Today marks the day in 1858 when the Blessed Virgin Mary first appeared to 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous in the southern French village of Lourdes. Happy Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes!
Throughout his 29 years of priesthood, Father Bill Ashbaugh, Pastor of Saint Thomas the Apostle in Ann Arbor, has found great solace, inspiration and strength from the example and intercession of Saint Bernadette and Our Lady of Lourdes, to whom he has a great devotion.
Today he explains why we too should be inspired by the remarkable story of little Bernadette to whom Our Lady revealed: “Que soy era Immaculada Conceptiou” or, in English, “I am the Immaculate Conception”. Father Ashbaugh writes:
On this feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, we especially remember and pray for the sick.
We have all struggled with illness one time or another. This current pandemic, if nothing else, has forced us to face our own mortality. I have been with those who died from COVID and have felt the struggle we have with faith, hope, and love of God at those times. Will the Lord heal me? Does He love me? Why is this happening? What will happen if I don’t make it? I am afraid! Does this illness have a purpose?
These are some honest questions and sentiments that any of us can struggle with during a serious illness.
Today, God has blessed us with a good reminder of His promises, faithfulness, and love in time of illness and suffering, as we honor the memory of Our Lady of Lourdes.
In 1858, in a small village in southern France named Lourdes, a poor little asthmatic girl of the age of 14 was out with her sister and sister’s friend to gather wood and bones for the fireplace in a place known as Massabielle. It was a triangular strip of land surrounded on one side by the Gave River and a stream on the other with a large outcropping of rock known as the Grotto. The young girl’s name was Bernadette. She was the eldest daughter of Louise and François Soubirous, who had come upon very hard times. The family of six (Bernadette had a younger sister and two younger brothers at the time) lived in a place known as “le cachot” or “the dungeon”. It was a dark, single room “house” that was no longer fit for even prisoners to live in. The family was forced by their poverty to accept this dark place. To make matters worse, Bernadette was sickly, yet she never complained. She worked hard and did whatever was asked of her to support the family, but because of that, did not attend school regularly to learn to read or write, nor did she have time to learn her catechism so she could receive Holy Communion. This caused her great suffering for she was a devout in her faith.
And while from the world’s point of view, this girl was insignificant, poor, uneducated, a humble peasant, she was chosen by God and our Blessed Mother to be instrument of grace and healing for a broken world.
Around noon on February 11, 1858, Bernadette finally made it to the Grotto far behind her sister and friend. She was attempting to cross the stream when she heard the sound of a strong wind, perhaps like the Apostle’s heard on Pentecost. She noticed that only the foliage around the Grotto was moving, and it was there she fixed her attention. There was a flash of light and then in the opening of the large rock in the Grotto, Bernadette saw the most beautiful young woman she had ever seen.
“I saw immediately afterwards a girl in white, no bigger than myself, who greeted me with a slight bow of the head; at the same time, she stretched out her arms slightly away from her body, opening her hands, as in pictures of Our Lady; over her right arm hung a rosary. I was afraid. I stepped back. I wanted to call the two little girls; I hadn’t the courage to do so. I rubbed my eyes again and again: I thought I must be mistaken. Raising my eyes again, I saw the girl smiling at me most graciously and seeming to invite me to come nearer. But I was still afraid. It was not however a fear such as I have had at other times, for I would have stayed there for ever looking at her: whereas, when you are afraid, you run away quickly. Then I thought of saying my prayers. I put my hand in my pocket. I took out the rosary I usually carry on me. I knelt down and I tried to make the sign of the Cross, but I could not lift my hand to my forehead: it fell back. The girl meanwhile stepped to one side and turned towards me. This time, she was holding the large beads in her hand. She crossed herself as though to pray. My hand was trembling. I tried again o make the sign of the Cross, and this time I could. After that I was not afraid. I said my Rosary. The young girl slipped the beads of hers through her fingers, but she was not moving her lips. While I was saying the Rosary, I was watching as hard as I could. She was wearing a white dress reaching down to her feet, of which only the toes appeared. The dress was gathered very high at the neck by a hem from which hung a white cord. A white veil covered her head and came down over her shoulders and arms almost to the bottom of her dress. On each foot I saw a yellow rose. The sash of the dress was blue, and hung down below her knees. The chain of the rosary was yellow; the beads white, big and widely spaced. The girl was alive, very young and surrounded with light. When I had finished my Rosary, she bowed to me smilingly. She retired within the niche and disappeared all of a sudden.” 1.
