Girls of The Gave

 

Dear Diary,

This evening I sat again on the porch steps with Our Lady of Lourdes open on my knees. The sun was going down behind the trees, and the boards of the porch still held a little warmth from the day. Mini came at once and sat right beside me, as if she had made up her mind that I was not to read even one page without her.

Only I am not so sure she came for me.

She kept looking past the book, with her ears lifted and her eyes full of that soft, wondering look she gets when she sees something I almost think I can see too. I told her softly, “Mini, are you listening to Bernadette?” and then I felt as if the story had stepped right out of the pages and sat down beside us.

Tonight the chapter told how the three children left the town behind them and crossed the bridge to the left bank of the Gave. They passed the mill and went down through the meadow, hunting for little pieces of wood to make a small bundle for the fire at home. Bernadette walked behind the others, frail and small, with her apron still empty while the other girls already had gathered chips and branches.

I could see her so plainly as I read—the worn black dress, the white capulet falling over her shoulders, the coarse sabots on her feet, and that poor little figure walking through the meadow with such quiet grace. The book said she was not beautiful in the proud way people sometimes mean, but there was something sweeter and higher in her. Her eyes were calm and pure, and her whole face showed goodness, pity, and innocence.

The words that stayed with me most were “the Majesty of Innocence.”

I stopped reading there for a minute.

It made me think that God sees beauty so differently from the world. Bernadette had no fine clothes and no important place. She was poor, ignorant of many things, and only gathering wood because her family needed warmth. Yet Heaven must have been looking at her already. Maybe Our Lady saw what others would never notice—a little soul without pride, walking humbly behind the rest.

Mini leaned closer then, looking up with such love that I smiled. Perhaps she knew the best part of the story before I did. Perhaps she was not only keeping me company after all. Perhaps she had found a friend on the porch steps too.

And I thought how strange and lovely it is that Bernadette, who had nothing, is remembered now by so many hearts.

Tonight I will try to remember that innocence is a treasure greater than anything one can hold in the hand.

Evening Prayer

Dear Jesus,
please keep my heart simple and clean.
Teach me to love You in little hidden ways,
and help me never to think small things are unimportant
when they are done for You.

Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for me.
Saint Bernadette, pray for me.

Amen.