Biography of Bernadette of Lourdes

Demonstrations of faith

7 January 1844 16 April 1879 Marie-Bernarde Soubirous (known in the dialect as Bernadette), the eldest of six children, was born in Lourdes on 7 January 1844, by François Soubirous, and Louise Castérot. He fell into disrepair, misguided, Miller lost the mill, so that the family is forced to move on the ground floor of a disused prison, unhealthy place for health of Bernadette, who suffers from asthma crisis, is undernourished and prone to tuberculosis; in 1854 miraculously escapes death from cholera. In the cachot (meaning ' the Slammer ') the Soubirous live since June 1856 to the autumn of 1858. The 11 February 1858, at the age of 14 years, this uneducated teenager, even indigent, which was deemed worthy of being able to make her first communion, since attending catechism with poor results, asserts that a smiling young girl appears in all its splendour. That day, Bernadette went to the grotto of Massabielle with her sister and a friend to cut wood. Remains behind because it hard to cross as her companions the watercourse of the river Gave, located opposite the cave. While taking off the socks, feels like a gust of wind that attracts his attention: it seems strange, because the air is calm all around. In this way takes place the first of 18 appearances. Bernadette does not state in any way of having spoken with the Virgin Mary. Just spreading the news, Lourdes is divided into two sides, between detractors and enthusiastic immediately. Bernadette is revealed to have been contracted by that creature in heaven to pray for sinners: the Lady asks for prayer, conversion, penance. And the priests to come to the Grotto in procession and to build a chapel. Although among the doubters there is also the curate of Lourdes, the abbé Peyramale, himself cannot fail to notice that visits the grotto of Bernadette have intensified the religious fervour and brought some to faith. However, proves to be cautious of the phenomenon, and sometimes even shocked faces some utterances of the girl, as when the cave digs into the ground, drinking with disgust turbid water spilling from the ground, it will soil his face with mud and unheard-of-eats grass like animals and kisses the ground. So the priest shall order the alleged psychic to ask the mysterious appearance on his behalf. And the answer arrives on time to a date not random: on March 25, the feast of the Annunciation. The woman responds the dialect: "Que soy era Immaculada Councepciou." I am the Immaculate Conception. The 8 December 1854, Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of Mary conceived without original sin. Bernadette could not have known theological concepts so deep and difficult, for the same experts. The curate, therefore, now has doubts about the sincerity of Bernadette. With the water of the source found by the girl, many sufferers were charmed. And even a meaningless gesture like eating the grass, to a deeper reading, is interpreted by René Laurentin (maximum global expert of Marian Apparitions) as a prophetic gesture, like that of John the Baptist that feeds on wild roots or the bitter herbs eaten by the Jewish people before the exodus from Egypt: a symbolic gesture that is part of the biblical tradition as an act of mortification of the body through fasting. Some sort of physical act purificartorio, a prerequisite to conversion of heart and lifestyle. Why Bernadette kisses ground: second Laurentin, as a sign of humility and to remind the fragility of the human condition, in memory of Adam shaped by Earth but guilty of arrogance for not obeying God. After the apparitions, happy to see recognized the authenticity, at the age of 22 years, Bernadette enters the novitiate of the Sisters of charity of Nevers, between Lyon and Paris, misunderstood but sisters and tried in a physical health that shows no signs of improving. Our Lady had prophesied: "I'm not promising to make you happy in this world, but in the other". Bernadette died on 16 April 1879, at 35 years old, of bone tuberculosis on his right knee. Today is the patron of the sick, because his life was marked by illness. We must digress on the mystery involving his corpse. To date the body of Bernadette Soubirous rests in the Church of the convent of St. Gildard, Nevers, inexplicably incorrupt in its internal organs, in a glass sarcophagus: for those who believe this miracle is a gift that God gives to his witnesses more humble and more real. Bernadette is beatified in 1925 and canonized in 1933 by Pope Pius XI, for his conduct of life and heroic virtues, rather than receiving the privilege of seeing the Virgin Mary. In a secularized as France after the age of enlightenment, resists the bulwark of Lourdes, the main shrine of Marian pilgrimages around the world.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.