This was to be the first of 18 apparitions that Bernadette experienced over the course of the next few months. As one can imagine, this small quiet village suddenly burst forth in all sorts of controversy. Some people believed her. Other thought she was crazy, or others thought she was being manipulated for some advantage. However, those who interviewed her saw a very innocent, honest, peaceful, and intelligent girl who answered ever question with consistency.
The parish priest gave Bernadette a very hard time, but engaged her. Bernadette has shared that the beautiful Lady had asked her to come to the Grotto each day for 14 days and that there ought to be processions of prayer to the Grotto, and that a chapel ought to be built. The priest demanded to know who this lady was! Ask her for her name! Why would he fulfill such a request without knowing who was making it?
Bernadette in complete trust and humility did as the priest asked, but the beautiful lady only smiled and bowed, and gave no answer. This same response was repeated throughout the apparitions, save one!
The eight and ninth apparitions were of particular significance for our understanding why Our Lady came. On Feb 24, Bernadette with tears stood up and cried out “penance, penance, penance.” Those were the Lady’s first words to the growing crowd that had formed since the first apparition. It was also the first time Bernadette had seen the Lady sad, and she herself in tears shared in that sorrow. During the next apparition, Bernadette performed various acts of penance, moving on her knees and kissing the ground. At one point she began to dig in the mud and attempt to drink the muddy water, then she ate a bitter wild weed growing nearby. People thought she was mad, and the cry went out that Bernadette was crazy. But Bernadette was only doing what the beautiful Lady had asked her to do. She explained that the Lady had pointed to a place in the ground and asked her to wash in the water and drink. Bernadette at first thought she meant the Gave River, but the Lady quickly corrected her and pointed to the place. It was because of this that Bernadette dug in the muddy ground and eventually some water came up for her to wash and drink. Eating the bitter weed was also an instruction given by the Lady in order to offer penance for sinners. Amazingly, a clear spring of water was soon to flow from the place Bernadette had dug.
When we think of these events, we see so many things our Lady wanted to teach us. Bernadette kneeling and kissing the ground - “Remember O man that thou are dust, and unto dust that shall return.” We are of the earth— human, but we are not made for the earth. Unfortunately, when we sin, we are like animals wallowing in the mud.
God comes to help us though with living streams of grace. The Grace flows from the wounded and broken Body of Jesus crucified. We are washed at baptism by the water flowing from His side. Our old self dies. We rise with Jesus healed of sin. Jesus suffered on the Cross for each of us, and in the penance that Bernadette willingly embraced, she too became one with Christ crucified and a source of help and grace for God’s people.
Eating bitter “herbs” has overtones of the Passover, where through sorrow, God delivered His people from slavery. We too are delivered as we accept the bitter penances of life in union with Jesus. Sin is the greatest illness that can afflict the human person. Jesus is our cure.
The beautiful Lady was teaching everyone much about that.
Another lesson was what happened to Bernadette herself. Even though the Lady asked her to come for 14 consecutive days, the Lady did not always appear. Bernadette had to endure not seeing this beautiful lady whom she said, “if you were to see her once, you would die to see her again!” It caused some people to doubt the apparitions, but for others, it was an indication of their authenticity. Bernadette did not receive an answer from the beautiful lady about her name after the 14 days were completed. This made her very sad and in tears she thought “what have I done to her? Perhaps she is vexed with me?”
