“Oh, Marie, conçue sans péché, priez pour nous qui avons recours à vous!”
As I came away and started back to the Bureau, walking slowly under the blazing Pyrenees sun, I knew that an extraordinary change had taken place in me. I was not the same woman any more. I would never again be the same woman. I was like the child I knew about that had been miraculously cured of infantile paralysis; or like the widow I had spoken to who had been miraculously cured of a fistula in the arm that had been five times vainly operated upon; or like the old woman I had seen who had been miraculously cured of an “incurable” tumor that had caused her untold suffering for twenty-two years. I was a miraculée, like these others, hundreds of others, one more case that would be carefully noted down by skeptical investigators on their neatly ruled sheets, if only the mysteries of a sick soul could be revealed!
Suddenly a great burst of singing drew my attention to the open space beyond the gleaming white church with its sharp-pointed towers, and I drew nearer, pushing my way through a dense multitude gathered to witness the procession of pilgrims and the Blessing of the Sick. In all the world there is no such sight as this, nothing that can stir the human soul so deeply. Inside the concourse, fringing the great crowds, lay the afflicted—on litters, on reclining chairs, on blankets spread over the ground; standing and kneeling, men, women and children from all lands and of all stations, pallid-faced, emaciated, suffering, dying, brought here to supplicate for help when all other help has failed them.
“Seigneur, nous vous adorons!” chanted a priest with golden voice and ten thousand tongues responded:
“Seigneur, nous vous adorons!”
“Jesus, Fils de Marie, ayez pitie de nous!” came the inspired cry.
“Jesus, Fils de Marie, ayez pitie de nous!” crashed the answer.
“Hosanna! Hosanna au Fils de David!”
“Hosanna! Hosanna au Fils de David!” thundered the multitude, and the calm hills resounded.
It was an immense, an indescribable moment, not to be resisted. I felt myself literally in the presence of God, and choking, almost dying with emotion, I waited for what was to come.