Our Lady of Lourdes

The place and the event       

The village of Lourdes, France is famous as a place of miraculous healings. In 1858, Bernadette was 14 when she said that a Heavenly Lady visited her near this remote town at the foot of the Pyrenees Mountains. There were 18 visitations and she told everyone who would listen about them as they occurred. She was greeted with skepticism, interrogations and subjected to complete medical and personal scrutiny. Nevertheless, there were numerous witnesses to these events as they unfolded. The heavenly visitor was Mary, and she told Bernadette to scratch out a spring, ask the parish priest to build a church, and requested processions. Bernadette did all this, the priest complied, and the processions began. Out of this spring flowed clear running water, followed by thousands of miraculous healings. The processions continue to this day – as do the miraculous cures.

Miraculous Healings and Lourdes

There have been literally thousands of cures at Lourdes which can only be described as scientifically and medically inexplicable, but only 70 have been declared miraculous by the Church. Claimed cures are most rigidly examined by a commission of physicians and scientists who operate with great caution and circumspection. The alleged cure must be immediate and permanent to be regarded as a miracle. Medical records prior to the trip are studied, as well as the patient’s subsequent medical history. The examination and evidence gathering may continue for years, and even decades. Very few cures stand up against these rigid tests or even begin the process of verification, but there are uncounted more which have never been subject to a controlled analysis. We don’t know how many cures can be considered ‘miraculous,’ but all it takes is just one to demonstrate the loving hand of God.

It’s time to visit 1858 Lourdes and experience the appearances by the Heavenly Lady and see how it all began.

The first visit

The Lady’s initial appearance was quite unexpected. Here is Bernadette’s description [see below under “Some related pages, websites, and references”].

“Early on February 11th, 1858, my sister Toinette, aged eleven, and my friend Jeanne Abadie, aged twelve, set off with me to gather firewood for my mother. Jeanne and Toinette crossed the millstream by the river Gave, while I sat down to take off my shoes. I was taking off my stocking when I heard a noise like the sound of a storm. I looked at the trees near the river, but nothing was moving. I was frightened, and I stood up straight.

 “Bewildered, I looked across the mill-stream to a niche above a cave in the rock of Massabielle. A rosebush on the edge of the niche was swaying in the wind. It was all that moved. All else was still.

 “A golden cloud came out of the cave and flooded the niche with radiance. Then a lady, young and beautiful, exceedingly beautiful, the like of whom I had never seen, stood on the edge of the niche. She smiled and smiled at me, beckoning me to come closer as though she were my mother, and she gave me to understand in my soul that I was not mistaken.

 “The Lady was dressed in white, with a white veil on her head, and a blue sash at her waist. A Rosary of white beads on a golden chain was on her right arm. On that cold winter’s day, her feet were bare, but on each foot was a golden rose radiant with the warmth of summer.

 “I went upon my knees and took my Rosary from my pocket. The Lady took the Rosary from her arm and I began to cross myself. My arm could not move until the Lady herself made a beautiful Sign of the Cross.

 “The Lady let me pray the Rosary on my own. She passed the beads through her fingers, she did not say the words. She signed for me to come closer but I did not dare. She smiled at me, she bowed to me. She disappeared into the niche, the golden cloud faded, and I was all alone.

 “I told Toinette what happened, and at evening prayer my eyes filled up with tears. ‘Is anything wrong?’ my mother asked. Toinette answered for me, and my mother said, ‘It was a white stone you saw.’ My father thought it better for me not to return to Massabielle.

 “On Sunday I asked my father’s permission to return. He said ‘A lady with a Rosary can’t be evil,’ and he gave permission.”

 After the initial visit, Bernadette returned with some other villagers to the grotto where the Lady had appeared. As the visits continued the number of people accompanying her continued to increase until, by the fifth visit, hundreds of people were kneeling by the grotto. By March 4th, some 8,000 people gathered around the grotto. No one could see or hear the Heavenly Lady except Bernadette, and no one could hear Bernadette respond as she communicated with her. The transformation upon Bernadette’s countenance must have been quite profound as she kneeled because her mother thought Bernadette might die.

The police commissioner, Dominique Jacomet, removed Bernadette to his office one day as she was leaving the church and launched an interrogation. He tried to misrepresent everything she was telling him and angrily ranted at her. He tried to have her say that she was seeing Mary, the mother of Jesus, but Bernadette didn’t know her identity. She only referred to the Lady as ‘Aquero,” which means ‘reverence in the presence of sacred reality.’ Finally, her father arrived and took her away.

At her catechism class the girls shunned her as a criminal and the Sister Superior thanked God that she had been arrested for her misbehavior. One woman called her a brat, another slapped her face, but another sister was kind to her.

