We met under the apple tree again today for our Reading Club. The morning had that nice late-summer feeling to it, with the leaves stirring every once in a while and little patches of sunlight moving around on our books.
Father LeRoy had told us he might be a little late, so Sister Mary Claire said we should go ahead without him. Robert carried the chairs out, Mini found her usual place where she could keep an eye on everybody, and I began my chapter summary.
Today’s chapter was about a boy named Jules Lacassagne and his father, Roger.
Jules had been sick for two whole years. At first he could hardly swallow solid food, and later the doctors discovered that his throat had become so terribly narrowed that he could live only on liquids. He grew thin and pale, and even the finest doctors in Toulouse and Bordeaux could not cure him.
But Jules had read about Lourdes.
He became completely certain that the Blessed Virgin could help him. He told his mother, “Send me to Lourdes, and you will see I shall be cured.”
His father did not really believe in miracles, but he loved his son so much that he was willing to try anything. So in February they traveled to Lourdes.
Jules prayed in the chapel and at the Grotto. A priest consecrated him to the Blessed Virgin, and afterward Jules washed himself with the spring water and drank some of it.
Then his father handed him a biscuit.
After two years of being unable to eat solid food, Jules swallowed it.
“Papa! I am swallowing the biscuit. I am able to eat. I was sure of it, for I had faith.”
He ate another, and another.
His father hurried off to send one word by telegram to Jules’s mother:
“Cured.”
And Jules remained well.
When I finished reading, nobody said anything for a little while.
Then Robert said, “The boy seemed to have more faith than everybody else put together.”
Sister Mary Claire smiled. “Sometimes children do.”
That started quite a lively discussion.
Robert wondered why Jules could believe so completely when his father could hardly believe at all. Sister said perhaps Jules had received the grace to trust simply, without needing to understand everything first.
I said I thought the most beautiful part was that Jules had carried the thought of Lourdes quietly in his heart for eight months. Nobody encouraged him very much, but he never forgot.
Sister nodded.
“Faith can grow very quietly,” she said. “Sometimes the deepest things are happening when nobody else notices.”
Just then we heard a car door shut beside the church.
“There’s Father,” Robert said.
Father came around the corner carrying a big cardboard tray and looking rather pleased with himself.
“I hope,” he announced, “that the theological discussion has not advanced beyond the point where refreshments may still be admitted.”
Dairy Queen!
He had brought Oreo Cookie Blizzards for everybody.
Sister laughed and said that perhaps this was the first recorded Reading Club discussion in which St. Vitus’ dance, Lourdes, miracles, the Blessed Virgin, and Oreo cookies had all appeared in the same hour.
Mini received no Oreo Blizzard, of course. Father had remembered her too. Hers was a little dish of plain vanilla ice cream with a vanilla wafer stuck in the top.
Mini ate the wafer first.
Robert said that proved she understood the proper order of things.
When our Blizzards were nearly gone, Father returned to the chapter.
He said that perhaps the greatest miracle in the story was not only what happened to Jules.
“Notice what happened to the father,” he said.
Jules received back his health, but his father received something too. A man who had trusted only what he could see and explain suddenly found himself standing before something he could not explain away.
Sister said that was why the author wrote that the Blessed Virgin had given Jules temporal life, but had helped lead his father toward the life that lasts forever.
I liked that very much.
Maybe sometimes God answers one person’s prayer and, hidden inside the answer, there is another gift meant for somebody else.
The afternoon breeze began rustling the apple leaves above us, and one apple dropped into the grass with a little thump.
Father stood and gave us his blessing.
On the walk home I kept thinking about Jules saying, “I was sure of it, for I had faith.”
I don’t think faith always means being sure that God will give us exactly what we ask for.
Maybe it means being sure that, whatever happens, we can still put ourselves into His hands.
And perhaps that is the kind of faith I would like to have.
Dear Blessed Mother, help me to trust Jesus simply and lovingly, especially when I cannot see what He is doing. Help me remember that no prayer offered with love is ever forgotten.
Father LeRoy told us this morning that he would not be able to come to our regular meeting because some church business had come up and he had to drive to Sioux City right away. We were all a little disappointed until Father looked at us and said, “Why don’t you all come along? You can have your meeting on the way, and afterward I’ll treat everybody at the Dairy Queen on Nebraska Street.”
That changed things in a hurry!
So Sister Mary Claire, Robert, Mini, and I piled into Father’s car, and off we went to Sioux City. Mini settled herself comfortably as though she had been invited personally.
