Today, April 16, is the memorial of Saint Bernadette Soubirous.
Bernadette was born to a poor family in France in 1844.
She was a shepherdess who saw, in a vision in 1858, the Virgin Mary in Lourdes, France. The apparition was followed by 17 more in the next five months. This led to the now-famous spring that heals infirmities. The Virgin Mary identified herself as the Immaculate Conception.
She thought of becoming a Carmelite. However, Bernadette had a fragile health, thus preventing her from joining the cloistered contemplative order.
The Sisters of Charity of Nevers accepted her into their community. There, Bernadette lived, worked, and became literate. When she was 22, Bernadette joined the congregation and became Sister Marie-Bernarde.
Bernadette sought to imitate the virtues of the Virgin Mary all her life, which was one long test. Indeed, at one point in the apparitions, the Blessed Mother told Bernadette, “I cannot promise you happiness in this life, but in the next.”
The visionary was always sick, and she had to endure the mistreatment of her superiors, the taunts of unbelievers, and the unwanted attention. All these Bernadette bore with extraordinary humility.
At age 35, she died of tuberculosis of the bone in her right knee. During her illness, she said, “All this is good for Heaven!” Before she expired, her last words were, “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for me, a poor sinner, a poor sinner.” Her incorrupt remains, with her face and exposed parts enhanced with wax, is publicly displayed at the Chapel of Saint Gildard at the Sisters of Charity in Nevers, France.
Pope Pius XI beatified Bernadette in 1925 and canonized her in 1933.