some signal proof of her love to her children." Since then a no- vena and an exposition of the relics are held during the latter part of each July, in conjunction with St. Ann's feast-day, and many miracles have been wrought. In 1901 a new marble crypt was completed at the church, and used for the first time for this novena and exposition, and public attention was very particularly called to it. The public press was filled with letters pointing out abuses, or defending the quality of the cures, which were numerous and striking (see a short summary note in The Presbyterian Banner, August 8, 1901). On the whole Monsignor O'Reilly's hope that the depositing of the relics of St. Ann in the Church of St. Jean Baptiste will result in "the founding here in New York of what will become a great national shrine of St. Anne" — to be signalized, the editor of the Ave Maria adds, "by such marvels as have rendered the sanctuaries of St. Anne de Beaupre and St. Anne d'Auray fa- mous throughout Christendom" — seems in a fair way to be fulfilled. The following is a typical instance of what is happening there. It was reported in The Catholic Telegraph. It is the case of a young man aged nineteen, of New Haven, Conn.: "Two years ago young Maloney, who was working at the time in a New Haven factory, fell and injured his hip. Every doctor consulted said he would be a cripple for life. When he walked he was obliged to use crutches. Until recently he has been under the care of the ablest physicians in the city, yet all declared him incurable. Hearing of several cures wrought at St. Anne's shrine, New York, he started thither, making a retreat on arriving. After several days spent in prayer, he visited the shrine of St. Anne. The morning of his visit he re- ceived holy communion, and then the relic of the saint was applied, and the sufferer anointed with consecrated oil. Almost instantly he felt better. Another visit and he was able to walk without crutches, leaving the latter before the shrine in which the relics are kept. He was well, quite well, and thus returned to New Haven, to the astonishment of all who knew him." It is worth noting that the Cincinnati Enquirer of July 28 and the Lexington (Ky.) Leader of July 29, 1902, record the sudden cure of a deaf woman in St. Anne's Church, West Covington, Ky., on St. Ann's feast- day. "She said she had heard the key in the tabernacle, which contains a relic of St. Ann, click as the priest turned it" — and after that she heard everything.
The following extract from The New York Tribune for August 13, 1906, will be not uninteresting in this connection: "Two thousand quarts of water from the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes, in France, arrived here in huge sealed casks on Saturday, consigned
276 NOTES TO LECTURE III
to the Fathers of Mercy, who have charge of the American shrine of that name, at Broadway and Aberdeen Street, Brooklyn. The water will be distributed to thousands of physically afflicted men, women and children from all parts of the country next Wednesday afternoon and the following Sunday. Next Wednesday in the Catholic calendar is known as the Feast of the Assumption. It is the titular day of the French shrine, and is kept with equal solemnity by the Fathers of Mercy at the American shrine. The water comes to this country under the seal of the clergy in charge of the French shrine, who guarantee it to be undiluted. Father Porcile, rector of the Brooklyn church, said yesterday that only two ounces would be given to each person applying. The celebration of the festival will begin at [blurred] o'clock on Wednesday morning with a solemn mass. In the afternoon at 3.30 o'clock the pilgrimage to the shrine, which has stood for years on the grounds of the church, will take place. Father Porcile, who has been at the French shrine several times, says the French Government will not attempt to carry out the threatened abandonment of Lourdes on the charge that it is a menace to public health. 'I read about French pathologists holding that the piscina in which the afflicted bathe is unhealthy,' he said. 'Anybody who has seen the piscina knows better. It is not a pool, but a cavity, which is filled with running water. If the pool were stagnant, it might be argued, with some show of truth, that it was unhealthful.'" It is only right to suppose that the re- porter misunderstood his collocutor with regard to the piscinas — whether their formation or their filth. Their filth is not glossed by, say, Robert Hugh Benson (Lourdes, 1914, pp. 51 ff.), who bathed in one of them: "That water," says he, "had better not be described."
98. Cf. Giinter, Legenden-Sludien, p. 177, and especially Die christliche Legende des Abendlandes, pp. 35 ff.