“I had hardly begun to take off my stocking when I heard the sound of wind, as in a storm. I turned towards the meadow, and I saw that the trees were not moving at all. I had half-noticed, but without paying any particular heed, that the branches and brambles were waving beside the grotto.

I went on taking my stockings off, and was putting one foot into the water, when I heard the same sound in front of me. I looked up and saw a cluster of branches and brambles underneath the topmost opening in the grotto tossing and swaying to and fro, though nothing else stirred all around.

Behind these branches and within the opening, I saw immediately afterwards a girl in white, no bigger than myself, who greeted me with a slight bow of the head; at the same time, she stretched out her arms slightly away from her body, opening her hands, as in pictures of Our Lady; over her right arm hung a rosary.

I was afraid. I stepped back. I wanted to call the two little girls; I hadn’t the courage to do so. I rubbed my eyes again and again: I thought I must be mistaken.

Raising my eyes again, I saw the girl smiling at me most graciously and seeming to invite me to come nearer. But I was still afraid. It was not however a fear such as I have had at other times, for I would have stayed there for ever looking at her: whereas, when you are afraid, you run away quickly.”

 — Recounted by Abbé François Trochu in Saint Bernadette Soubirous, (1844-1879)

— Comments —

Kathy writes:

I think the film “The Song of Bernadette” does a nice job of depicting the “Voltairians” opinions of little Soubirous. I am in such awe of the great saints of the past, even the talents and simple common sense of our ancestors. What a weak, dumbed down, enslaved lot we are, and how appalled they would be at what has happened to Western Civilization. at what we have become. I recall reading “Revelations” as a kid, and thinking ‘That’ll never happen in my lifetime!”, and the very idea that Christians could be actually persecuted in America! Laughable! 50 years later, it’s happening.

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