LOURDES

The cult of the Virgin of Lourdes is followed by many in Enna, and every year in May a train loaded with pilgrims, volunteers, and seriously ill people travels to Lourdes. It is called the White Train. Lourdes is a place for pilgrimages for Catholics from all over the world, and every year around five million visit the cave where the apparitions happened.

In 1858, Our Lady appeared to a little girl named Bernadette Soubirous in a cave called Massabielle in Lourdes. The apparitions occurred for five months, and were initially seen with skepticism by the Catholic Church, but when the apparition revealed herself to be the Immaculate Conception, all doubts were removed. In fact, the little girl couldn’t understand a deep theological concept like that of the Virgin Mary.

The journey from Enna to Lourdes takes forty-eight hours, as the White Train stops continuously to give precedence to regular trains. The volunteer’s main task is serving meals in the train and pushing the wheelchairs once arriving in Lourdes. Only the most expert volunteers look after people with serious disabilities.

One year after Giuseppina’s death, I still acted like an automaton and a dark fog separated me from the rest of the world. The police had investigated the incident for a few months, but I was eventually acquitted. My mother was very worried about me. She had no idea what to do, and confined herself to praying for me. Moreover, every week she used to go to the Convent of Saint Marc to ask the nuns to pray for me as well. She hoped that all those prayers would sooner or later rid me of my heavy depression.

“What about going to Lourdes?” she said one day.

I was so clouded that I didn’t have the strength and will to answer her. But she insisted. “Do you want to go to Lourdes on the White Train? It leaves from Enna in ten days. It is a good opportunity to take your mind off your idea you are guilty of Giuseppina’s death.”

“I don’t want to go,” I said curtly.

“But it is a good opportunity to help the sick!” my mother said.

I actually considered myself a social waste, but the thought that I could be helpful to somebody in need made me feel less despicable. Moreover, I couldn’t remain in a state of inactivity forever. I had stayed at home like a prisoner for a year, but sooner or later I had to come down from my ivory tower.

“Okay, I’ll go,” I said, and a feeble ray of hope revived in my heart. Maybe someday I would come back to life as a normal human being.

After twelve months spent in my room reading books, magazines, and listening to the radio, my eyes were not accustomed to daylight. My mother had arranged everything for my journey, including packing my luggage and providing my volunteer uniform, which was brown, while the ladies wore white skirts, white stockings, blue cloaks, and veils similar to those of nuns.

My parents came to see me off at the station and entrusted me to the priest who was the spiritual guide of the pilgrimage. He was from a town near Enna called Valguarnera Caropepe. Father Guido was a red-haired man who, despite the reformation of the Second Vatican Council that had given priests the freedom of dressing, still wore a cassock.

The train was very old, and two special cars dating back to the Second World War had been arranged to accommodate disabled people on stretchers. The two cars still bore the huge red crosses from the war. We didn’t have any hoist, so we had to lift the people on stretchers into the cars by hand. It wasn’t that hard a task, since we had many volunteers to do the work.

We had finished lifting stretchers when I saw a stretcher on wheels coming from the side entrance of the station. On it was a young man who had to weigh nearly 200 kilos. I couldn’t imagine how we were going to get him on the train. It took six of us to lift the stretcher. My arms and legs were still weak after a year of inaction, but through our joint efforts we finally set him on the train.

It was the late afternoon when the train finally left the station. The sun was setting beyond the mountains, and in a few hours we would serve dinner to the pilgrims and invalids.

Meanwhile, I went to my compartment and watched the green countryside and the wheat that waved under the breeze through the window. My eyes were looking outside, but my mind still saw the car plunging down into the ravine with its human load. Apparently, going out of my house had changed nothing. I was as absentminded and depressed as I was when secluded in my room. The environment had changed, but my heart was still shut to life.

Before entering the ferry from Messina to mainland Italy, the train stopped many times to take on more sick people, pilgrims, and volunteers. There were four volunteers in our compartment, but from time to time Father Guido came and sat down to chat with us.

When the train left the station in Catania we started serving dinner. The train was very long, and every volunteer was given the task of serving a certain car. I was told to serve dinner in the car with the people who were the most seriously ill.

I was doing just that when I heard someone call out my name. I turned back, thinking that another volunteer from Enna was calling me, but I didn’t see anybody.

“Vincenzino, Vincenzino!” the voice kept calling.

I stopped serving and saw that it was the fat young man that we had lifted on the car that was calling me.

“How do you know my name?” I asked.

“It is written on your badge!” he answered.

I was so absentminded that I hadn’t paid attention to the badge on my uniform.

“What is your name?” I asked.

