St. Bernadette

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There is a very nice write-up about St. Bernadette at the Novalis site. universalis.com/today.htm
Other saints: St Bernadette Soubirous (1844 - 1879)
She was born in 1844 to a destitute family in Lourdes, in France. On 11 February 1858 she went down to the river Gave with her sister and a friend, to look for firewood and bones. There she received the first of a series of visions of the Mother of God which led to Lourdes becoming a place of pilgrimage and healing. In 1866 she became a nun at Nevers, where she died on 16 April 1879.
It is a rule of the Church that saints are to be celebrated for what they are and what they do – to serve as examples of heroic virtue for us all – and not merely for what happens to them. There is no way that we can all go off and have visions of Our Lady, and the world would be a madhouse if we tried. So what of Bernadette? What heroic virtue has she that we should imitate? There are two: suffering, and humility.
Bernadette was seriously ill with asthma all her life and she died young; but she never let illness be an excuse for anything – how many times do we, feeling a little unwell, use that as an excuse for being bad-tempered or simply not doing what we ought?
To move away from Bernadette for a moment: imagine that you are a poor working-class boy with little education who happens to be good at kicking a ball about. Within a few years you find yourself earning more, annually, than your father earned in his entire lifetime. You receive attention, adulation, status – all that you could possibly desire. People emulate you. They hang on your every word. How would you feel? How would you act?
Next, imagine that you are a poor girl – not even working-class, because your father hardly ever has any work – poor in a way that we can hardly conceive of – unintelligent and uneducated, and suddenly something happens to you. Overnight you are famous. People come in crowds to see you (sometimes the police have to control them). Everyone treats you with respect and admiration. They hang on your every word and ask you, over and over, questions about even the tiniest detail of your experience. They press coins into your family’s hands. You shut yourself up in a convent far from home, but even there you are constantly visited by bishops and other eminent persons who just want a quick look at you.
Wouldn’t that turn your head? Just a little? Wouldn’t you think that there must be something about you that made you worth seeing? However tiny that something was?
Here is Bernadette’s response, in conversation with one of the nuns:
“What do you do with a broom?”
“Why, sweep with it, of course.”
“And then?”
“Put it back in its place.”
“Yes. And so for me. Our Lady used me. They have put me in my corner. I am happy there, and stay there.”
Saint Bernadette Soubirous is patron saint of the sick, and rightly so. But if there is to be a patron saint of celebrities and footballers, Bernadette would be a wise choice for that task too.
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I think that she is really important for people who tend to over-value intelligence or academic learning (which is common in our culture). She is a great reminder of what God thinks about these things.
 
There is a parish in Louisville Ky staffed by Dominicans. On Saturdays, after the noon Mass, the faithful venerate First Class relics of St Bernadette. They line up and approach the friar holding the reliquary and kiss it. (the glass of the reliquary) He wipes it off and the next person approaches. Some just touch it or touch a rosary to it.

There is a Lourdes Grotto off to the side of the sanctuary. as well.
 
Saint Bernadette was a very down to earth person who was totally unimpressed with fame, fortune or even with people knowing who or what she was. She was also a very practical person who usually spoke very plainly and directly. She did not disguise or hide her feelings. I think the below story pretty well describes her attitude towards many things.

For a while as a young girl she essentially tended bar for her Aunt who owned a tavern. She would have been 12 or 13 about that time. Anyway, later in life, while a nun, the Diocese would bring in visitors to meet her. She detested this practice and tried to avoid it whenever possible… When she was unable to hide or get away from these duties, she was often asked for advice. Once, she was approached by several young women and asked for some advice about life. Bernadette told them if a woman was working in a Tavern and men were present, the women should always have an open door behind her so she could get out quickly if she needed to.👍

Probably not the type of advice they were expecting but valuable nonetheless:thumbsup:

Other people would want to touch her or her clothes. She thought those people were crazy and said so. More than once.

As I said she was very down to earth.

She is my Patron Saint as well, and I love her dearly.
 
St. Bernadette’s feast day is today April16. However, February 18 is also listed and celebrated as her feast day. Does anyone know how Feb 18 came about? April 16 is the date of her passing but I haven’t come across a reason as to how Feb 18 became one as well. Anyone know?
 
floresco said:
I think that she is really important for people who tend to over-value intelligence or academic learning (which is common in our culture). She is a great reminder of what God thinks about these things.
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Very well said, and one of the reasons why I have to keep praying to her myself. 👍
 
I think her lack of learning and her life situation helped keep her humble after the apparitions. If she’d had any idea of theology or even philosophy she might have been tempted to embellish the words she received. She also might have thought she “deserved” the visitations. Since she absolutely knew she had no standing or knowledge she always knew it was Our Lady and not herself who came up with the message.

Those of us with enough knowledge to be dangerous need to guard ourselves very carefully from pride and complacency.

St Bernadette, pray for us.
 
St. Bernadette is a favorite of mine, too.

