THE eye of the Catholic world was by this time on La Salette. Wishes began to be expressed on all sides that a church or chapel might be erected on the site of the Apparition.
Although
the Bishop of Grenoble had not yet spoken doctrinally on the great
question of the Apparition, he had almost at once founded on the
mountain which had, as it were, become famous in a day, an
association of prayer, under the title of Notre-Dame Auxiliatrice de
la Salette, and this association had, in a remarkably short time,
numbered as many as 80,000 adherents.
The
question of the phenomenal cures, attributed to the intercession of
Notre-Dame de la Salette, was by this time occupying the attention of
men of science. The number of these cures was such that, according to
a document of the time, the most summary account of those that took
place in a single year would fill a volume.
We
will here cite two cases that seem to us to be singularly interesting
and conclusive.
One
is that of Sister St. Charles Pierron, of the Congregation
Hospitaliere of St. Joseph of Avignon. This religious had been ill
for eight years, keeping her bed, and at the time of which we write
was in the last stage of pulmonary decline. This was at the beginning
of the year 1847. The patient's mouth and tongue were covered with
ulcers. All the nourishment she could take was a few spoonfuls of
liquid in the course of each twenty-four hours. Early in the February
of the year with which we have to do she received the last
Sacraments. The following day her superioress, the Rev. Mother
Penaud, suggested that she should begin a novena to Notre-Dame de la
Salette. The good nun admitted afterwards that in making this
suggestion her principal motive had been the hope of seeing the
Apparition of La Salette confirmed by another supernatural cure. She
to whom was made the suggestion replied that she had not the
slightest wish to recover, and thus postpone her entrance into
Heaven.
The
Rev. Mother came again and again to the charge, but with no better
result. She then put the sick nun under obedience, and gently ordered
her to make the novena in question.
Sister
St. Charles obeyed, and from the moment she began drinking the water
of La Salette and joining in the nine days' prayer with the rest of
the community she firmly believed that she was about to be restored
to health. Her bodily state, however, became worse. On Thursday, the
seventh day of the novena, she threw up blood in such quantity that
the Superioress, believing the end to be near, gently said : "I
think the Blessed Virgin's way of curing you will be to effect your
entrance into Heaven."
Sister
St. Charles in the meantime retained her conviction that her recovery
was nigh. She said as much, and moreover that she hoped to assist at
Mass and communicate on the last day of the novena ; and, with this
hope in view, she did not forget to ask that her religious habit and
veil, which she had not needed for so long a time, might be put
within her reach.
The
next dawn found her still worse and throwing up blood in an alarming
manner. It happened that that day Mgr. de Prilly, Bishop of Chalons,
was to celebrate Mass in the convent chapel. For this reason the Rev.
Mother decided that the general communion of the nuns for Sister St.
Charles, which was to have closed the novena the following day,
should take place that morning instead.
The
sick nun was grieved at this arrangement, thwarting as it did her
cherished hope of assisting at the Holy Sacrifice on the last day of
the novena. As she lay combining a plan in order to be able to effect
her object on the morrow, and having heard her fellow religious go
downstairs on their way to the chapel, she realised at a certain
moment that her sufferings had suddenly ceased. She tried to move,
and found that she could do so easily. She then exclaimed with
accents of joy, " I am cured," half killing with fright a
sick nun in the same room, who believed her to he near death. She
arose and quickly dressed herself.
In
her written account of these moments she says: " I cannot
describe the movement that suddenly shook my whole being ; but I can
affirm that instantaneously I felt my head, throat, and chest regain
their natural action, my limbs their strength, and my voice its
power."
She
at once went down to the chapel, took her place with the other
religious, and remained half an hour on her knees. When the others
had left the choir she rose and threw her arms round the Rev.
Mother's neck.
"
You must begin by giving thanks," said that lady. I have already
done so," was the reply. " I have assisted at part of a
Mass and said the Te Deum."
The
nun thus suddenly restored to life and vigour asked for food, and
afterwards made a hearty meal. Her medical man, Dr. Gerard, found her
that morning at work with other members of the community and showing
every sign of perfect health. She then underwent at his hands a
strict medical examination, the result of which was to show that she
was free from any symptom of disease. When asked if the cure could
have been brought about by natural means, the doctor distinctly
answered in the negative.
Another
medical man, Dr. Roche, honorary head doctor of the Avignon hospital,
who had carefully followed the case, was called in to see Sister St.
Charles. He reported as follows :—" The unexpected change in
the person of Sister St. Charles from a state judged by medical
science to be hope less to one of perfect health, functional and
organic, was effected suddenly and without human intervention.
