The Significance of Lourdes

Extract

Lourdes has become a household word throughout the Catholic world and a reality that cannot be disregarded for the world at large. Yet, both in the one environment and in the other (to quote Bernadette herself), ‘I am afraid that many people skim over the surface of things.’ Be this as it may, it is certainly most important that Lourdes, and all that Lourdes stands for, should be seen not merely as a fact to be reckoned with but also as a sign to be interpreted. Like the Incarnation itself, in the light of which this sign must be interpreted, it was initially something unassuming in appearance, an affair of very simple people for the most part and one that must have seemed at first to promise little impact on the world at large. But in the course of a hundred years it has become a sign from heaven that all who run may read, and must read. The miracles wrought there have commanded attention; but it is not the miracles of Lourdes that are the most significant; it is the miracle of Lourdes itself.