St. Bernadette Soubirous

Bernadette Soubirous, baptized Marie Bernarde, was the oldest of a family of six, the daughter of a miller, François Soubirous and his wife, Louise Casteròt. They lived in Lourdes, a small town in the French Pyrenees.

Hit by hard times, her father had to give up the mill and move the family into the only lodging available, a former prison. "Le cachot" or "the dungeon," was damp and cold. Always sickly, Bernadette had contracted cholera as a child and suffered from severe asthma attacks. Considered a slow learner, she had the simplicity of a dove, was good, patient, and nothing but honest.

On February 11, 1858 while out with her sister and two friends, her companions skipped over stones to cross the River Gave to gather sticks for fuel near the grotto of Massabielle.

Hesitant about wading into the frigid water, the asthmatic Bernadette was seated on a rock when a sudden gust of wind made her look up. In the grotto she beheld a luminous lady, dressed in white with a blue sash around her waist, golden roses on her feet and a rosary over her arm.

Report of the vision caused a commotion, and people began to accompany Bernadette to the grotto where, altogether, there were eighteen apparitions in a period of two months. On March 25 the lady revealed herself as “The Immaculate Conception”, four years after the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. The Virgin’s message was one of prayer and personal conversion and she also asked for a church to be built and that people come on pilgrimage.

During one of the apparitions, Bernadette suddenly began to dig inside the grotto, from whence emerged a fountain that flows abundantly today. Its water has worked countless cures, though only 67 are officially recognized by the Church and medicine.

After the apparitions, though her father’s life improved with offers of work, Bernadette’s was continuously harassed by visitors and ecclesiastical inquiries.

In 1866 she entered the convent of Notre Dame de Nevers where, despite her delicate health, she served as infirmarian and sacristan.  Developing painful, fatal tuberculosis of the bone, Bernadette suffered patiently until her death at age thirty-five on April 16, 1879. She died reaffirming the veracity of the apparitions.

Today, Lourdes is one of the most visited and beloved Catholic shrines in the world. Bernadette’s body lies in the convent chapel in Nevers, miraculously incorrupt.