Spring of Lourdes (6/10投稿記事「ルルドの泉」の英訳）
Lourdes is a small town right by the border of France and Spain that happens to be the most popular Catholic pilgrimage site in the world. There, in 1858, a girl named Bernadette Soubirous was the sole witness to the apparition of a young woman inside a cavern. When she asked the lady her name, the response, in the Lourdes dialect, was "I am the Immaculate Conception." This turned out to be a religious term for what many know as the Virgin Mary. At first, everyone was skeptical, including the local priest. However, when the young girl, who came from a low-income family and could not go to school, began using these religious words and references that she could not possibly know, people started believing. A fountain sprang up in the direction in which the Virgin Mary pointed the girl. Since then, there have been reports of over 2500 people having illnesses inexplicably healed by the water from this spring. However, since the Catholic Church is stringent in terms of what they classify as a miracle, only 68 cases have been officially confirmed by them [1].
While staying in France, I heard that a good friend, whom I will refer to as Mr. N, was struck by terminal cancer. Now, neither I nor Mr. N is catholic. Further, after receiving all the currently available treatments possible for cancer and not being healed, part of us thought it was pointless. But deep down, we thought, "what if a miracle could happen?" or, maybe more than that, we wanted a miracle to happen. However, before the trip, the condition of Mr. N suddenly took a turn for the worse, and he was never able to make it.
Although, unfortunately, it was too late to go for Mr. N's sake, Lourdes was a place I had always been interested in since a former teacher and mentor of mine had originally told me about it in high school. So, I decided to go there with my family. That ended up being an unforgettable experience. Countless families dealing with an illness were lined up to try and receive a blessing from the spring of Lourdes. I drew a little bit of the water into small bottles and sent them to my former teachers and other catholic acquaintances I had, who were overjoyed to receive it. The power of faith truly is great. This was clearer than ever to me when I witnessed how special the meaning of the water from Lourdes holds for believers.
