Catholic Saints & Other Christian Heroes - Saint Bernadette Soubirous
The Innocence of Faith
1844 - 1879
The modern tendency to enshrine the human intellect—to the exclusion of the spiritual—was well underway in mid-nineteenth century Europe. Rationalism had become entrenched among the educated elite, many of whom regarded the church and its beliefs as relics of the past. For them, religion was for the poor masses who didn’t know better.
Into this secular age, the supernatural burst in a spectacular way. Mary, the mother of Jesus, appeared to a poor, illiterate fourteen-year-old peasant girl in a small French town near the Pyrenees. Even though Bernadette Soubirous was the only one to have seen the Virgin, her visions renewed the faith of the French people and of Catholics all over the world.
The events at Lourdes were a stark rebuttal to the notion that there is no reality beyond the earthly plane. When man had begun to exalt himself and not the Almighty, the Lord worked through a young girl to demonstrate that his mercy is available to all people. He chose an effective witness: Ber-nadette’s humility and utter simplicity disarmed the skeptics. At each turn, the walls of resistance and disbelief that faced the young girl crumbled.
Bernadette was the first child of François and Louise Soubirous, who had operated a mill until they were overcome by financial troubles. By the time Bernadette was fourteen, the family—there were now four children—was living in a single dank room that had once been a jail. The odd jobs her parents found provided barely enough to feed the family. Bernadette went to school irregularly; she didn’t even attend enough catechism classes to make her First Communion. Plagued with asthma, Bernadette spent most of her time taking care of her younger siblings. But this was the person the Lord chose to do his work.
The First Vision. On Thursday, February 11, 1858, Bernadette went with her sister and a friend to gather firewood. The two other girls ran ahead of her toward Massabielle, outside Lourdes, and waded through a cold, shallow stream. As Bernadette was sitting down to remove her shoes before crossing the stream, she heard a rustling of trees near a grotto. Glancing over, she saw nothing. Again she heard the noise. This time, she saw a beautiful woman, dressed in a white veil and gown, with a blue sash at her waist. A large rosary was draped over her arm, and on each bare foot was a yellow rose. Bernadette instinctively reached into her pocket for her rosary. As she prayed, the lady moved her own beads through her fingers; then she disappeared.
Bernadette’s parents were religious, but they were alarmed at the story of her vision and banned future visits to the grotto. Bernadette, however, was drawn to Massabielle “by an irresistible force,” as she later explained. Several days afterward, she returned with some friends and went into ecstasy when she saw the woman again. During a third apparition, Bernadette asked the lady to write down her name. The lady only smiled and asked Bernadette: “Will you do me the favor of coming here for a fortnight?” She then said: “I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next.”
For the next two weeks, Bernadette went to the grotto every day; she saw the lady on all but two occasions. Several times, she climbed up toward the grotto on her knees and wept—an act of penance for sinners. During this time, the lady in the vision revealed three secrets to Bernadette and gave her a prayer to say every day. Bernadette never told anyone what these secrets were or what she prayed.
As news of the apparitions spread, crowds began to gather, drawn by a palpable sense of the divine. There was no shortage of skeptics, however, including the civil authorities, who feared public unrest. Bernadette was ordered to see the police superintendent, who grilled her about her visions. She remained undaunted. “You can do what you want, sir,” she told him when he threatened her with jail.
Finding the Spring. On Thursday, February 25, many of those watching Bernadette thought she had gone mad. They saw her look for something, first in the grotto and then toward the Gave River. The lady had told her to wash in the spring, but she could find no spring. Bernadette later explained: “She pointed with her finger to [the place of] the spring. I went there. I saw merely a bit of dirty water; I put my hand in it, but I could not get hold of any. I scratched and the water came, but muddy. Three times I threw it away; the fourth time I was able to drink some.” The next day, people found, at the spot where Bernadette had muddied her face, a spring flowing with clear water.
The lady in the apparition had a specific mission for Bernadette: She was to ask the priests to build a chapel at Massabielle and to allow the faithful to come to the grotto in procession. Obedient to her instructions, Bernadette approached the parish priest of Lourdes. When she told Abbé Dominique Peyramale of the lady’s request, he retorted, “What! A lady who goes and perches on a rock! A lady you do not know! A lady who is perhaps as lunatic as you!” Bernadette would at least have to find out the lady’s name, the priest said.
