If there are Westerners who claim to have seen God, Jesus or the Virgin Mary, it should not be a novelty, and children who grow up in religious stories will inevitably use their rich imaginations to make up a moving story for themselves, and such people have always had. And this kind of thing, and people's reactions to such people, has always been a good blueprint for referring to jesus when he declared himself the Messiah.
History is always strikingly similar.
In a small town in France in 1858, there was a girl named Bernadette, who was originally suffering from asthma, frail, poor family, and could not even memorize a simple "Holy Trinity" in school. But Bernadette's fate took a turn for the worse during a firewood hunt.
The three sisters went to a place called Maisabir to collect firewood, but Bernadette knelt down in front of a thorny cave and declared that she had seen a beautiful lady there, dressed in white veil and wearing a blue belt, with a golden rose on each foot. The lady told Bernadette that she could be happy, but after her death, if she had agreed, she would come here fifteen times in a row to meet the lady.
Bernadette's whole face had been radiant since she met this lady, walking like a fly, happy as a bird. But it was dangerous to promote a supernatural "superstition" at a time when the Industrial Revolution in France was in full swing. But Bernadette's words were supported by a group of women who followed Bernadette and knelt together in front of the cave, watching Bernadette's prayerful silence, her face shrouded in a layer of light. There, Bernadette said "yes" sincerely, talking to a lady who could only be seen by her.
The town was planning to build a railroad, and that railroad would have to pass through the cave, but the Bernadette phenomenon seemed to indicate that the cave had become a very sacred place, and it would not be feasible to let the railway pass through it. The chief executives discussed how to prevent this absurdity from happening, so as not to affect the economic construction here. But pursuing Bernadette's words, she did not seem to refer to any religion, but only said that there was a beautiful lady, and did not mention words like "Virgin Mary". The Virgin Mary is of course sacred, but whoever says she is the Virgin Mary or something like that is blasphemous to God.
The chief executive could only use intimidation to get Bernadette to stop this demagogic activity, otherwise she and her family would not be able to gain a foothold in the town, but Bernadette was reluctant to change her words anyway, always stressing that she had seen the lady and had made a pact with the lady.
The sheikh here watched Bernadette cautiously, neither easily rebuking Bernadette, an honest child, nor easily acknowledging what had happened to the girl. Of course, as a priest, It is also difficult for Sheikh Peramé to believe that miracles can happen to ordinary girls. So one day Bernadette passed on the lady's words to the sheikh, who wanted the sheikh to build a chapel in the cave, but the priest refused, and asked that if Bernadette wanted him to believe her, then let the lady let the wild bushes in front of the cave blossom in the last week of February.
On the appointed day, the townspeople came, wanting to see the miracle or to see a big joke. Bernadette's devotion did not allow the wild bushes to blossom, but Bernadette suddenly ate the weeds on the ground, and dug up the silt, and smeared his face with mud, and everyone laughed and scattered. Antoine, who admired Bernadette, and a stonemason blinded by the stones found that the place where Bernadette had dug up the mud was gushing out of the spring.
The stonemason washed his eyes with the spring water, but the blind eyes suddenly saw clearly, and the stonemason ran around to inform everyone of the news, and the doctor examined his eyes and found that his eyes did not improve, but the stonemason insisted that he could see clearly.
At this time, there was a baby who was sick, paralyzed in the legs, dying soon to die, and the mother of the child did not want her child to die like this, holding the child for the final struggle, so she carried the child to the spring, and the child suddenly cried and sounded loud, and when she returned home, the child's illness was better.
So many people came, lame, blind, terminally ill, lepers, came from afar, and carried home spring water in various utensils. The chief executive wanted to stop the further evolution of bernadette and wanted the mayor to issue a ban, but the mayor found that there was a business opportunity implied, and if the spring water was packed up and sold to everyone, it would not be a large amount of income. But the chief executive found an old law that made it legal to forbid people to fetch spring water, and that if anyone else stole it, they would be fined or jailed. But even this cannot stop the longing of the people, because those people are people who are tormented by illness and hopelessly can only rely on miracles.
