the Mother of the Savior. I speak of their acts freely; I stop before their intentions which have only been known by God. As for the diabolical scams, I simply expose them. Judging them is the task of theologians. Noticing the events of all sorts that took place under the rock of Massabielle, I aimed no other purpose than to take personal and lasting satisfaction: I wanted to have an intimate memorial at hand, a repertoire that would remind me of the sweet emotions that they had kidnapped and subjugated my spirit to the cave. I had never imagined publishing a small part of it. For what considerations, or rather under what influences have I reduced myself to changing my opinion? I really want the reader to know. From 1860, the year I left Lourdes, almost every year, at the time of the holidays, I went to the Grotto to pray to the holy Madonna and also to revive the happy memories of times gone by. In all the meetings I had with rev. Fr Sempé, the good superior of the missionaries urged me to coordinate my work on the apparitions and to print it. The insistence of the religious saint troubled me, because P. Sempé was the man of Providence and I was always struck by the wisdom of his words and works, visibly marked by the spirit of God. Inside the house of Massabielle, which he ruled as superior, everything showed cordiality, harmony, ardent zeal for the salvation of souls. The rule was observed there more by the ascendant and the example of the master's great virtues than by his pressure. On the outside everything shone with the inventions devised by his initiative. The magnificence with which he decorated the rock of Massabielle alone would be enough to make a man illustrious whose ambition was limited to the glories of the earth. The magic secret of P. Sempé to make his plans succeed and protect his enterprises was the rosary. Mary's crown never left her fingers and when she recited the sweet invocations in pious meetings, she carried the souls to the higher regions. All for God: this is the program of his life, understood on his lips at the very moment of his death.

Next to the rev. P. Sempé, in the house of Massabielle, lived a man of exquisite manners, of consummate science, simple and modest like the last of the religious. His open physiognomy, his amiability, the charm of his conversation inspired sympathy and respect for everyone. This man, a layman, was none other than the wise Baron doctor of San-Maclou. Outraged by the malice of the wicked and sectarian newspapers in the face of miracles wrought by the power of the Virgin, he came to the Grotto to become its apologist. Appealing to the competition and to the loyalty of his colleagues in medical art, he invited them without distinction of opinion or faith to study with him the wonders that happened at the pools of Massabielle. This appeal was accepted and the office of findings, created at that time and with this aim, took little by little the development and importance of a renowned clinic. It is there that every year during the pilgrimage period we see specialists of all kinds of diseases, celebrities belonging to dissident sects, irreducible skeptics, bow their intelligence, abjure their errors and return to their ancient religious beliefs in the face of the wonders that occur under their eyes. If it seemed to you that he left the topic, pointing out here the virtues and efforts of rev. P. Sempé and the Baron of San-Maclou, forgive me: I wanted to make known the devotion and the esteem I have towards these eminent figures and the right influence they exercised on my determinations. However, I have always resisted their insistence. The noble doctor, at the insistence of the Reverend Superior Father of the Grotto, urged me to publish my memories of the apparitions of Massabielle. I was like torture, I was sorry to disgust him, but in the end I replied invariably, as to P. Sempé, who felt unable to rise to the height of the subject. Finally, a moral authority, which is considered first order in the French episcopate and to which I believed it my duty to obey, dispelled all my scruples and was right about my reluctances. In 1888, during one of the annual visits to Lourdes, rev. Father Sempé introduced me to Msgr. Langénieux, archbishop of Reims, who at that time was with the Fathers, in the residence of the Bishops. The illustrious prelate welcomed me with great benevolence and also did me the great honor of inviting me to lunch. At the canteen were the archbishop and his secretary, rev. P. Sempé and I.

Immediately at the beginning of the conversation, the archbishop, turning to me, said: - You seem to be one of the witnesses of the apparitions of the Grotto. - Yes, Monsignor; although unworthy, the Virgin wanted to grant me this grace. - At the end of the lunch I would ask you to tell us the impressions you have left of these great and beautiful things. - Willingly, Monsignor. When the time came, I told the scenes that had impressed me most. The archbishop continued: - The facts you have told us are truly admirable, - but words are not enough; we want your reports to be printed and edited under your name as a witness. - Monsignor, allow me to make you humbly observe that, in accordance with your desire, I fear to discolor the work of the Virgin and to warm the faith of the pilgrims. - Would that be? - Due to the fact that I am not very good at writing and, in order to respond to the wishes that you deign to express to me, I would need the competence of a famous writer. - We are not already asking you to write as a man of letters, but as a gentleman, this is enough. Faced with the sweet and authoritative insistence of Mons. Langénieux, encouraged by signs of approval by Rev. P. Sempé, I had to surrender and promise to execute. Although it costs me and despite my insufficiency I do it. And now, good Virgin of the Grotto, I place my pen at your feet, very happy to have been able to stammer your praises and tell your mercies. By offering you the fruit of my humble work, I renew my most fervent prayers to you, particularly the one I addressed to you in recounting the seventh of your apparitions in this same book, of which I was the happy witness: "Oh Mother! my hair has turned white, and I am near the grave. I dare not look at my sins and more than ever I need to take refuge under the mantle of your mercies When, in the last hour of my life, I will appear before your Son, in his majesty, deign to make me my protector and to remember you that you saw me in the days of your apparitions kneeling and believing under the sacred vault of your Grotto of Lourdes ». JB Estrade