“My name is Carmelo, and I want to thank you for the great effort you made in lifting me. As you see, my body is all out of proportion. My weight keeps increasing more and more, and all I can move are my head, eyes, and lips. All the rest is paralyzed like dead flesh. I can see that you are not peaceful but, believe me, your adverse fortune is nothing compared to mine.”

Tears streamed down his big cheeks.

“Can you see the moon and the stars out of the window?” he asked.

I bent my head and Carmelo also slowly turned his head to watch the full moon.

“Ask the moon and the stars if it is right that my body lies on a stretcher from my birth to my death, while my mind is clear and realizes the uselessness of my life.”

His words dumbfounded me. I had thought that only my problems existed and other people were immune from them. After Giuseppina’s death, I had isolated myself in my room, thinking that I was the most unlucky person in the world. But now, Carmelo was opening my eyes to real life; his condition was far worse than mine!

“Tell me,” continued Carmelo, “why there are half-men like me? I have done nothing to deserve such miserable luck.

Do you think that my harrowing life derives from God or from a different malicious being? I am completely useless. While you may be helpful to others, Vincenzino, I am just human waste who is kept alive by a moral and criminal code that doesn’t allow society to kill the heap of flesh I am.”

It was as if I had been catapulted to life again. After a long time of seclusion, now in front of me was someone who was talking to me and wanted me to answer him, but I actually didn’t know what to say. I looked around to see if the meals had all been served, and noticed that the other volunteers had done the work in my place. As for Carmelo, he had been fed in advance by a qualified nurse.

As for the second of his questions, my answer sprang from my heart naturally.

“You are not a useless person, Carmelo. Thanks to you, I am coming back to life. I have been living like a vegetable for a year, except for speaking with my mother in monosyllables. Now, talking with you has been as if a thunderbolt has fallen on me. You have shocked me! Now I can see and watch you, while I saw no one before so immersed in my thoughts as I was.”

“What happened to you?” asked Carmelo.

“It is an old love story that ended tragically, but now I can see that there are people like you who have no hope to live a normal life, while I am in a better condition. You have been like a mirror for me. Through you, I have looked inside myself and realized the uselessness of continuing to torture myself.”

“What about my first question?” asked Carmelo.

During my year of insulation, I read many books and magazines. One of the most significant was the Book of Job in the Bible.

“Do you know the story of Job, Carmelo?”

“I have heard something about him. Job was renowned because of his patience, right?”

“Job was a rich, pious man,” I answered, “who later lost all his riches, his children, and even his body became purulent. ‘What have I done to deserve such bad luck?’ Job asked God one day. The answer was that man cannot know what God’s plans for us are. Therefore, Carmelo, accept your situation and do your best to live your life fully, even under such bad conditions.”

The forty-eight hours spent on the train seemed never ending, but the other volunteers in our compartment were cheerful. From time to time, Father Guido also joined us to say the rosary. When we arrived at the station in Lourdes, we had to offload the baggage and take the invalids to the hospitals. Then we volunteers went to the hotel. My task was to carry the invalids from one place to another.

The wheelchairs in Lourdes had a handle in the front, while some disabled people had their own personal wheelchairs that could be pushed. Every day, in the morning and the afternoon, the disabled in their wheelchairs were lined up in the hospital courtyard and the volunteers took them wherever they liked to go. The disabled usually wanted to go to the Massabielle Cave to pray before the statues of Our Lady and Saint Bernadette, or to the baths, which stand in the place where Saint Bernadette found a spring by digging in the ground with her hands. This water was supposed to be miraculous, and several miracles have actually been recorded and corroborated by the Catholic Church. People who wanted to have a bath were just dipped into the water for a few seconds. They got dressed while they were still wet, but the water had the properties of drying immediately, so towels were not needed.

There were frequent Masses both in the cave and in the churches and basilicas. In the late afternoon, the sick and disabled were lined up in the vast square in front of the basilica and Holy Communion was given to them.

One afternoon while I was in the square looking after a sick old man, I lost my faith. I had the sensation that God was just a human creation. I saw the earth and the universe like matter with no spirit inside and no God that could vivify it. It was a real paradox that I had come to Lourdes to strengthen my faith in God and in life, but instead I had become an atheist. I remained in this condition as a disbeliever for several months, but with the passing time I felt that my life was completely empty without Jesus. After the terrible accident with Giuseppina, my only anchor was Jesus. Therefore, my atheism didn’t last long, and for the rest of my life Jesus has been my only safe harbor.

During my staying in Lourdes, I wanted to do my very best to serve the sick people that I looked after. One afternoon I took a sick lady from the hospital courtyard. She was around sixty years old and dressed in black.

“Where would you like me to take you?” I asked.

“I want to go shopping!” she answered.

In Lourdes, there are so many shops that sell holy images, rosary beads, small statues, and every kind of holy item, that sometimes I had the impression that big business gravitated around the cult of Our Lady.