Among them was the queen at the time, who had her governess fetch the spring because the prince was ill. So Bernadette's name was so great that even the bishop had to be cautious about it, so after consultation, they set up an organization called the Trust Office, composed of doctors, geologists and other scientists, to study the spring water and the surrounding environment, and to evaluate Bernadette's own body and psychology.
Surveys showed Bernadette's mental health, that there was nothing special about the springs, and that there were always some people who claimed to be well after using the springs for their illness. After several conversations with Bernadette, Sheikh Perlamet found that the girl was very kind and sincere, and his heart slowly sided with Bernadette, and provided her with protection from intimidation.
When people ask Bernadette what the name of the lady is and who it is, Bernadette begins by saying that the lady did not answer such questions, until the last time, Bernadette mentions that the lady said, "I am pregnant with the Holy Spirit," which shows that the lady confessed that she was the Virgin Mary, and Bernadette was the chosen servant of God.
Peramé believed bernadette should live a secular life, such as marrying Antoine and doing a normal job, such as being a maid. But if Bernadette had insisted that the lady had indeed said that she was "pregnant with the Holy Spirit," then Bernadette would not have had a peaceful life after that, and the Church would organize people to observe her, study her, and monitor her all the time.
Since the church trusteeship investigation seems to acknowledge Bernadette's "possibility that God's power represents," then if Bernadette is willing to deny what she has seen and said, admitting that it is nothing more than a lie, so that she can return to the normal trajectory of life, and if she persists, then the convent is Bernadette's only destination.
In the end, Bernadette chose to live in a convent, and Antoine promised Bernadette that he would remain single for the rest of his life. But life in the convent was miserable, with Bernadette doing more tiring work than a maid and suffering from the envy of the other nuns. Because in the eyes of other nuns, they have suffered so much here, but God has chosen Bernadette to be the spokesperson for himself— by what!
But Bernadette told the nuns who were jealous of her that she had suffered no less than any of them, and that Bernadette had a tumor on her knee, but she had been suffering from severe pain, and even if her legs were lame, she never complained for half a word. Bone tumors torment Bernadette and soon encroach on her body, and when the nun wants to send her to the spring for treatment, Bernadette refuses, saying, "The spring water is not for me." When she was dying and sent a postcard to Sheikh Peramé, Peramé rushed to the convent to make a final prayer for Bernadette, who kept saying "I really saw" because Bernadette had been angry about being suspected of lying.
On her deathbed, Bernadette saw the lady again, dressed in a white veil, wearing a blue belt, and a golden rose on each of her feet, and she smiled and opened her hands to Bernadette to welcome her arrival.
The Bernadette phenomenon attracted many devotees to the cave worship, where the statue of the Virgin Mary was built, flowers and candles were flickering, and the administrator who had terrorized Bernadette had suffered from throat cancer, and he fell to his knees outside the cave alone, hoping that Bernadette was right at this moment, that God really existed, and that he could save the suffering of the world.
The film, called "The Song of the Virgin," is based on true events, and there was indeed such a girl in a 19th-century French town, and the springs dug out by the girls attracted millions of people every year, and the church also seriously set up investigation teams to investigate whether the patients who used the springs were really cured. The investigation team tracked the patient's condition very strictly, excluding diseases due to psychological reasons, excluding diseases that had claimed to be good and then recurring, and after excluding various explainable reasons, there were still a few dozen cases of patients' diseases, and their recovery could be attributed to "supernatural" forces.
The film's inscription reads: "For those who do not believe in God, explanation is superfluous." For those who trust God, explanation is necessary. ”
It's not uncommon for Westerners to claim to have seen God or similar miracles, and given the development of modern medicine and technology, people prefer to believe that the person who said so is either a lunatic or a liar. Modern science tells us that believing in the existence of a kingdom of heaven is actually a very terrible thing, which will hit man's self-confidence as a master. If man is nothing more than an ant in God's eyes, and everything has a destiny, then what is the meaning of man's efforts? So will humanity continue to explore the unknown world?
But the cruelty of our world is that no matter how technologically advanced, humanity will always have insoluble dilemmas, and suffering and death will still hang over everyone's head.
Only in despair will man think of a distant God and place his last hope in God. So for people, a belief is not about whether it's true or not, it's about whether you need it.
Believe when you need it, you believe in existence, existence is real.