The clergy’s “wait and see” attitude, however, did not stem the fervor that was growing over the apparitions. On March 4—the last day of the fortnight—there were 20,000 people present and police were stationed along the way to supervise the crowds.
The Immaculate Conception. For three weeks, Bernadette felt no pull toward the grotto. Then on March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation, she felt called to return. This time, she was determined to find out the lady’s name. On the first two attempts, the lady only smiled, but when Bernadette persisted, she said: “I am the Immaculate Conception.” All the way back to town, Bernadette repeated these words to herself so she would not forget them. She had no idea what they meant, but three years earlier Pope Pius IX had defined this term as an article of faith: Mary was, from the first instant of her conception, preserved from the stain of original sin.
Determined to put a stop to the whole business, the civil authorities conspired to have Bernadette hospitalized. Three doctors who examined her, however, were unable to diagnose mental instability; they found the young girl to be pleasant and intelligent. Since science precluded a supernatural explanation, they decided that a “brain lesion” must have caused the visions. By now, however, Abbé Peyramale had come to believe in Bernadette’s apparitions. The proof was in the faith of the people, who were crowding his church for the sacraments. He warned the mayor not to touch a hair on the child’s head.
Two more times, Bernadette saw Mary—the last occasion on July 16. Then the apparitions ceased. Four years later, a bishop’s commission declared that the Mother of God had truly appeared to the girl, and work on a chapel was begun. Regular processions were held, and streams of visitors made their way to the miraculous spring for spiritual and physical healing. It seemed that Bernadette had accomplished her mission.
Through it all, Bernadette remained humble and unaffected. The constant parade of visitors must have been exhausting, but Bernadette patiently answered their questions. She and her family refused the many offers of money and gifts. When she discovered that photographs of herself were being sold for ten centimes, she observed: “That’s more than I’m worth.”
Bernadette was now faced with the decision about how to live the rest of her life. Abbé Peyramale had arranged for her to become a boarder at a school in Lourdes run by the Sisters of Nevers, a diocesan community which—despite her poor health—the local bishop eventually invited her to join. At twenty-two years of age, she traveled to the motherhouse in Nevers to begin her novitiate. Even though she found it difficult to say goodbye to family and friends, Bernadette was overjoyed at the prospect of living a quiet, prayerful life.
The Religious Life. The Virgin’s prophecy must have echoed in her mind many times as continual bouts of painful illnesses clouded her joy. What Bernadette did not expect was the harsh treatment she would receive from her religious superiors. They had decided in advance that she needed stinging rebukes and a cold shoulder to prevent her from becoming spiritually prideful.
Bernadette’s novice-mistress, Mother Marie-Therese Vauzou, seemed to be bothered by the fact that the Lord had chosen a country girl from the lower classes to be his instrument. Perhaps she had expected Bernadette to divulge the secrets she had received from Mary. Bernadette, however, continued to withhold this information, which probably irked the novice-mistress even more. Bernadette was continually told that she was “good for nothing.”
After her profession, Bernadette was assigned to the infirmary, where for five years she nursed her sick sisters until her own failing health forced her to become a patient. Another burden was the stream of visitors: Even though the bishop had promised to allow only a few, there were more than enough to try Bernadette’s patience.
As her bodily suffering increased—a painful tumor on her knee eventually kept her bedridden—Bernadette worried that she had not profited enough from the graces she had received in her lifetime. She seemed to be experiencing a spiritual darkness. In one letter to her cousin in 1875, she wrote, “Ask our Lord to be so kind as to give me a tiny spark of his love. If only you knew how much I need it!”
Her pain was excruciating in the months before she died, and sleepless nights left her exhausted. Finally, on April 16, 1879, at the age of thirty-five, Bernadette died. Years later, during the canonization process, Bernadette’s remains were exhumed and were found to be perfectly preserved. Even in death, the Lord used Bernadette to show his power and glory.
The little town of Lourdes has become synonymous with God’s gift of healing; a wall covered with crutches and wheelchairs attests to this. Nearly 150 years later, millions of pilgrims still come to this small corner of the earth to bathe in the “living waters” discovered by Bernadette.
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