Weather – If the wind blows on Shrove Tuesday night, it
betokens a death amongst them that are learned and much fish shall die in the
following summer. [Well, that’s not good]
If the three days of the 11th,
12th, and 13th are stormy, there will be good weather for
the rest of the month; but if they are fair, there will be no more good weather
that spring.
If the last eighteen days of
February and the first ten days of March be for the most part rainy, then the
spring and summer quarters will probably be so also.
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Today is the optional memorial
of Our Lady of Lourdes, who first appeared on this date in 1858 to
Marie-Bernarde Soubirous (aka Saint Bernadette) at a grotto near the Soubirous
home in southern France. You can
read more about the Apparitions, the Grotto, and the History here at the Lourdes website.
“There is enough light for
those who only desire to see, and enough obscurity for those who have a
contrary disposition.” Blaise Pascal*
While researching the
history of my parish, I found this in the local weekly paper from the September
19, 1873 edition. The editors were
generally atheists or agnostics or non-religious, which allowed them to sneer
at those who, in their words, fell under the “contemptible spirit of
superstition”. Were it not for the
big words (more than one syllable), one could almost believe that this formed
the editorial in yesterday’s paper:
“The Virgin Mary has lately made her
appearance in France, and the whole Protestant world cries “Shame” upon such a
Catholic miracle. Why is
this? What right have we to pick
and choose among miracles? For of
course did we believe that any miracle ever happened, we would not condemn
other people for supposing that other miracles might happen also – why is our
miracle better than anybody’s else?
The Catholics are the most consistent
people we know – for they seem to hold that if an impossibility could occur
once it can occur again. Upon a
subject with which we are told that reason has nothing to do, we cannot see how
judgment is to be rendered, or one thing proved more credible than
another. We respect Nature for the
fact that whether she be old or new, she never tries to impose on us an
absurdity. Putting a truth before
us, she seems to say, “There it is – make what you can of it”. She is no worker of miracles or dealer
in slight of hand, for she despises puerility. How entirely the reverse of the contemptible spirit of
superstition.
The upshot of the French miracle appears
to be that a statue of the Virgin, in a church at Lourdes, has given hearing
and speech to a deaf and dumb girl.
It is a very good miracle; all it wants is age.”
[I don’t know who was healed in 1873 – none of the “Lourdes Miracles”
mention it, so perhaps it was one not considered a true miracle.]
A month later they were
bandying jokes about Our Lady of Lourdes, saying that a Methodist woman was
reported healed by the direct intervention of Jesus Christ (the usual “you
don’t need the saints” tripe), and suggesting that perhaps ‘Our Lady of
Bristol’ (Rhode Island) could work a few miracles there, to make the
Bristolians get over the recent annexation of a part of their town into the
neighboring town of Warren: “We wonder that she has never seen fit to visit
Bristol. There would be work enough for her in that town. As Notre Dame de Bristol, her influence
might be felt where ours would be unheeded.” Warren Gazette,
October 24, 1873.
And yet, a month after that,
they were saying almost nice things about the Catholic Church, in an editorial
about the difference between Catholics and Protestants:
“…The plain fact seems to be that while
Protestantism is every day becoming weakened by those processes of thought
which its greater freedom permits, the Catholic Church loses nothing of its
influence… Never did anything better exemplify the power of union. The Protestants, wide adrift from that
old and central institution which after all seems to represent the essence of
their belief, are divided into a thousand conflicting sects, jealous of each
other, and holding nothing in common except enmity to the mighty organization
from which in one way and another, directly or indirectly, they have
sprung. The Catholics, on the
other hand, present the very soul of order, and of discipline – a solid and
veteran column. Every Catholic is
a Catholic and can be counted as such.”
There seems to be something in the
Catholic faith which appeals to the senses and awakens the sympathies, and it
is certain that one cannot help recognizing the wiser zeal and the greater
consistency of the Catholics, as compared with the Sectarians.
We do not believe with our more radical
friends, that the religion of Europe will or ought to become without political
influence, at least for the present.
It has been and will long continue to be a friend to those who have no
other friends.
It has been remarked that the working
classes of England were much happier within the Catholic order of things than
they have ever been under the Protestants, for it afforded greater protection
to the poor.
Catholicism… may justly be regarded as a
something which as yet cannot be spared from the world.
The benefits conferred upon society by the
Catholic Church are of immense magnitude… Its charities are enormous, and the
offices of protection to the feeble are equal to its great opportunities.
Much trouble is predicted for the
successor to the papal chair, whoever he may be, of Pope Pius IX, yet somehow
the papacy will continue and perhaps with an accession of spiritual strength,
for in its destruction mankind would turn to the wall the most wonderful
picture that the world has ever known…” Warren
Gazette, November 21, 1873.
Of course, the operative
words are “as yet cannot be spared” – for as soon as man decides that he and
his government are powerful enough to take over and maintain the “benefits
conferred upon society” [which benefits
he will choose, along with which society will receive said benefits] and be
“a friend to those who have no other friends” [again, choosing whom he deems worthy of befriending], the Church will be hounded into oblivion.
Oh, wait…
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*Originally, the quote I
wanted to use was
“in a miracle there is
enough light for those who want to believe and enough darkness for those who do
not want”
but that seems to be a bad translation. Another mistranslation changes
‘miracle’ to ‘faith’, and is quoted all over the internet, usually starting
with “As Blaise Pascal said…”.
Here is the section from Pascal’s Pensées
(which you can read here at Project Gutenberg) with the original quote:
"God has willed to
redeem men, and to open salvation to those who seek it. But men render
themselves so unworthy of it, that it is right that God should refuse to some,
because of their obduracy, what He grants to others from a compassion which is
not due to them. If He had willed to overcome the obstinacy of the most
hardened, He could have done so by revealing Himself so manifestly to them that
they could not have doubted of the truth of His essence; as it will appear at
the last day, with such thunders and such a convulsion of nature, that the dead
will rise again, and the blindest will see Him.
"It is not in this
manner that He has willed to appear in His advent of mercy, because, as so many
make themselves unworthy of His mercy, He has willed to leave them in the loss
of the good which they do not want. It was not then right that He should appear
in a manner manifestly divine, and completely capable of convincing all men;
but it was also not right that He should come in so hidden a manner that He
could not be known by those who should sincerely seek Him. He has willed to
make Himself quite recognisable by those; and thus, willing to appear openly to
those who seek Him with all their heart, and to be hidden from those who flee
from Him with all their heart, He so regulates the knowledge of Himself that He
has given signs of Himself, visible to those who seek Him, and not to those who
seek Him not. There is enough light for
those who only desire to see, and enough obscurity for those who have a
contrary disposition."
Blaise Pascal, Pensées,
Section VII: Morality and Doctrine, 430.
[Remember, children, always go back to the source.]
