Lourdes - A Lenten Miracle 151 Years and Counting

There was absolutely nothing special about the little peasant girl from the south of France, and she was according to some - even stupid, close to illiterate, and even a tad annoying in her "slowness". But while Bernadette Subirous was nothing to write about before February 11, 1858 Lent, her unbelievable afternoon guest brought her immediate fame and immediate respect for a piety the world could not begin to offer in response.

At first, Bernadette while on an errand for her mother at a local grotto, saw a woman of about 15 or 16 years old hovering above her with a yellow rose on either foot and with a Rosary at her waist. Bernadette fell immediately to the ground and began to pray the Rosary herself. The beautiful visitor disappeared when Bernadette finished her prayers. Over the next several months, the young woman appeared and reappeared to her, referring to herself as "The Immaculate Conception" and insisting that a chapel be built at the spot where she was. She demanded penance for the sins of the world, and insisted that Christ's love was sufficient for all those in need.

When St. Bernadette, a young woman herself who suffered greatly from, both, asthma and cholera, began to tell her world about the visit she was receiving from the Blessed Virgin Mary, she was almost immediately tossed into prison and called insane. She was accused of being a liar and an attention-seeker. Even after the Vatican confirmed "the happenings at the grotto at Lourdes", even as the dry ground suddenly spilled forth water that flows even to this day, there were those in her own Church who did not accept the validity of Lourdes or of St. Bernadette. She suffered their attacks greatly.

The message of Lourdes is one of healing. To this day, when people of all religions, creeds, races, and nations enter the grotto with their wheelchairs and crutches, many of them experience healing. More than one non-believer has come to see miracles in their own life simply by bathing in the blessed waters. The walls of the grotto are lined with apparatuses once needed by the hundreds of people who were healed of their crippling diseases by the Lady who appeared to Bernadette 151 years ago at Lourdes saying, "I do not promise you happiness in this world, but in the next." And so even when the sick visit Mary at Lourdes, she does not always heal their bodies but, instead, their soul - whatever will draw them closer to her Son.

Still, the evidence of healings coming out of Lourdes has been clearly defined for more than a century. In fact, 67 healings have been documented at Lourdes since the last apparition appeared there in 1858. Each are medically proven.

St. Bernadette, died a Saint clinging to her crucifix crying out, "My Jesus!" when she finally fell into eternal rest. She spent her entire adolescent and adult life serving sick and dying sisters at her small convent in France. Once she left Lourdes to serve in the convent -- that at first did not want her ignorant peasant ways in their presence - she never returned home again. She prayed for many there and many saw healings in their lives at her request to God for their renewed health. She herself faced death multiple times, but each time she received the Last Rites, returned to health enough to serve her sisters once again until the last time she received them shortly before her death.

She is a beloved Saint in the Catholic Church, especially in France and one that every Christian can follow as an example of God's promise to "chose the foolish things of the world to confound the wise' I Corinthians 1:27.

St. Bernadette was neither educated nor refined, but she drew the Blessed Mother of God to her heart at a barren grotto in rural France. Her story is one of the greatest ones every told in Catholic history. Now she intercedes, along with the Blessed Mother, for the salvation of the world from her place in heaven. Her intercession holds a special place in Catholic Lenten practice. Her feast day falls in February, but she and Our Lady of Lourdes are both celebrated throughout the Lenten season.