Once we were well on our way, Father said it was time for the Reading Club meeting, so I took out my notes and gave today’s chapter summary.
The story was about a man whose eyesight had always been wonderfully strong. Then, in 1862, his eyes suddenly became so weak that he could scarcely read even a few lines. Doctors tried many different treatments, but nothing really helped, and before long he began to fear that his good eyesight was gone forever.
Then something very strange happened. One of his closest friends, who was a Protestant, visited Lourdes and heard about the remarkable cures connected with the water from the Grotto. He wrote and urged his Catholic friend to try it.
The man resisted—not because he thought God could not cure him, but almost for the opposite reason. Deep down he feared that if God really did perform a miracle for him, his whole life would have to change. He knew that such a gift would call him to become better and more faithful.
When it arrived, he prayed earnestly to God and Our Blessed Mother and washed his eyes and forehead with the Lourdes water.
Almost immediately, he knew that something had happened.
He was cured.
Only minutes before he could scarcely read a few lines. Now he picked up the little book about Lourdes and read more than one hundred pages without any weariness at all. Seven years later, when he wrote his account, his eyesight was still perfectly strong.
That gave us plenty to talk about.
Robert was the first to notice something unusual.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “He’s telling this whole story as ‘I.’ Do you suppose this is the author himself?”
That made all of us think.
Sister Mary Claire said it certainly sounded that way. The man was not simply repeating something he had heard about another person. He was describing his own fear, his own prayers, and exactly what happened when the Lourdes water arrived.
Father, keeping his eyes on the road, said, “I think Robert may have found something important. Perhaps Monsieur Lasserre has been telling us about his own cure without stopping to announce it.”
That made the chapter seem completely different to me. All this time the author had been telling us about the miracles of Lourdes, and now it seemed possible that Lourdes had touched his own life too.
Sister Mary Claire said the part that touched her most was that he had actually been frightened of receiving such a great grace because he knew it would ask something of him in return.
Father said, “Sometimes we ask God for something wonderful, but we ought also to ask ourselves what we will do with the gift if He gives it to us.”
By then Sioux City was getting close, and after Father’s church business was finished, he kept his promise and took us to the Dairy Queen on Nebraska Street—the same one we had visited before.
Father said we could have whatever we wanted.
That may have been the second miracle of the day.
There were cones, sundaes, shakes, and plenty of chocolate syrup involved. Mini received her own little dish of plain vanilla and considered the entire trip an excellent Reading Club meeting.
On the ride home we talked some more about Lourdes and especially about whether we had just read the author’s own miracle. Somehow that made the whole book feel more personal.
When we reached St. Mary’s, Father stopped the car before anyone climbed out.
He made the Sign of the Cross over us and gave us his blessing.
It seemed like the perfect ending to a Reading Club meeting that had begun on the road, traveled all the way to Sioux City, stopped for ice cream, and brought us very close indeed to the man who had written the story of Lourdes.
Today our Reading Club was back in its usual place under the apple tree beside St. Mary’s.
Sister Mary Claire brought vanilla ice cream and a can of Hershey’s chocolate syrup. She poured the chocolate over our dishes in great dark ribbons, and it was about as good as anything could be on a warm August day.
Mini received her own little dish of plain vanilla.
She had no complaints whatsoever.
When everyone was settled, Father asked me to read the short chapter summary.
Soon the great sanctuary began rising stone by stone above the Grotto.
But while the church was being built, devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes was spreading far beyond Lourdes itself. People in cities, villages, and lonely country places called upon her, and many reported remarkable favors and cures.
The author said that before finishing his story, he wanted to tell us about two more extraordinary events. One of them had happened to him personally and had remained in his memory for many years.
Robert said, “It must have been something pretty important if he saved it for almost the very end.”
Father nodded. “Sometimes the things closest to us are the hardest to write about.”
Sister Mary Claire said she liked the thought of the church rising one stone at a time while devotion to Our Lady was spreading everywhere at the same time.
I looked up through the apple leaves and thought about how slowly we had been reading this book, one chapter at a time, all summer long.
Then Father said, “We are getting very close to the end of our story.”
Nobody said anything for a moment.
I think we had all grown rather fond of Bernadette, the Grotto, the spring, and even all those officials who seemed to spend so much time arguing about everything.
Father smiled and added, “So we had better begin thinking about what book the Reading Club will take up next.”
Robert immediately said he had several ideas.
Of course he did.
