The Story of Lourdes
St Bernadette
was born Bernadette Soubirous to Francois Soubirous, a miller, and Louise Casterot at the Boly Mill (later refered to by Bernadette as the ‘Mill of Happiness’) in Lourdes on 7th January 1844. She was baptised two days later.
On Thursday the 11th February 1858 Bernadette, who was to suffer life-long ill-health after having contracted cholera as a child, saw the first of the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary which were to make both Bernadette and Lourdes famous throughout the world. Bernadette was to see a total of eighteen apparitions at the Grotto of Massabielle, the last being on the 16th July 1858. During this period, on 3rd June, Bernadette also made her first Holy Communion.
In the first apparition Bernadette, a poor and asthmatic girl gathering wood with her sister and a friend, saw a lady dressed in white at the grotto of Massabielle, poor, common land where the canal met the River Gave de Pau. Both Bernadette and her sister Tionette were beaten by their mother when Toinette told their mother what Bernadette had seen.
The second apparition occurred on the following Sunday and Bernadette threw holy water at the lady in case the vision was diabolic. Bernadette was entranced so the girls with her ran for help. A crowd soon gathered.
The third apparition occurred on on the next Thursday, which was the day after Ash Wednesday. The lady in white asked Bernadette to come to the grotto for fifteen days. Bernadette, prompted by her mother’s employer who thought the apparition may be that of a local wise woman who had recently died, asked the lady to write down her name but was told that this was unnecessary. The lady added that she would not promise to make Bernadette happy in this world but in the other.
Further apparitions occurred on the 19th, 20th, 21st and 23rd of February. By this time the authorities were becoming concerned for public safety as rumours were spreading that the lady may be the Blessed Virgin Mary, although Bernadette had made no such claim. On the 24th the lady asked Bernadette for
“Penance! Penance! Penance! Pray to God for sinners.”
She also asked Bernadette to
“Go, kiss the ground for the conversion of sinners”.
This time the local priest, Abbe Peyremale, sent the local tax collector to get an account of the happenings at the grotto. He feared that if he went in person he might be seen to sanction these events.
The following day the lady asked Bernadette to
“Go. Drink of the spring and wash yourself there”.
She added
“You will eat the grass that is there”.
These instructions were repeated at the next apparitions on the 28th and on the 1st March. Some of the witnesses to this thought that Bernadette was humiliating them and were shocked, but the famous spring had been unearthed and the faithful began gathering water there.
On Tuesday March 2nd the lady told Bernadette to
“Go and tell the priests to come here in procession and to build a chapel.”
When she told Abbe Peyremale about the procession, which was to be on the following Thursday, he was furious and complained about the timescale and the need for the Bishop’s permission.
The previous day’s message was repeated on March 3rd. When Bernadette told this again to Abbe Peyremale he said that if the lady in white wanted a chapel she should say who she was and should also make the wild rose bush in the niche of the grotto blossom.
Thursday 4th March was market day in Lourdes and large crowds gathered at the grotto. This was to be the final day requested by the lady. Yet at the end of the longest apparition so far (45 minutes) Bernadette put out her candle and went quietly home. There was no response to the Abbe’s request and no message. All seemed to end in an anticlimax.
On the night of Wednesday 24th Bernadette awoke with a great urge to return to the grotto. She did so at 5am on the next morning, the Feast of the Annunciation. Even after three weeks away and at this very early hour people were waiting there. Four times Bernadette asked the lady who she was and finally was told in her own patois,
‘Que soy era Immaculada Councepciou’ - I am the Immaculate Conception.
Bernadette had never heard the phrase before and ran to the Abbe’s house to tell him.
Wednesday 7th April Bernadette saw her penultimate apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary. During this apparition Bernadette’s hand touched the flame of her candle but remained unburnt. This is known as ‘the miracle of the candle’.
On Friday 16th July, the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Bernadette, whilst on the meadow on the opposite side of the River Gave, saw her last apparition of the Virgin Mary “more beautiful than ever”. Throughout these apparitions no-one else saw, felt or heard anything.
On 4th July 1866 Bernadette left Lourdes for Nevers and on 29th July 1866 became one of the Sisters of Charity of Nevers and was given the name Sister Marie-Bernard. On 30th October 1867 Bernadette was professed into the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity.
Bernadette died at Nevers on 16th April 1879. She was beatified on 14th June 1925 and canonised by Pope Pius XI in Rome on 8th December 1933.
