Bernadette Soubirous was born on
Monday January 7th 1844, the first child of Francois and Louise. She was baptised in the parish church of Lourdes. When Bernadette
was only a few months old, her mother had an accident and could not nurse her. At this time it was usual to breast feed babies
for at least two years. So Bernadette went to live with her foster mother in Bartres. She had six brothers and two sisters,
five of the brothers died before they were ten.
Her father was a miller. He ran
the Boly Mill, but tended to give the product away to the poor instead of selling it, eventually the family were reduced to
poverty and had to move into the cachot. (cachot was an old prison that had been condemed).
Bernadette nearly died of cholera
when she was ten. When she was thirteen her parents sent her back to Bartres. Shortly after her fourteenth birhday, Bernadette
returned to Lourdes and began to prepare for her First Holy Communion. Bernadette still could not read or write and didn't
even speak French, only patois. (There are also many local dialects that are spoken in one or more valleys of the
Pyrenean. These are referred to locally as "patois").
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It was on February 11th 1858 that
Bernadette and her two sisters were out gathering firewood. Bernadette was left behind as her sisters crossed a small stream.
She heard a sound like a storm and looking across the stream she saw the apparition for the first time in a grotto at the
foot of rock called Massabielle. She saw a lady dressed in white with a blue sash and a yellow rose on each foot. The lady
did not speak, but made the sign of the cross. The vision disapeared suddenly.
The lady did not speak until the
third time she appeared to Bernadette. She asked Bernadette if she would like to meet her there every day for a fortnight,
Bernadette said she would. She told Bernadette to tell the priests to have a chapel built there. Then she told her to drink
at the spring. Not seeing one, she went to drink from the stream. The lady told Bernadette that the spring wasn't there, but
pointed to a pool of muddy water. Bernadette scraped at the muddy ground and eventually fresh water appeared. She drank some
and the vision disappeared.
Bernadette returned every day for
a fortnight and on every occasion but for two, the vision appeared. The lady insisted many times that the priests must build
a chapel there, and that Bernadette must wash in the spring and that she must pray for sinners. During the fortnight the lady
told Bernadette three secrets. Many times Bernadette asked the lady who she was, but she would only smile. Eventually the
lady said "Que soy era Immaculada Conceptiou" - I am The Immaculate Conception. When asked by the priest if she knew what
that meant, Bernadette did not. The phrase had only been applied to Mary four years before and would only be known amongst
the clergy, so it was very improbable that an illiterate poor French girl would have heard it.
The only known photograph of Bernadette
at the grotto in Lourdes—1862, three years after the apparitions.
At 20 years old Bernadette, among
the other Children of Mary at Lourdes, was of small stature due to long history of illness
On July 4, 1866, two years after
choosing in favor of the Sisters of Charity at Nevers, Bernadette left Lourdes forever to begin her vocation as a nun. Photographs
of her family and her departure were hastily taken.
The room in the infirmary at St.
Gildard where Bernadette died.
The Bishop of Tarbes commissioned
a photographer to take Bernadette's portrait on February 4, 1868. The portrait was to be sold at Lourdes for the construction
of the basilica. Bernadette had professed her first temporary vows four months earlier on October 30, 1867.
The chair in which Bernadette died
Bernadette in death, as she appeared
in April 1879.
The upper Basilica at Lourdes,
built directly over the grotto at Massabielle
Bernadette has remained undisturbed
in the Convent of St. Gildard in Nevers, France since August 3, 1925.
Lourdes Today
Since 1858, not only has a chapel
been built, but now five magnificent Basilicas nestle in the beautiful Pyrenees by the side of that river. Each year over
five million Christians visit those Basilicas and the Grotto where our Blessed Mother stood. Each day, the great and world
famous Blessed Sacrament and Torchlight Processions begin at that Grotto and the Sick are blessed in Rosary Square.