Mini had finished her ice cream by then and was licking the dish so carefully that I think she would have voted to continue any book at all, provided Sister kept serving refreshments.
When it was time to leave, Father asked us to bow our heads.
He thanked God for Our Lady of Lourdes, for Bernadette’s faithfulness, and for all the good that had come from the little Grotto at Massabielle. Then he asked God to guide our Reading Club as we came to the end of one story and prepared to begin another.
Father gave us his blessing.
The apple leaves rustled overhead, Mini stretched out in the grass, and I looked around at everyone sitting there together.
I think I am going to be a little sorry when this book is finished.
After church this morning, Father said that instead of meeting under our usual apple tree, we should move the picnic table to the left side of St. Mary’s. From there we had a wonderful view of the sunflower field on the other side of the church.
The flowers were so bright and beautiful that I told Sister Mary Claire they looked a little like something we might see in Heaven.
Then we discovered that nobody had brought anything to eat.
Robert jumped into his pickup and drove into Littlemore. It seemed as though he was back in two minutes with Krispy Kreme doughnuts and a quart of cold milk.
Father laughed and said, “Providence sometimes works through fast pickup trucks.”
Mini sat under the table and watched everyone eat. Robert finally gave her a little dish of milk, which pleased her very much.
Then Father asked me to read today’s chapter summary.
I explained that after four years of careful investigation, Bishop Laurence of Tarbes finally gave his judgment about Lourdes. Bernadette had been questioned many times, but her story never changed. She remained simple, truthful, and asked for nothing for herself.
The Bishop also considered the conversions, renewed faith, and remarkable cures connected with the Grotto. Doctors had examined many of them, and the spring water itself had no natural healing properties.
At last Bishop Laurence declared that the Blessed Virgin Mary truly appeared to Bernadette eighteen times beginning February 11, 1858. He approved devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes and announced that a sanctuary should be built near the Grotto.
Robert said, “So after all the arguments and investigations, the Bishop finally said it was true.”
Father nodded. “Yes, but only after great care. The Church wanted to be certain.”
Sister Mary Claire said that Bernadette’s humility was one of the loveliest parts of the whole story.
I looked toward the sunflowers and said, “God seems to like choosing little people.”
Father smiled. “He certainly does.”
Just then Mini rested her chin on my shoe, and Robert said, “Here is another little person.”
We all laughed.
When it was time to leave, I said our prayer.
Dear Blessed Mother,
thank you for appearing to Bernadette and giving us Our Lady of Lourdes.
Help us to be truthful and humble like Bernadette, and to keep our eyes turned toward Jesus just as these sunflowers turn toward the sun.
Please watch over Father LeRoy, Sister Mary Claire, Robert, Mini, and all of us in our Reading Club.
And someday, dear Mother, please help us all reach Heaven together.
Amen.
Father gave us his blessing, and I looked once more across the bright field of sunflowers.
For just a moment, Diary, it really did look a little like Heaven.
After Mass he called, “Everyone into the car,” and there sat his newest treasure—not a new car at all, but a beautifully kept 1936 Hudson.
Robert rode up front with Father while Sister Mary Claire, Mini, and I settled into the back. Soon we were rolling through the Iowa countryside with the windows open.
Father finally handed me a sign stating our destination.
Pilot Rock!
It stood on the farm of an old friend of his. Father seemed to know half the countryside through people he had met at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church.
When we arrived, I could hardly believe the size of the rock. We spread our blanket on its shady side where the great stone helped keep us cool.
Mini carefully inspected everything before settling beside me.
Sister explained that Pilot Rock was a glacial erratic, carried here by ancient ice and left behind when the glacier melted.
“So the glacier disappeared, but the rock stayed,” I said.
Father smiled. “That fits Kathy’s chapter very well.”
So I opened my notebook and began.
My Chapter Summary
Hundreds of cures had been reported at Lourdes, but the Church did not simply call them all miracles.
The Episcopal Commission carefully investigated thirty cases. They rejected cures that happened gradually, those involving medical treatment, and even remarkable spiritual conversions because such things could not be proved publicly.
The physical cures were divided into three groups. Some could have natural explanations. Others seemed probably supernatural, but the Commissioners remained cautious.
Only fifteen cures were finally judged unmistakably miraculous.
The doctors noticed that many completely different illnesses had been suddenly cured after using the same simple water from the Grotto. Yet scientific examination showed that the water itself had no special medicinal properties.
Bishop Laurence became convinced, but even then he waited.
Three years.