Throughout her ordeals, Bernadette’s parents remained staunchly in her corner.

Drink at the spring and the first miracle

Bernadette tells us:

“On Thursday, February 25th, Aquero came peacefully, prayerfully. Gently she said, ‘Go, drink at the spring, and wash in it.’

“I saw no spring, so I went towards the Gave. Aquero called me back and pointed to a spot beneath the rock. I found some moisture there, but it was mud. Three times I threw it away, even though the Lady said to drink it. Then I washed in it, only to have my face besmeared with mud.

“When the Lady left my Aunt Bernarde slapped my face. ‘Stop your nonsense,’ she said, as she sent me home to the jeers of the people. That afternoon, Eleanore Perard returned with me to the grotto. Water was bubbling from the hollow I had scraped in the mud. Eleanore stirred the water with a stick. The more she stirred, the more it flowed. The more it flowed, the purer it became. Soon it was water crystal clear.

“The people who laughed this morning when all they saw was mud, now saw the water as a gift from God. They obeyed the Lady’s request, ‘Go, drink at the spring and wash in it.’

 “Louis Bouriette asked his daughter to bring him some of the water. Years before in the quarries Louis had injured his right eye, and his vision was steadily deteriorating.

“He bathed his eye with the water, and next day he said to Doctor Dozous, “I am cured.” Doctor Dozous wrote a sentence on some paper, placed his hand over Louis’ good eye, and said, ‘Read this.’ Louis read aloud, ‘This patient is suffering from an incurable amaurosis.’”

During this time Bernadette was subjected to even more questioning and grilling, this time by the Imperial Prosecutor. As was the case with the Police Commissioner, the Prosecutor attempted to trick Bernadette and wrote down incorrectly her answers, which she corrected on the spot. Bernadette’s mother was with her and the Prosecutor threatened both with imprisonment.

The second miracle

“On Monday, March 1st, the Lady gave a grace to a friend and a lesson to myself Catherine Latapie had two fingers paralysed since an accident in 1856 She had two small children and was expecting a third.

“After the Lady left me on Monday, Catherine knelt by the spring and plunged her hand into the water Her useless fingers suddenly regained their suppleness.”

Miraculous cures were taking place as people immersed or poured the water from the newly created spring.

The third miracle

During all this time, “the people pestered me, the police watched me, and the public prosecutor almost crushed me. What my parents suffered from the town officials, only Eternity will reveal.”

“Despite the plottings and intrigues, wondrous things happened to affirm the people in their faith. Croisine Bouhohort’s child of two was dying. His little coffin was already in the making.

“Croisine took her dying child to Massabielle, and for fifteen minutes immersed him in the cold spring water. Next day, little Louis was walking around full of life. Doctor Vergez examined the child along with Doctor Dozous. Both doctors admitted the child’s cure could not be explained by medical science.”

The Immaculate Conception

The Lady had asked for a chapel to be built. When Bernadette first approached the parish priest, Father Peyramale, about her visits and requests he didn’t believe her. As the visits continued, Father Peyramale’s skepticism softened, and he asked Bernadette to have the Lady identify herself. On March 25, 1858, she finally did.

She was the Immaculate Conception.

This meant nothing to Bernadette. She was a 14-year-old French peasant girl living in rural France in 1858, who could neither read nor write. She spoke only the local dialect, while the catechism was taught in French. Bernadette tells us what happened:

“On March 25th, I was roused from sleep by an inner insistence to go to the grotto. It was still dark when I reached Massabielle. The Lady was there and waiting for me.

“I apologised for keeping her waiting, for I had caught a cold. She smiled, I knelt down, we said the Rosary together. Then the Lady came very close to me. I told her how I loved her, and how happy I was to see her again.

“’Mademoiselle,’ I said, “would you be so kind as to tell me who you are, if you please?” Instead of replying, she only smiled.

“I said again, ‘Would you be so kind as to tell me who you are?’ I said this four times altogether.

“The Lady extended her hands towards the ground, swept them upwards to join them on her heart, raised her eyes, but not her head to Heaven, leaned tenderly towards me and said, ‘Que soy era Immaculada Conceptiou.’ She smiled at me. She disappeared. I was alone.

“I did not understand the words, but I knew the Priest would. I knew also the Lady loved the Priest. Leaving my candle at the grotto, I went straight to Fr. Peyramale, saying the Lady’s name to myself along the way. Father was waiting for me. I bowed and said, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” Seeing his surprise, I explained, “Aquero said, ‘I am the Immaculate Conception.’

“The good Priest stood there stunned. Suddenly he stammered, “Do you know what that means?”

“I shook my head, I said ‘No.’

