Volume 2, Issue 9, page 5

YOU Can Go to Lourdes By ARTHUR J. BURKS

Free Tri to the Miracle Shrine

MANY MAIMED and broken persons have seen the motion picture and
read the book, "The Song
of Bernadette". Millions more, maimed and well, have read Ruth
Cranston's "The Miracle of
Lourdes" in the December 1955 issue of READER'S DIGEST. Probably
not even the most cynical
and hardened has seen the one or read one or both of the other
two with empty heart or dry
eyes. There is a tremendous pull in the story of simple
Bernadette Soubirous and the marvels
which followed upon her vision of the Holy Virgin in the Grotto
at Lourdes.

Lourdes is one of the great shrines of the world. Is it
conceivable that the authority
vested in the Holy Virgin is confined wholly to shrines like
Lourdes and Sainte Anne de
Beaupre? If this is so, how does it happen, as stated above, that
no one can see or read "The
Song of Bernadette" or read "The Miracle of Lourdes" without
becoming something of a miracle
himself or herself by feeling and believing the truth of what is
seen and read? To sit alone
with either of these three placebos is to make the discovery that
no man or woman, however
situated in the human scale, is ever alone. The Father and His
Messengers and other
Associates are always within reach, "closer than breathing,
closer than hands or feet".

Let's go to Lourdes, then, or to any shrine we choose, anywhere
in the world, to

Place our burdens of imbalance in the Hands of The Great Healer.
Lourdes is chosen here
because we have the items herein noted which we can visualize. We
can go without moving an
inch from our wheelchairs, with no hands under our arms or
twisted spines save those of The
Father; without rising from our beds save as He bids us take our
beds and walk; without
asking anybody for money for the journey-, without being
obligated to anyone save the Father
Himself.

We shall travel on the pinions of right desire, the deepest form
of prayer. Our
transportation shall be our imaginations, founded in deep faith,
our share of the "image-ing"
by which the Lord God brought the Universe into manifestation.
Knowing and believing, what
help do we need other than That from which all other help is
derived? Feel under your arms
and spine the same invisible Hands which Jeanne Fretel felt when
she was miraculously cured
of. tubercular peritonitis at Lourdes. Don't you know that the
Hands reach anywhere in the
Universe? Of course you do, or you would never expect to find
Them in Lourdes.

Find a backdrop. Let it be a white, motionless cloud against the
clear blue sky of sunny
daylight. Let it be the heavens by night, clear or bright or
dark. Let it be green trees in
the park to which you have been carried, wheeled, led--to await
your own miracle of healing.
let it be some screen you can

an

see, for to face your miracle you will not close your eyes, but
keep them wide and wondering
and believing, lest you miss the vision, or close your ears to
the soft whispering of the
Divine Unseen in Whose Care all balance is, all healing.

Against the backdrop you begin to see. See yourself going to
Lourdes. You will know the
way because you have just studied it. or

Hidden way in a house in Pemnayl-

bility to help themselves, or.

whose unfortunate birthright is inability probably.
to even know that they need help. Of
these children, Arthur J. Burks has written
ten a book, LZT'S 17ND MM HIDDEN CHILDREN, the proceeds from
which Mr. Burks
is donating to this Child Devela

Centexi, (See 'Mear Zditor" Section.) Prior publication. this
book will be printed serially in The AHCEM. starting in next
month's issue.

Auditors will recall that a clinic

for retarded children was an original mock-up for ])is-
netics--but the program seems to have gotten lost. How-
ever, we are sure that most readers of The AEEHM a"
still idealistic enough to wish Mr. Barks success in his
generous and laudable venture, and someone even may come
ideas whereby these children may be helped.
spokesman for these mem-
bers of the proud to act as

race unable to speak for themselves.

have dreamed of going so often through the years, that you know
the way by heart. To shorten
the journey, perhaps, to hasten the miracle, you might start by
arriving in Lourdes. You come
by car, by train, by bus--for all are moved on the wheels of
miracles to come. With you are
so many others, whose faces you can almost see, you even can see,
from every, part of the
world. There is no segregation here, no race, color, religion;
rather it is all religion. The
shrine is Roman Catholic, but the Powers Which await at Lourdes
seem strangely unable to weed
out Protestants, Moslems, Buddhists, agnostics, atheists, (are
there really any such?-) or
even open scoffers. In Lourdes the utterly unbelieving have been
known to burst into tears of
great joy, not simply because a miracle has been wrought, but
because Lourdes is there, and
the unbelieving one is in Lourdes. Even the atheist thereafter
has believed in the Lourdes
credo, "pray without ceasing". You will find yourself at your
destination, among sufferers
more desperate than yourself, so that the prayer grows in you
that others may first be
healed, and therein you have learned the greatest of all lessons:
you never live, die, or
pray for yourself alone--or before others.

Stretcher-bearers come to fetch you. There are nurses. You study
the sturdy, tireless,
selfless attendants, and ask yourself:

"Is this one sturdy, tireless, because he or she has been
miraculously cured?"

The answer may well be yes, for hundreds who have been cured or
helped return regularly
to Lourdes to give of their time to others who, like your
invisible self, are just arriving,
even more wide-eyed with hope and wonder than you are.

Deliver yourself into the hands of those who come to take you
into the wonder which is
Lourdes, picturing each activity in detail. You will go to a
hotel which costs you nothing
because you are there in wide-eyed spirit. There you look about
you at all the others who
have come. There it may even occur to you, on the eve of certain
help if not miraculous cure -
-but would you ask less than cure?--that your imbalance, all
these years, has been a
blessing, a great teacher, to which you will bid good-bye soon as
to a friend who has shown
you how to find and make the most of yourself.

When morning comes, and for you it can come the next instant
after arrival because

January-February, 1956 The ABERREE 5