The Little Saint of Lourdes

When I was a little girl, my mother let me stay up later than usual one Sunday evening so I could watch "Song of Bernadette".  I cried at how Bernadette suffered, and I cried at the wonder of the Blessed Mother descending to earth to appear to a humble and nearly illiterate girl.  For a week after that, I imagined that I saw the outline of the Blessed Mother in the illumination provided by my night light.  When I admitted the folly of this, I cried some more for thinking myself worthy of my own apparition.

When it came to time to be confirmed, there was no doubt whose name I would take.   Unlike Bernadette, I was a good student and always at the top of the class.  But I  struggled with neatness and technical ability and I was often humiliated by the nuns for it.  I remember getting a 100 on a spelling test, and the second grade nun picking up my paper as if it were soiled with dog dung and comparing it to Susie Q's paper, who also got a 100 but whose paper revealed her perfect Palmer penmanship  Susie Q also had a head of blond hair perfectly coiffed into French curls that bounced ever so adorably when she shook her head, which was often.  Sister dropped my paper to the floor.  "I can hardly stand to touch this," she scolded, "come up and here pick it up."

I felt lower than a cockroach at the moment.  I wanted to say to her " But I got a perfect score, doesn't that count for anything?"  But I didn't.  I picked up my paper in total humiliation and went back to my seat.  That's why I could relate so much to Bernadette, who is one of the most overlooked saints in the Catholic church.  A few years ago, my dear friend Father Bill invited me to a series of talks he was planning to give on Lourdes.  I lent him the book "Bernadette Soubirous: In Her Own Words" and apologized for not being able to hear the talks due to my work schedule.  Father loved the book and decided to make the talk mostly about the virtuous Bernadette, whom Our Lady saw fit to speak to on 18 different occasions.

Although "Song of Bernadette" is a beautiful movie that I think is very true to the real story, it could of course not capture every detail of Bernadette's life and the events that lead her to the convent in Nevers.  The Soubirous family was so poor that her little brother was observed eating candle wax off of a window sill because he was so hungry.  Some of Bernadette's relatives were less-than-desirable, not unlike some of our Lord's distant relatives. The dilapidated home her family lived in was reputed to have once been a jail.

Some of the later apparitions that took place at Lourdes happened on days when Our Lady had not arranged for Bernadette to visit her at the grotto. At least once,   Bernadette received an aura in the wee hours of dawn, and she recognized the feeling as her call to go the grotto.  Sure enough, Our Lady came to her.

When deciding upon a convent in which to consecrate her life to Jesus, she endured many grillings by priests and nuns alike.  When she expressed concern that she had no particular talent that she could offer, she was told "Well, I'm sure you can manage to chop carrots nicely."   Bernadette was heartbroken about having to leave her mother behind to care for so many children on her own.  Her mother died not long after she joined the convent and Bernadette was nearly inconsolable.

Once Bernadette settled upon the convent at Nevers, a decision was made that she would address the entire community about the apparitions, during which the sisters could ask her any question they wanted with the stipulation that the topic would never be raised again.  Well, it was never raised by the sisters but that did not stop the curious from seeking out the little nun who would later be canonized a saint.  People would go out of their way to have Bernadette touch something so that they could one day have a second class relic.  When she would become wise to this, Bernadette would sometimes become exasperated, but she never displayed anything but humility.  She also was subjected to harsh treatment by the novice mistress, who was skeptical of the validity of Bernadette's visions.

St. Bernadette suffered from asthma all her life.  She developed tuberculosis, which eventually took her life.  When a tumor was discovered on her knee, the doctors were dumbfounded at how little she had complained given the excruciating pain it caused her.  Finally, on April 18, 1879, St. Bernadette was called home at last.  The Blessed Virgin had told her during the apparitions that she could not promise to make her happy in this life, only in the next.

St. Bernadette was completely selfless.  She did not leave behind profound writings that would enable her to be one day called a Doctor of the Church.  She lived in service of others, even at the height of her extreme suffering and pain.  She did not complain, ever.  Of all the souls on earth at the time, The Mother of God saw fit to appear to that one.

Pray for us, St. Bernadette,  that we may one day see Jesus and the beautiful vision that you were privileged to see 18 times at Lourdes.