“’Then how can you say the words if you do not understand them?” ‘I repeated them all along the way,’ I replied, then added, ‘She still wants the chapel.’

“The Priest by now was deathly pale, but he pulled himself together, saying, ‘Go home now, child. I will see you another day.’

“Years later I learned that Father wrote to the Bishop that night, and as he wrote, his heart filled up with emotion, and his eyes filled up with tears.

“What my Lady meant by ‘I am the Immaculate Conception,’ I had no idea. I decided to ask Mademoiselle Estrade. She had a serene sense of the supernatural.

“‘Mademoiselle, what does it mean, Immaculate Conception?’ Mademoiselle explained how Pope Pius IX had applied the words to Our Blessed Lady four years ago on December 8th.

“It was then I realised I could speak what was unspoken in my soul for seven silent weeks—that Aquero was the Immaculate Virgin Mary. She was the Mother of God, and she had been stepping out of Heaven to share her soul with me. She had taught me prayers no soul on earth had prayed. She had promised me happiness, not in this world, but in the next.

“Through all her visits, she had spoken, not the flawless French of the town officials, but the homely words of my Lourdes patois. Holiness and prayer are simple. God’s Mother taught me so.

“The majority of people sensed it was Our Blessed Lady who was hallowing Lourdes. When they knew for certain, they could scarce contain their joy. Throughout her visits, not a single crime was committed in the district, the confessionals in the church were besieged, and the Priests were well-nigh exhausted.

“The Lady told me always to bring a blessed candle to the grotto, then bring it home with me. On March 25th, she asked me to leave it lighted at the grotto, and to this day candles have always been burning at Massabielle.

“I noticed that Our Blessed Lady would often look over my head to single out individuals in the crowd. She would then smile on them as though they were old familiar friends.

“Nor did she forget the town officials who caused my parents such distress. All finally believed in the Apparitions, and died with the crucifix pressed to their lips. Jacomet admitted, ‘Our opposition was in vain. Bernadette had the Immaculate Virgin Mary on her side.’”

___________________________

“Why don’t you ask Our Lady to cure you?” a pilgrim asked me once in Lourdes.

“It’s no use,” I answered, “Our Lady told me I would die young.’”

And indeed she did.

Life after Lourdes

Bernadette reaped no earthly rewards because of these visitations. Following the events at Lourdes in 1858, Bernadette became a nun and lived a life of suffering and pain. Her vocation was to pray. Even after she became a nun she was subjected to mockery and scorn. God subjected her to “bitter trial of sufferings: of incomprehension, mockery and ridicule, she was ill most of the time, she withstood all types of pain, but she maintained herself recollected with patience. She suffered from chronic asthma, tuberculosis, vomiting blood, aneurism, gastritis, tumor in the knee, cavities in the bones, and abscesses in the ear leading to deafness. Shortly before death she slightly regained hearing.”

The Virgin had said to Bernadette: “I promise to make you happy, not in this world, but in the next.” These words of the Virgin were fulfilled fully in our saint. She suffered much during her life until her death at the age of 35.

* * * * *

By 1877 Bernadette had become disabled. On December 11, 1878, she returned to the infirmity, never to leave again. “She suffered very much physically. Being in bed created wounds all over her back. Her tuberculosis ridden leg burst. She developed abscesses in her ears, making her completely deaf for some time. If it were not for the evidence of her symptoms no one would suspect she was so sick. Her serene and joyful attitude did not manifest the profound suffering she was going through. Bernadette never lost her fortitude and acceptance.”

Bernadette passes

Upon Bernadette’s deathbed, knowing she would soon pass from this life and on Easter Wednesday she requested that her crucifix be tied to her lest her weakening fingers be unable to hold it. Just before she died, Bernadette declared, “I have seen her. How beautiful she is, and how I long to go to her.”

“On April 16th, 1879, she asked the religious to pray the rosary with her while she followed with fervor. At the end of the Hail Mary, she smiled as if she had encountered again the Virgin in the Grotto. Then she died at 3:15 PM. Her last words were the conclusion of the Hail Mary: ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners…sinners…’”

The Blessed Virgin made a beautiful sign of the cross the first time Bernadette saw her. The last act of Bernadette as she lay on her deathbed was to make the sign of the cross just as the Heavenly Lady had taught her.

Clearly, the Lady of Lourdes was the Mother of God, sent or sanctioned by Jesus to bring all of us closer to him. The miraculous spring still flows in Lourdes and people come by the millions each year.

This is the story of Bernadette and Lourdes, but it was just beginning.

The Village of St Bernadette

In 1959 Andy Williams recorded The Village of St. Bernadette. It reached #7 on the Billboard music chart. I wonder how popular this song would be if released today?

Some related pages, websites, and references

 

Last modified September 27, 2019