I am extremely worried. I am anxious to know if the Grotto and the mills along the banks of the river have been damaged. As for the town, it looks as though there is nothing to worry about. Evidently the flood did a great deal of damage in Tarbes and Bagnères and there were even some deaths. I fear for our relatives in Momères. Try to let me know how they are as soon as possible.
Our cousin Jeanne wrote me from the Trappist Motherhouse and asked me to remember her to you and our brothers. I am very concerned about her being so close to Toulouse, where the flood caused such devastation. According to what I have heard, the number of people swallowed up by the water is incalculable; no one has ever seen anything like it.
The good God punishes us, but always as a Father. The streets of Paris have been soaked by the blood of so many victims, yet this was not enough to touch hearts hardened by evil. The streets of the south had to be washed also, with even more deaths.
My God! How blind man is when he refuses to open his heart to the light of faith! After such disasters, will we not be strongly compelled to ask ourselves what could have provoked such terrible punishments? If we listen carefully, we will hear a voice deep within our hearts telling us: it is sin, yes, sin, the greatest disaster and that which is the cause of every punishment. The evil that we commit maliciously comes back to us; such is the “joy” and the “profit” that sin yields us. O my God, forgive us and have mercy on us!
St. Bernadette Soubirous,
extracts from a letter of 4/7/1875