Then the cures were examined again. The people remained well, the witnesses stood by their testimony, and the facts had survived the test of time.
Only then was the Bishop ready to give his solemn judgment.
I closed my notebook and looked up at Pilot Rock.
“I think I understand,” I said. “This rock has survived rain, snow, wind, and years and years of time.”
“And Bishop Laurence wanted the truth to survive time too,” Sister said.
Father nodded. “He was not slow because he lacked faith. He was careful because the truth mattered.”
Then Sister announced lunch.
She brought out a beautiful peach pie, a jar of heavy cream, and cold milk.
The cream ran over the peaches and crust, and it was wonderful.
I told Father that peach pie was one thing I thought could be approved without a three-year investigation.
He laughed.
“I would still advise caution, Kathy.”
Mini sat beside me wearing her most hopeful expression until she received a little treat of her own.
Before leaving, Father asked us to bow our heads.
I prayed:
Dear Blessed Mother, help me to love the truth and to be patient when answers take time. Keep my faith strong and lead me always closer to Jesus. Amen.
Father gave us his blessing, and we packed everything back into the old Nash.
For some reason, I felt like dressing up today, so I put on my Robin Hood outfit, complete with my hat and feather. Sister Mary Claire smiled when she saw me and said I looked as though I ought to be guarding Sherwood Forest instead of attending the Reading Club.
Then Father LeRoy, Sister Mary Claire, Robert, Mini, and I headed down to Indian Creek for our meeting.
We met again beside that enormous glacial rock on the bank, the one that has been sitting there longer than any of us can imagine. I climbed up on top with my book and notes while everyone settled themselves below.
Standing there in my Robin Hood clothes, with the wind tugging at my feather and Indian Creek flowing behind me, I felt rather grand—almost as though the big old glacial rock were my castle.
Then I opened my book and began my chapter summary.
The story today was about a girl named Marie Moreau.
Long before the happenings at Lourdes, Marie’s mother had been very ill when Marie was born. Her father prayed earnestly to the Blessed Virgin and afterwards insisted that his little daughter be named Marie in Mary’s honor. He even had her dressed in white for her first three years because white was Our Lady’s color.
Years later, when Marie was sixteen and attending school at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Bordeaux, something terrible happened to her eyes. The doctors said one eye was already lost and the other was failing badly. Medicines, treatments, and sea bathing did nothing to help her, and her family feared that she would soon be completely blind.
Then Marie’s father happened to read about the cures taking place through the water from the Grotto at Lourdes.
His old confidence in Our Lady returned immediately.
“This is where we must knock,” he said.
The family began a novena and obtained some water from Lourdes. Marie herself did not have very much faith, and her mother was almost afraid to hope, but her father prayed with extraordinary confidence.
That night Marie soaked a bandage in the Lourdes water and placed it over her eyes before going to sleep.
The next morning she removed the bandage.
She could see.
Not dimly.
Not a little better.
She could see everything clearly.
Marie called for her sister Marthe and asked for a book because she wanted to make certain she could really read. She opened it and read perfectly.
Then her father and mother came rushing into the room.
“I can see! I can read! I am cured!”
The whole family knelt and thanked the Blessed Virgin.
Later the doctor who had treated Marie admitted that such a sudden and complete recovery was beyond anything medicine could explain. Marie went to Lourdes with her family to give thanks, and she wore blue and white in honor of Our Lady.
The part I liked especially came afterward.
Marie wanted her blue-and-white dress given to Bernadette.
Bernadette accepted it and wore it for years.
I stopped reading there for a moment.
“So they really were almost like sisters,” I said. “Both of them under the care of the Blessed Mother.”
Sister smiled.
“I think that is a lovely way to put it, Kathy.”
Just then Sister reached into her picnic basket and produced a dozen chocolate chip cookies.
That brought everyone’s attention back to Iowa very quickly.
She had brought enough so we could each have three cookies with cold milk.
Father looked at the cookies and said, “Now that is what I call proper preparation for theological discussion.”
Robert said he thought three cookies might also improve a person’s ability to understand miracles.
I told him that was probably not in the chapter.
Mini received a little treat of her own and watched every bite we took just in case somebody suddenly decided three cookies were too many.
Nobody did.
While we ate, the sky over Indian Creek began changing. The warm summer light disappeared, and dark clouds began piling up from the west. The cottonwood leaves turned their pale undersides toward the wind.
Then we heard thunder.
Not very close at first.
But close enough.
