The Irish standard., 1908-02-15

podIu OIL examiners. Iney cOnnrm tne
findings of the former commission,
| which declared in favor of Bernadet-
te's vision. The Bishop finally speaks
| out. He declares his belief in the
reality of the apparition of the Immac-
ulate Mother of God to the daughter
of the poor miller of Lourdes That
there are no indications of the appari-
tions having been fraudulently i'm
posed upon the public either by the
concludes that it is permissible for the
people to honor the Blessed Virgin un-
der the title of Our Lady of Lourdes.
| And now let us do some thinking.
For fifty years an unbroken procession
Of bishops, priests and minor clerics;
a living river of the most distinguished
and the most iliterate members of the
great religious orders. Congregations
and approved Communities have flow
at this miraculous shrine. Were these
bishops and priests-many Of them of
unquestioned Intellectual pre- emin
| ence-fools? Can you conceive the
possibility of a conspiracy on their
part, on the part Of distinguished men
Of clean lives, to drag down to super
stition and barbarous cult the Catho-
lie soul and the mind of Christendom?
For fifty years millions of civilized
men and women, from the Duke of
Norfolk and Earl Marshal of England
down, through gradations, to the sheep
hertler of the Pyrenees, have come here
from all over the world to beseech the
Mother Of God to pray for themselves
and those dear to them by blood or
friendship. Were they and are they all
fools. the victims of a stupendous
fraud? BY a. recent decree of the Sa-
cred Congregation of Rites, the Feast
Of the Apparition of Our Lady Of
I4ourdes has, by command of the Su-
preme Pontiff, been extended to the
whole Catholic world. Do you think
| that the Holy Father before irrevo-
oably committing himself and the
Catholic Church to belief in the ap-
partitions had all the evidence in his
tails, of the miraculous origin of the
waters flowing from the old rock Of
Massabielle and of the actuality of the
appearance of the Blessed Virgin to
the peasant girl?
If these questions only trouble but
do not move you to adhesion, how do
you account for the copious flow of
water where water was never known to
appear? Since these waters, having
gan to flow, their touch has given sight
to the blind. speech to the dumb and
hearing to the deaf. How do you ex-
plain all this? If it does not come
from tho hands OF God, by a change in
the laws of nature, then it is a greater
miracle than the apparitions them
selves. II you permit your common
sense a little fair play, You will not be
disturbed by the scoffing, jeering cal
umnies and lies heaped upon II all by
men Of notoriously loose lives and Of
no faith, nor will you be disturbed by
the sllrug Of the shoulder of the free
and easy Catholic who approaches the
Sacraments once in ten years. And
now let us listen to Our Divine Lord
Dives is in hell and: Lifting up his
eyes when he was in torments he
saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in
his bosom: And he said:
then. Father. I beseech thee that thou
would send him to my fathers house:
For have five brothers: that he may
warn them lest they also come into
| this place of torment:
"And Abraham said to him: they
have Moses and the prophets: let them
hear them. But Dives said: No. faith
er Abraham; but If one went to them
| from the dead, they will do penance.
And Abraham said to him: II they
hear not Moses and the prophets,
neither will they believe if one rise
again from the dead"
| Human nature does not change. AS
it was in the days of Our Blessed Lord.
so is 1T now. Wonders are accom-
plished and miracles are wrought even
at the threshold. but the seed of these
miracles falls on barren soil and no
harvest is reaped in the autumn. .
Genuineness.