Consequently it must be considered as belonging to the order of
miraculous cures."
A
case perhaps even more remarkable than this one is that of Sister
Francois de Sales, of the first Visitation Convent in Paris. This nun
had for several years been suffering from enlargement of the heart
with lesions of the valves. In the early part of 1849 her condition
became worse. She was then at the Visitation Convent of Rennes and
under the treatment of two doctors, Brute by name, father and son, in
whose report, drawn up after wards, the following statements occur: "
The displacement of the ribs became very marked ; it was as if the
heart were trying to force its way through ; the whole arterial
system on the left side became hypertrophiated ; the legs were
swollen to above the knees." The report also stated that,
through being unable to lie down, the patient had passed a hundred
days and nights in an armchair. We find the sufferer in this state in
the early part of March, 1849. Suddenly her condition became more
alarming-. At this juncture she heard from a sister to the effect
that Mass was about to be offered for her recovery on nine
consecutive days on the mountain of La Salette, and that the members
of her family were about to make a novena for the same intention. The
writer of the letter asked the sufferer to join in this nine days'
prayer. She at the same time sent her some of the already far-famed
water of La Salette.
Sister
Marie St. Fran9ois de Sales felt at first but little inclined to
comply with her sister's request, her wish being, as she afterwards
said, to die. She consented, however, to join in the novena, which
was to be made simultaneously by three Visitation communities as well
as by the members of her own family. The nine days' prayer commenced
March 21st.
On
the evening of the 26th, at about seven in the evening, the nun
showed every sign of approaching dissolution. The following details
are taken from the written account of the religious in attendance as
nurse: " Her eyes became fixed, her mind began to wander, and
she showed every sign of approaching death. She received Extreme
Unction and absolution in articulo mortis, after which the members of
the community present left her for the night, not expecting to find
her alive the next morning. After a few hours' agitation she had an
attack of syncope, and her face became covered with what seemed to be
a death-sweat. The Rev. Mother put a lighted candle close to her
face, and her eyes, which were open, were in no way affected by the
flame. " We then lighted a taper," continues the authority
from which we have just quoted, "and began to recite the prayers
for the dying."
Dr.
Brute, the medical man constantly in attendance, called the next
morning, and said the patient's life could not be depended on from
one five minutes to another. Meanwhile, the apparently dying woman's
lips were continually being moistened with water of La Salette.
Later
on in the day, there was a slight rallying. Advantage was taken of it
to ask the sufferer if she would like to receive the Blessed
Eucharist, and on her reply being in the affirmative, the Holy
Viaticum was administered to her. This was after she had been
supposed to be in her death-agony for twenty-four hours.
No
other than this religious could tell us what went on within her at
that supreme moment. In her account written after her recovery, she
says :— "I could neither see the priest nor the Sisters round
about me ; but I knew that I was about to communicate." No
sooner had she received the Sacred Host than her eyes became opened
to her real condition. She says in the after record alluded to : "I
understood that I had been close unto death. After making me see my
extremely perilous condition, Our Lord said to me : ' It is I who can
and will cure thee' ('C'est Moi qui peux et qui veux te guerir.') I
answered: ' Fiat.' I could have made no other answer. Immediately a
great change took place in the whole of my left side. It seemed as if
my heart turned round and resumed its right place ; but with so
violent a movement as to terrify me. Nevertheless, by a sudden sense
of general well-being in me, I understood that I was cured. In truth
I was." Shortly afterwards, she told her superioress that she
was free from suffering of any kind.
It
was found at once that the swelling of the legs had disappeared,
together with the deformity of the ribs, that a cauterized part had
become suddenly healed, and that the heart seemed to have resumed its
normal functions.
That
day the nun, literally snatched from death by a force in which no
human element had sway, ate well, and the following night she slept
well. The next day her ordinary medical attendant, Dr. Brute,
calling, and seeing her standing up and apparently in perfect health,
said : " Madam, you are to me as one come back from the grave !"
In
the medical report drawn up, and signed by Doctors Brute, father and
son, July 3rd, 1849, we read in reference to this case:— "On
calling the next day we could detect in Madame Marie de St. Fran9ois
de Sales no sign of disease. She could walk up two flights of stairs
without experiencing any increase in the heart's action, and although
three months have passed since then, she is now not only in perfect
health, but perhaps physically the strongest member of her
community."
The
Archbishop of Rennes ordered a canonical examination of the case to
be made, the result of which was, to conclude in the words of M.
Frain, Vicar-General of Rennes, that the manner in which this
remarkable cure had been effected, could receive no explanation from
pathological and physical laws.
From - The Blessed Virgin in the nineteenth century (1904) by Bernard St John