If you’d like to place a prayer request at the Grotto of Lourdes in France, just click on the link below.
**
en.lourdes-france.org/praying…tto-of-lourdes**

And this is the link for the Lourdes website, in English:
**
en.lourdes-france.org/**
**
**** St. Bernadette and Our Lady of Lourdes,
pray for us!**
Attached Thumbnails [forums.catholic-questions.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=16160&stc=1&thumb=1&d=1360544067](http://forums.catholic-questions.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=16160&d=1360544067)
 
Lighthouse2000 said:
St. Bernadette’s feast day is today April16. However, February 18 is also listed and celebrated as her feast day. Does anyone know how Feb 18 came about? April 16 is the date of her passing but I haven’t come across a reason as to how Feb 18 became one as well. Anyone know?
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On December 8th 1933, Pope Pius XI declared Bernadette Soubirous a Saint of the Catholic Church. Her feast-day was fixed for February 18th, the day her Lady promised to make her happy, not in this life, but in the next. The Faithful however give her two more feast-days—April 16th, the day of her death, and February 11th—the day her Lady stepped from Heaven into her heart.
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ewtn.com/library/mary/bernlife.htm
 
Mrs_Sally said:
I think her lack of learning and her life situation helped keep her humble after the apparitions. If she’d had any idea of theology or even philosophy she might have been tempted to embellish the words she received. She also might have thought she “deserved” the visitations. Since she absolutely knew she had no standing or knowledge she always knew it was Our Lady and not herself who came up with the message.

Those of us with enough knowledge to be dangerous need to guard ourselves very carefully from pride and complacency.

St Bernadette, pray for us.
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Actually I must correct you, in a movie I saw it made out that she did not actually know it was the Blessed Virgin and she just thought it was a beautiful woman , when people said to her you see the Blessed Virgin she was in shock. I am pretty sure this was the case also with Sr Lucia from Fatima.
 
Christine85 said:
Actually I must correct you, in a movie I saw it made out that she did not actually know it was the Blessed Virgin and she just thought it was a beautiful woman , when people said to her you see the Blessed Virgin she was in shock. I am pretty sure this was the case also with Sr Lucia from Fatima.
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She must have known that whoever the personage they were a heavenly visitor - she located the miraculous healing spring of water at the behest of the apparition after all. And therefore someone infinitely more important than Bernadette herself.
 
LilyM said:
She must have known that whoever the personage they were a heavenly visitor
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From the book “A Holy Life”: catholicfreeshipping.com/holistbeoflo.html

“When I raised my head and looked at the Grotto, I saw a lady…”

Footnote 11: When Bernadette was finally literate, thus able to write the account of the apparitions, she wrote either “a lady” or “the Holy Virgin”. When she first talked about the vision, however, she described the Holy Virgin as the “tiny maiden” or “that” “that one”]. p. 20

“When I first saw her, I was a little bit afraid…So I put my hand in my pocket and took out my rosary. I tried in vain to make the sign of the cross; I was not able to raise my hand to my forehead. When I realized this, I froze completely in fear.” p. 21

(Second apparition) “As soon as I saw the vision, I threw some holy water on her, telling her that if she came from God to stay, but if not to go away.” p. 22-23
 
LilyM said:
She must have known that whoever the personage they were a heavenly visitor - she located the miraculous healing spring of water at the behest of the apparition after all. And therefore someone infinitely more important than Bernadette herself.
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Actually no, she did not know. In fact in the first apparitions Bernadette was afraid the woman might have been diabolical and threw holy water at her. When she spoke with anyone about it she referred to the apparition as “Aquero” which roughly translates out to that thing or that one. She knew only that it was a very small very beautiful woman. She was told by the Priest to question the woman as to who she was and she did so, with no result immediately. Finally the woman announced “that I am the Immaculate Concepcion”, a term that Bernadette herself did not know and in fact had never heard to the best of her memory prior to that date. In fact when she told the Priest about what she had been told she repeated exactly what the image had told her" I am the Immaculate Concepcion" which greatly surprised the Priest and actually horrified him as he thought Bernadette herself was claimg to be the Immaculate Concepcion.:eek:

Now there were others at the grotto and in the town, who were saying thet the Aquero must be the Blessed Virgin, but Bernadette never did until after she learned what the term Immaculate Concepcion referred to,

As far as the water, Bernadette had no idea about the water at first, only that she had been told to dig and drink from the spring. In fact she did not associate cures with the water for some time after it was discovered.
 
Mike30 said:
Actually no, she did not know. In fact in the first apparitions Bernadette was afraid the woman might have been diabolical and threw holy water at her. When she spoke with anyone about it she referred to the apparition as “Aquero” which roughly translates out to that thing or that one. She knew only that it was a very small very beautiful woman. She was told by the Priest to question the woman as to who she was and she did so, with no result immediately. Finally the woman announced “that I am the Immaculate Concepcion”, a term that Bernadette herself did not know and in fact had never heard to the best of her memory prior to that date. In fact when she told the Priest about what she had been told she repeated exactly what the image had told her" I am the Immaculate Concepcion" which greatly surprised the Priest and actually horrified him as he thought Bernadette herself was claimg to be the Immaculate Concepcion.:eek:

Now there were others at the grotto and in the town, who were saying thet the Aquero must be the Blessed Virgin, but Bernadette never did until after she learned what the term Immaculate Concepcion referred to,

As far as the water, Bernadette had no idea about the water at first, only that she had been told to dig and drink from the spring. In fact she did not associate cures with the water for some time after it was discovered.
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Sheesh, I never said she knew immediately she first clapped eyes on the Blessed Virgin. But she figured it out soon enough, we can be sure.
 
If you’ve never seen it, the Movie, The Song of Bernadette is wonderful.
 
The Bernadette’s prayers to Our Lady of Lourdes saved my child’s life.

St Bernadette pray for us.
 
I’m new to St. Bernadette but I’ve grown to love her. I hope to make a pilgrimmage to Lourdes the next time I’m in France. One of my patron saints prayed to Our Lady there to find her vocation and her prayer was answered.

Bernadette was one of Mary’s “little ones” who followed without arrogance or conceit but with simplicity, humility and blind faith.

St. Bernadette, ora pro nobis.
 
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