The sick lady wanted to buy a small golden medal, so we went around many shops to find the item she liked. After two hours of shopping, she found the one she wanted. Afterwards, she wanted me to take her to the top of the hill, as she wanted to cover the Stations of the Cross. At last, after a long day of walking, I took her back to the hospital.

As soon as we arrived at the hospital courtyard, the sick lady got up from the wheelchair and walked at a brisk pace. I looked at her with a slight annoyance. Why had she asked me to carry her around when she was able to walk by herself? But

suddenly the lady started crying out, “It is a miracle! A miracle! I couldn’t walk before. That volunteer can testify to it,” she said, pointing to me.

A few people gathered around me. “Is it true?” one of them asked.

“What?”

“It was really a miracle?” he insisted.

“I don’t know,” I answered. “I can only say that the lady was already sitting in the wheelchair when I took her out to the shops. Then I took her to the hill where the Stations of the Cross are, but I cannot say if she was able to walk before I met her.”

“Okay, thank you,” said the man who had questioned me, and soon the small crowd of onlookers dispersed.

The following day I heard from the volunteers, whom I used to meet at lunchtime, of a miracle that had happened in Lourdes. I didn’t ask what kind of miracle they were talking about. It possibly referred to the lady that had regained her ability to walk. At the time I had fallen into my feelings of atheism, so I wasn’t interested in the subject.

Many years went by, and that episode seemed to have fallen into oblivion, but one day it came to mind for some reason. I wondered why that sick lady would have deceived me, pretending to have been miraculously cured when she was already in good health. What was the point?

That afternoon in Lourdes was still vivid in my mind. I relived seeing the lady dressed in black sitting in the wheelchair waiting for a volunteer. When I arrived at the hospital, as soon as I saw her I headed for her and grasped the handle of the wheelchair without uttering a word. Once we were in the street, I asked her where to go. Then we went shopping and then to the hill. At last I took her back to the hospital.

I decided that there had to be a rational explanation. Maybe the old lady was lazy and didn’t want to walk by herself. Perhaps she took advantage of me to stroll around Lourdes while sitting comfortably in the wheelchair. Nevertheless, my conjecture collided with the fact that the lady had been admitted to the hospital in Lourdes.

If my memory serves me right, there were two hospitals for sick people at that time in Lourdes, one bigger and one smaller. Neither of them admitted patients that were not disabled. There should be medical records certifying her disability. Being wise after the event, at that time I was very shallow. I should have investigated the matter in depth.

However, if she is still in my mind after so many years, perhaps something supernatural really did happen that afternoon in Lourdes.

This is an excerpt from A Hidden Sicilian History by ETTORE GRILLO

Ettore Grillo, author of these books:

– A Hidden Sicilian History

– The Vibrations of Words

– Travels of the Mind

http://www.amazon.com/author/ettoregrillo

FATIMA ONE HUNDRED YEARS LATER

I came in touch with Our Lady of Fatima when I was around sixteen years old. At the time, the crowned statue of the Virgin of Fatima was taken across Italy. The statue arrived in Enna by helicopter and was then taken to the monastery of Montesalvo, where it remained for a few hours. I followed the statue all the way to the playground where the helicopter had landed and then took off.

The following day at school, I talked about Our Lady of Fatima with my schoolmates, who didn’t seem as enthusiastic as me about the coming of the statue.

“Have you ever heard about the three secrets of Fatima?” asked Carlo, one of my schoolmates.

He was a priest’s nephew. His uncle, besides being a priest, was also a teacher of Latin at our school.

“No, I haven’t. I don’t even know about Our Lady of Fatima,” I answered.

“Okay, I’ll tell you what happened on May 13, 1917. That day, Our Lady appeared to three children, named Lucia, Francisco, and Giacinta, in a place called Cova da Iria, and asked them to come to the same place on the thirteenth of each month for five consecutive months at the same time.

“The civil and religious authorities didn’t believe the three young shepherds, and Lucia’s mother accused her of lying. On August thirteenth, the three children were arrested and forced to confess that they hadn’t told the truth, but they were unshakable and kept their side of the story. The children couldn’t go to Cova de Iria that day because they were in prison, but Our Lady appeared again to them on August nineteenth, and this time she promised that on October thirteenth, which would be the day of the last apparition, she would give them evidence of the authenticity of the apparition so that everybody would believe them.

“On the appointed day, people from all over Portugal came to Cova de Iria to be present at the miraculous event that had been predicted by Our Lady. There were believers and nonbelievers there, as well as civil and religious authorities and many anticlerical journalists.

“It was a rainy day. After noon it stopped raining and a cloud enveloped the three children. Our Lady asked Lucia to build a chapel in that place, and announced that the war would be over soon. Then the miracle happened. The sun started twirling in the sky. It was visible to the naked eye. It suddenly seemed that it was falling down toward the crowd. Then it halted before going up again in the sky.”

