Lourdes : Complete

We were in Lourdes again next morning a little after six o'clock; and already it might have beenhigh noon, for the streets were one moving mass of pilgrims.

From every corner came gusts ofsinging; and here and there through the crowd already moved the brancardiers-men of every nationwith shoulder-straps and cross-bearing the litters with their piteous burdens.I was to say Mass in the crypt; and when I arrived there at last, the church was full from end toend.

The interior was not so disappointing as I had feared.

It had a certain solid catacombic gloombeneath its low curved roof, which, if it had not been for the colours and some of the details, mightvery nearly have come from the hand of a good architect.

The arrangements for the pilgrims were asbad as possible; there was no order, no marshalling; they moved crowd against crowd like herds ofbewildered sheep.

Some were for Communion, some for Mass only, some for confession; and theypushed patiently this way and that in every direction.

It was a struggle before I got my vestments; Iproduced a letter from the Bishop of Rodez, with whom I had lunched a few days before; I argued, Ideprecated, I persuaded, I quoted.

Everything once more was against my peace of mind; yet I haveseldom said Mass with more consolations than in that tiny sanctuary of the high Altar....

Anecclesiastic served, and an old priest knelt devoutly at a prie-Dieu.When the time for Communion came, I turned about and saw but one sea of faces stretchingfrom the altar rail into as much of the darkness as I could discern.

For a quarter of an hour I gaveCommunion rapidly; then, as soon as another priest could force his way through the crowd, Icontinued Mass; he had not nearly finished giving Communion when I had ended my thanksgiving.This, too, was the same everywhere-in the crypt, in the basilica, in the Rosary Church, and aboveall in the Grotto.

The average number of Communions every day throughout the year in Lourdes is,I am told, four thousand.

In that year of Jubilee, however, Dr. Boissarie informed me, in roundnumbers, one million Communions were made, sixty thousand Masses were said, with two thousandCommunions at each midnight Mass....

Does Jesus Christ go out when Mary comes in? We are toldso by non-Catholics. Rather, it seems as if, like the Wise Men of old, men still find the Child withMary His Mother.