Father looked toward the sky and said, “I think Our Lady will forgive us for shortening today’s meeting.”
Before we packed up, Father gave us one more piece of news.
“Tomorrow,” he said, “the Reading Club is going on another excursion.”
“Where?” Robert asked.
Father smiled.
“I’m not telling.”
“Is there food?” I asked.
His smile became even bigger.
“I’m still not telling.”
Sister said she had never seen four people become so curious so quickly.
I think she was counting Mini.
Then another roll of thunder came across the creek, much louder than the first.
That settled everything.
We hurriedly packed the books and picnic things. Father gave us his blessing, and I said our little closing prayer:
“Dear Blessed Mother, thank you for watching over Marie so many years ago, and thank you for watching over us today. Help us to trust you even when we cannot see what God is doing. Please keep everyone safe in the storm—and thank you for our cookies. Amen.”
Father made the Sign of the Cross over us.
Then the wind began blowing in earnest.
Fortunately, we had three chocolate chip cookies apiece inside us.
New cookie energy.
Robert took off first, Sister gathered her skirts, Father carried the basket, and I scrambled down from the big rock in my Robin Hood outfit, holding onto my hat so the wind would not carry it all the way to Sioux City.
Mini raced alongside me as though she had been waiting all afternoon for exactly this opportunity.
Behind us Indian Creek was turning dark beneath the storm clouds.
Our Reading Club met along Indian Creek again today, and I think it may be one of my favorite places for us to meet.
Today is the Feast of the Assumption of Our Blessed Mother, so Father LeRoy reminded us before we began that this was a very special day for Mary. It seemed just right that our chapter today should also be about her help and about the gratitude people offered to her at Lourdes.
I sat on the enormous rock along the bank to read my chapter summary. Before I started, though, I asked Sister Mary Claire something I had been wondering about ever since our last meeting.
If a glacier nearly a mile high once covered this country, why didn’t it grind this great rock into little pieces?
Sister smiled and patted the rock beside me.
She said this rock was a traveler in time, just as all of us are. Thousands of years ago it became frozen inside a great glacier far to the north. When the glacier slowly moved south, the rock traveled along inside the ice almost like something packed safely in a suitcase. Then, when the glacier finally melted and could carry it no farther, it simply left the rock behind.
“So here it sits,” Sister said, “a glacial erratic—a very old visitor from Canada.”
I liked thinking about that. This rock had been sitting beside Indian Creek long before Father LeRoy, Robert, Sister, Mini, or I ever came along.
Then Father said perhaps our old rock had something to teach us about today’s chapter, too.
I read my summary.
The Bishop’s Commission carefully investigated the cures connected with Lourdes. They did not simply believe every story they heard. They visited people, questioned witnesses, and examined the facts.
One of the most remarkable cases was Madame Rizan, who had been terribly ill and partly paralyzed for more than twenty years. Her doctors believed she was dying. During her last night she asked for water from the Grotto at Lourdes.
The next morning her daughter brought some. Madame Rizan drank it and was washed with it.
Almost immediately she declared that she was cured.
Her strength returned. She got out of bed, dressed herself, knelt before a statue of the Blessed Virgin, and asked everyone to thank Our Lady with her.
Even years later she remained well.
One doctor readily admitted that something extraordinary had happened. Another doctor had refused to investigate the cure because he did not believe in miracles. The author told him that a scientist ought to examine facts first instead of refusing to look at them because they do not agree with what he already believes.
That gave us plenty to talk about.
Sister tapped the great rock beneath me and said, “Suppose nobody studied this rock because they had already decided a glacier could never have carried it here. They would miss the story written right in front of them.”
Father nodded.
“Truth isn’t afraid of being examined,” he said.
I looked down at that enormous old traveler beneath me and thought about Madame Rizan. One came quietly from Canada inside a glacier, and one wonderful morning in France brought a story that people would still be examining many years later.
Before we left, Sister opened the picnic basket.
Inside were chocolate chip cookies and a big jar of cold Jersey cow milk.
Robert said perhaps scientific investigation should always end with cookies.
Father said he wasn’t certain the Bishop’s Commission would agree, but he certainly did.
We ate beside Indian Creek while the water slipped past our old traveler in time.
Because it was the Feast of the Assumption, I kept thinking about Our Lady too. The old rock had traveled such a long way before coming to rest here, and I thought how all of us are travelers through time too, hoping one day to reach Heaven, where Mary already is.
I wonder how many stories are sitting quietly around us, waiting for someone to notice them.
