St. Bernadette Soubirous
  (1844-1879)

 
"Crowds grew larger and began to mock her and soon the crowds began to get smaller.  Then as all seemed dim a spring  welled up from the very spot where Bernadette had been instructed to dig"

   Bernadette Soubirous was born in 1844, the first child of an extremely poor miller in the town of Lourdes in southern France. The family was living in the basement of a dilapidated building when on February 11,1858, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to Bernadette in a cave above the banks of the Gave River near Lourdes. Bernadette, 14 years old, was known as a virtuous girl though a dull student who had not even made her first holy Communion. In poor health, she had suffered from asthma from an early age.

   There were 18 appearances in all, the final one occurring on the feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, July 16. Although Bernadette's initial reports provoked skepticism, her daily visions of "the Lady" brought great crowds of the curious. The Lady, Bernadette explained, had instructed her to have a chapel built on the spot of the visions.

There the people were to come to wash in and drink of the water. But there was no spring of water. Crowds grew larger and began to mock her and soon the crowds began to get smaller.  Then as all seemed dim a spring  welled up from the very spot where Bernadette had been instructed to dig.

   According to Bernadette, the Lady of her visions was a girl of 16 or 17 who wore a white robe with a blue sash. Yellow roses covered her feet, a large rosary was on her right arm. In the vision on March 25 she told Bernadette, "I am the Immaculate Conception." It was only when the words were explained to her that Bernadette came to realize who the Lady was.

   Few visions have ever undergone the scrutiny that these appearances of the Immaculate Virgin were subject to. Lourdes became one of the most popular Marian shrines in the world, attracting millions of visitors. Miracles were reported at the shrine and in the waters of the spring. After thorough investigation Church authorities confirmed the authenticity of the apparitions in 1862.

   During her life Bernadette suffered much. She was hounded by the public as well as by civic officials until at last she was protected in a convent of nuns. Five years later she petitioned to enter the sisters of Notre Dame. After a period of illness she was able to make the journey from Lourdes and enter the novitiate. But within four months of her arrival she was given the last rites of the Church and allowed to profess her vows. She recovered enough to become infirmarian and then sacristan, but chronic health problems persisted. She died on April 16, 1879, at the age of 35.

She was canonized in 1933.

St. Bernadette Soubirous is a two-fold story:  that of the apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Lourdes, France in 1858, as well as of the 14-year-old peasant girl - raised in dire poverty and unable to read - to whom Our Lady appeared.  But more, it is also the story of St. Bernadette's hidden life as a seemingly ordinary nun in her convent at Nevers, where she reached such holiness that after her death God saw fit to preserve her body incorrupt - as it remains to this day!

Beautifully set forth in this book are St. Bernadette's childhood and life at home, her character - honest, intelligent and straightforward - her description of Our Lady, the events surrounding the 18 apparitions, the opposition of the civil authorities, and the shrine and miraculous spring at Lourdes.  Also described are Bernadette's life in the convent, where she suffered a martyrdom in body and in soul.

The Blessed Mother told the 14-year-old Bernadette:  "I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next."  Our Lady's promise was fulfilled on April 16, 1879, when Bernadette died at the age of only 35.  In death she looked young and beautiful, despite the ravages of the illness she had suffered, and when her body was exhumed 30 years later, it still showed no trace of corruption.