Almost 20 years ago, I made a pilgrimage to Lourdes, France, with the North American Lourdes Volunteers, a nonprofit based in Syracuse. I was supposed to write about the experience, but I didn’t anticipate how incredibly beautiful the whole thing would be, even for someone like me who believes in the magical, mystical qualities of faith. The volunteers go to Lourdes specifically to help those who are sick or disabled navigate the pilgrim sites. In France, they celebrate St. Bernadette’s feast day on Feb. 18, and our trip took place around then. Lourdes is in southwestern France, in the foothills of the Pyrenees mountains near Spain, so the scenery was extraordinary as well.
I should have known the trip would be special for a number of reasons: I’d never been to Europe, never flown on JetBlue, never watched a movie on an airplane, never gone on a group tour, never saw a building more than a couple of hundred years old, and I’m sure there were a hundred other firsts on that trip. Another reason why it was so amazing is that I managed to bring my two youngest children — 15 and 11 at the time — without paying for any of our expenses. The nonprofit found funding and sponsorships to pay our way. I was a single mom and perpetually broke back then, and time after time, I’d miraculously make ends meet. I brought exactly $100 U.S. with me for a week’s stay — and brought the change back home. Like they say, God is good.
Anyway, I love the simplicity of Bernadette Soubirous’ story. When she experienced the apparition of the Virgin Mary at that grotto near Lourdes, she and her family were living in extreme poverty in quarters that had previously been used as a jail cell. (I saw it, and it was tiny, and she was the eldest of nine children.) Unschooled, she was a sickly child, and only 14 at the time of the apparitions.
Bernadette was out with a couple of friends gathering firewood that day, the story goes, and she first felt and heard a rustling like a breeze, but saw no movement. She looked up and saw what she called “a beautiful lady” wearing a long white dress with a blue belt. Frightened, she grabbed her rosary beads and began to make the sign of the cross. As she recounted the story, to Bernadette’s surprise, her body was frozen in place until she saw Mary’s apparition also make the sign of the cross.
Bernadette said she was drawn back to that location, even though her friends thought she was a little crazy after she told them what happened. In all, Mary appeared to her 18 times between Feb. 11 and July 16, 1858, at the grotto. The apparition spoke, telling her to drink from a spring nearby. Finding no real spring but just a bit of water, Bernadette dug at the spot with her hands, and a spring did eventually appear, hence the miraculous waters millions keep visiting every year. Mary also told her to pray for sinners, and supposedly some other things that she was asked not to share, which she didn’t.
Like a TikTok video, news of Bernadette’s experiences quickly spread through the area, and she was constantly under scrutiny. She left Lourdes and joined the Sisters of Charity in Nevers, France, a few years after the apparitions. She stayed there until her death at age 35. Bernadette’s body can be seen in a crystal coffin at the Convent of St. Gildard in Nevers still today. The body is reported to have been incorrupt when she was exhumed the first time, with no odor at all coming from the casket she was buried in 30 years before. The nuns washed the body, and the exposure to air this time — and two more times after she was exhumed as part of the canonization process — led to some discoloration, so a wax layer was applied to her face and hands.
What appeals to me about Bernadette is her poverty, simplicity, and unwillingness to change her story despite pressure from Catholic Church officials back when it happened. When she grew increasingly more ill at the convent, someone supposedly asked the obvious question: Why don’t you go to Lourdes to be healed by the waters? Her response was, “It is not for me.”
Bernadette lived the rest of her life after the apparitions, constantly retelling her story to those who asked, and by all accounts she did it patiently and humbly. If the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to me, I’d savor it for as long as I could before sharing it with everyone else, because it’s a short step from “Oh, what a miraculous story!” to “What have you been drinking?”
Sometimes it’s hard to believe these days, but I’ll stick with it because I’ve witnessed too many wonderful things to think that I’ve manifested them myself. My son and daughter shared that trip with me, lighting candles late at night and walking to the church there, singing the whole way. We all went into the baths there, frigid as the water was. I’m not sure we experienced any miracles since, but if I take time to think about it, our lives have been filled with wonderful experiences along with the difficult ones — just like Bernadette.
If you have news for Have Faith, email connie@mvtimes.com.