We met again today under the apple tree beside St. Mary’s, and somehow everything seemed a little quieter than usual.
The sun was warm, the leaves over us rustled when the breeze came through, and our chairs were all in their familiar places. Father LeRoy was there, Sister Mary Claire and Robert too, and Mini settled down close beside me.
But I think all of us were thinking the same thing.
Today we began the first part of the last chapter of Our Lady of Lourdes.
I did not like the sound of those words very much.
We have spent so many wonderful days together reading this book—under the apple tree, beside Indian Creek, in the clubhouse when it rained, and even riding along in Father’s car—that it hardly seems possible that the story can really be coming to an end.
Mini must have noticed that something was different too. Usually she is watching for squirrels or wondering whether anyone has dropped something good to eat, but today she just lay beside my chair with her chin on her paws as if she were melancholy with the rest of us.
Father looked around at everybody and smiled.
“Well, Kathy,” he said, “we had better not mourn the end before we have finished the story. Let us hear what happened at Lourdes.”
So I opened my notebook and read my summary.
Years had passed since Bernadette first knelt before the rough Grotto of Massabielle. The lonely place she had known had changed almost beyond recognition.
A great church was rising above the rocks where the Blessed Virgin had appeared. The steep hillside had been covered with grass, shrubs, flowers and winding paths. Roses, violets and daisies grew where once there had been only rough earth and stone.
The Grotto itself had become a sanctuary. An iron railing protected it, a golden lamp hung above, and candles burned there day and night.
The miraculous spring still flowed.
Its water now filled great basins, and a place had been prepared where the sick could bathe. Roads had been built so pilgrims could reach the Grotto more easily. Even the stream and part of the river had been moved so that the growing crowds could come safely to Massabielle.
And the most wonderful thing was that these enormous works were being paid for largely by the little offerings of ordinary people.
A copper coin here.
A gift of thanksgiving there.
Offerings from people who had been healed, comforted, or brought closer to God.
The author said something I liked very much: God did not force anyone to give. He wanted gifts freely offered by people who loved Him.
When I finished, nobody spoke for a moment.
Then Sister Mary Claire said, “Think how it began. One poor girl kneeling in the mud before a place most people hardly noticed.”
“And now there is a church rising above it,” Robert said.
Father nodded.
“That is often how God works,” he said. “Something may begin very quietly. So quietly that the world thinks it is nothing. But if it truly belongs to God, we should not be surprised at what may grow from it.”
I looked up through the branches of our apple tree.
That made me think about our Reading Club.
We certainly had not built a basilica.
We had only gathered beneath a tree with some old books, a few chairs, plenty of questions, and usually something good to eat.
But I wondered if little things could grow too.
Maybe Robert would remember these meetings when he was old.
Maybe I would.
Maybe someday I would hear the name Lourdes and remember Father sitting beneath this apple tree, Sister explaining something I could not understand, Robert reading ahead when he was not supposed to, and Mini waiting patiently for her share of the refreshments.
Then Robert announced that there was one more matter requiring our immediate attention.
From his cooler he produced great vanilla ice-cream cones.
“A nickel apiece,” he said proudly.
They were enormous for a nickel.
Mine was already beginning to melt down one side before I had taken three bites.
Mini suddenly recovered from her melancholy.
Robert had remembered her too and brought out a little dish of plain vanilla ice cream. She cleaned it so carefully that Father said perhaps Mini had decided the last chapter was not entirely bad after all.
We laughed, and that helped.
I am still a little sad tonight, Diary.
The book is nearly finished.
And perhaps these wonderful summer meetings really are drawing toward their end.
But today’s chapter reminded me that an ending does not always mean something disappears.
Bernadette’s days at the Grotto ended long ago, but what began there kept growing.
Maybe that is the important thing.
Some things stay with us after the chairs are folded, the books are closed, and the last nickel ice-cream cone is gone.
And perhaps that is how a little Reading Club under an Iowa apple tree can last forever too.
Good night, dear Diary.
Love, Kathy
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