St Bernadette

St Bernadette was born on January 7 1844, the oldest of a family of six, and though christened Marie Bernarde, she was known to the family and neighbours by the pet name of Bernadette. Her father was by trade a miller, and in1844 he rented a mill of his own, but thrift and efficiency were not the distinguishing virtues of either Francis Soubirous or his wife, Louise Casterot, then still in her teens and eighteen years younger than her husband. Bernadette was always a most delicate girl, afflicted with asthma and other ailments, and the fact that she was one of the sufferers in the cholera epidemic of 1854 cannot have helped to make her more robust. Meanwhile the family was gradually sinking into dire poverty.

Beginning on 11 February 1858 Bernadette had eighteen visions at the Grotto of Massabielle, beside the River Gave. By 4 March the crowds accompanying her to the site of the apparitions had grown to 200,000 people. The lady of the visions instructed Bernadette to have a chapel built on the spot, to which pilgrims might come in procession, and to wash in, and drink from, the spring which had gushed out at the foot of the rock when the young saint dug. On 25 March the vision proclaimed, using the local patois, 'I am the Immaculate Conception'. The last time she appeared was on 16 July, the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

At the date of the first apparition (February 11 1858) the family were living in the dark airless basement of a dilapidated building in the Rue des Petits Fossés. The child herself, though fourteen years of age, had not yet made her first Holy Communion and was regarded as a very dull pupil, but she was notably good, obedient and kind to her younger brothers and sisters, in spite of the fact that she was continually ailing.

The apparitions and the popular excitement which accompanied them did eventually have some effect in relieving the destitution of the Soubirous family, for people interested themselves to find work for the father; but for Bernadette, apart from the spiritual consolation of these visions, which had come to an end in less than a couple of months, they left a heavy load of embarrassment from the ceaseless and indiscreet questionings which allowed her no peace. As a measure of protection, she was after a while taken to reside with the nuns at the hospice (1861-1866), but even there, there were often visitors who could not be denied.

In 1864 she offered herself, under advice, to the sisters of Notre-Dame de Nevers. Attacks of illness postponed her departure from Lourdes, but in 1866 she was allowed to join the novitiate in the mother-house of the order. Separation from her family and from the grotto cost her much, but with her fellow novices at Nevers she was happy, while remaining still the humble and patient child she had always been. Her ill-health continued, so that within four months of her arrival she received the last sacraments and by dispensation was permitted to take her first vows. She recovered however, and had strength enough to act as infirmarian and afterwards as sacristan, but the asthma from which she suffered never lost its hold, and before the end came she suffered grievously from further complications.

Bernadette Soubirous died on April 16 1879; she was thirty-five years old. In 1933 she was canonized, and she now appears in the Church’s official records as St Marie Bernadette Soubirous.

Further reading: "Bernadette of Lourdes" by René Laurentin.  Available from the CTS Bookshop, Manchester. Tel: 0161 834 5115