I listened to Carlo with my mouth wide open. I was really mesmerized by his account, but my mind was turned to the secrets.

“What about the secrets?” I asked.

“Oh, they are terrible! You should know that the third secret of Fatima has not been revealed yet. It was given to the Pope by one of the three children to whom the Virgin Mary appeared. In fact, of the three young shepherds, two died very young while the third, Lucia, is still living.”

“Do you know the contents of the first two secrets?” I asked.

“Yes. In the first secret, Lucia, Giacinta, and Francisco were shown hell. In the second secret, Our Lady said that after the First World War, another would burst forth that would be worse. Furthermore, she said that someday Russia would be converted and the world would enjoy a time of peace.”

“Does your uncle the priest know anything about the third secret?” I asked.

“No, he doesn’t. Nobody knows the third secret except the Pope. In my opinion,” said Carlo, “there must be something catastrophic in the message. Otherwise, the Pope would have revealed it. Maybe the message talks about the end of the world.”

At Carlo’s words, a shudder of fear ran throughout my body as I linked the end of the world to the end of my life.

More than fifty years had gone by since my conversation with Carlo. Meanwhile, the third secret, which had been kept in the Vatican archives for fifty-six years, was revealed by Pope John Paul II, who said that the secret was related to him.

The text of the third secret was also reported in our local newspaper on June 27, 2000. I read the article, cut it out, and put it into the drawer of my bedside table, where still I keep it.

The article tells the secret and contains a theological comment by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who later would become Pope.

Not one catastrophic prediction was contained in the third secret. The real meaning of the message, according to Vatican, is that one can change his or her destiny through prayer and penance.

I had believed that every human being has his or her destiny already assigned and cannot do anything to change it. Now the third secret of Fatima had turned my way of thinking upside down. On the other hand, it is unthinkable that God, who is the giver of life and the creator of all things, is not able to change destiny.

Here is the unabridged text of the third secret:

After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendor that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: ‘Penance, Penance, Penance!’ And we saw in an immense light that is God: ‘something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it’ a Bishop dressed in White ‘we had the impression that it was the Holy Father.’ Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.

Tuy, January 3, 1944

My wife and I were flying from Rome to Lisbon when I told her, who is not a believer, what happened on May 13,1981, at Saint Peter’s Square in Rome.

“It was a peaceful afternoon at Saint Peter’s Square when Pope John Paul II was passing through the crowd. Suddenly a Turkish man, who was a professional killer, fired two bullets

at the Pope. The Pope was taken to the hospital unconscious and was about to die, while the attempted assassin tried to run away, but was blocked by a nun named Sister Lucia. Don’t you think that these are singular coincidences?”

“What coincidences?” asked my wife.

“The first coincidence is the date of the event. Both the first apparition to the shepherd children and the attempt on the Pope’s life happened on the same day, May thirteenth. Furthermore, the person that caught the killer was called Lucia, like the young shepherdess of Fatima.”

“Yes, they are astonishing coincidences. Did the Pope survive?”

“Yes, he survived, and he had no doubt that it had been Our Lady who had deflected the bullets, which otherwise would have been fatal. The Pope was bound to die, and the prophecy contained in the third secret of Fatima would have been carried out if not for the intercession of the Virgin Mary. Hence, the future and prophecies can be changed if it is God’s will.”

We landed at the airport in Lisbon and remained in the city for a few days before going to Fatima. While in Portugal, we visited Cabo da Roca, which is the extreme western tip of Europe. It is the place where the land ends and the ocean begins. Watching the immense ocean from the top of the headland, I revived the dreams of the great navigators of the past who had left the safety of the land to sail the unknown. Seen from an altitude of 140 meters above sea level, the ocean gave me a sense of immensity and infinity. It was like watching the firmament from above rather than from below.

We arrived at Fatima in the early afternoon and found accommodations in a very good hotel near the sanctuary. A few steps further was a square wider than I had ever seen, and at the opposite end was the sanctuary of Our Lady of Fatima. What impressed me was the view of the tombs of the three shepherd children; two were close to each other, while Francisco’s was detached. Near the sanctuary is a museum where the crown of Our Lady is kept. Set in the crown is the bullet that had crossed Pope John Paul II’s body without damaging vital organs. Not far from the square there was a small train that took tourists to the houses where the three children had lived and the hillock where the angel had appeared to them.

We left Fatima bound for another holy place called Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

This is an excerpt from A Hidden Sicilian History by ETTORE GRILLO

Ettore Grillo, author of these books:

– A Hidden Sicilian History

– The Vibrations of Words

– Travels of the Mind

http://www.amazon.com/author/ettoregrillo