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Salve Regina at the Grotto

BY FELIPE BARANDIARÁN PORTA

Pilgrims have come from all over to prostrate themselves before the humble and rustic throne that the Virgin has chosen, on the banks of the Gave in Hautes-Pyrénées in France. The intense glow of innumerable candles illuminates the rock, from which the Virgin smiles, as she did with the little seer we know as Saint Bernadette Soubirous—the saint whom the Blessed Mother told that she is the Immaculate Conception.

Oil painting by José Garnelo y Alda, Valencia, Spain (1866-1944)

To the left in front of us stands a robust, middle-aged man and I wonder if he is the painter. He has a small crutch in his hands and a crippled child in his arms, who looks at us with serenity.

I can hear the pilgrims saying: “The children of Eve cry out to you!”

The Queen of Heaven has dispensed countless healings since she appeared to little Bernadette on February 11, 1858. Hanging from the rock are piled up crutches of the grateful who testify to it. Seventy cases are medically certified as miraculous. Probably many more are spiritual cures that are kept in the silence of confessionals.