We can all feel like we failed God, failed in our commitments, our duty. This can especially occur during illness. When can feel as though we are abandoned by God. Maybe the Lord is punishing me? Perhaps so. Sometimes our illnesses are a direct result of bad choices, but many times they are not. Through it all, the Lord is working at a deeper level to develop greater trust, greater patience, greater faith.
It was so in Bernadette.
She patiently endured 3 weeks of absence of the beautiful Lady, not knowing who she really was, not certain that she would ever see her again. Bernadette always corrected people when they said the beautiful lady was our Blessed Mother, for she reminded them that the beautiful lady did not tell them who she was.
On the feast of the Annunciation, March 25th, all that was to change. Bernadette felt drawn like she had in the past to go to the grotto, and the beautiful Lady was there. Bernadette asked her name 3 times, and it was only after the 3rd request, that the beautiful Lady revealed her name. This is how it was described: “the Apparition, who, until then, had kept her hands joined, opened her arms and lowered them as on the Miraculous Medal, thus causing her rosary of alabaster and gold to slip down towards her wrist: it was her blessing on the redeemed earth. Then she joined her hands again and brought them close to her breast, as if to restrain the throbbing of her heart. Finally, raising her eyes to Heaven, in the attitude of the ancient Magnificat, she delivered her secret: ‘I AM THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION.’ Then the Apparition ‘smiled again, spoke no more, and disappeared smiling’. 2.
Just four years before, Pope Pius IX declared ex cathedra the dogma of the Immaculate Conception! Bernadette had no idea what the name meant and kept repeating it again and again so she would not forget. She shared it with the parish priest who then had no doubts about who the Lady was! Indeed, it was our Blessed Mother who had come.
Streams of grace did flow from that Grotto in Lourdes that now had become a font of healing for the world. Thousands and thousands came in prayer and faith and hope for a cure of their ailments.
One of the first cures was a man who was blind in one eye from an accident and washed in the waters! “I was blind, but now I see!” His healing gave faith to many others!
Another early case was of a poor day laborer from the Lourdes countryside. He “came accompanied by his wife and carrying in his arms a small boy of five or six, stricken with infantile paralysis of the spine. ‘The sight of this unfortunate child,’ continues the doctor, ‘inspired a keen interest in me....”Since you have come,” I remarked to the man, “to obtain from the Blessed Virgin a cure which you have asked for in vain from human science, take your child, undress him and place him under the taps of the spring.” I took the child by the legs while the father held him by the shoulders, and the two of us turned his body over and over in the running water for five to six minutes....The little invalid, after he had been well dried and his clothes put on, was laid on the ground. But he immediately got up by himself and made his way, walking with the greatest ease, towards his father and mother, who smothered him with vigorous hugs, shedding tears of joy.’ 3.
Bernadette was later to become a nun. She had endured illness and suffering all her life and was asked whether or not she drank from the spring of Lourdes herself for healing? She said she did, but the waters were not for her. She explained that our Lady did not promise her happiness in this life, but the next. When she was a nun, one of the sister complained that Bernadette was always sick, and that she was just lazy bones who did no work. Bernadette responded “Why I am doing my job! My job is to be ill.”
We see both wonderful mysteries at work in Lourdes. The mystery of suffering and God’s desire to heal us! The mystery of the Cross and the Mystery of the Resurrection! They are always held in tension within our Lord Himself. To enter the glory and power of His resurrection, we all must past through the Cross.
God does not physically heal us always in our time. He allows suffering to bring about an even greater good. Bernadette shared deeply in this mystery and accepted it in faith for the conversion of souls. The only words Bernadette cried out at Lourdes were “penance, penance, penance,” and she lived them.
She died after a long and very painful battle with tuberculosis of the bone. Today, her body lies incorrupt. I have seen it with my own eyes, and I cannot describe the experience. She is like sleeping beauty, reminding us the ultimate healing God promises to work in all who believe! “Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed, in an instant, in the blink of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. (1 Cor 15:51-52)”
Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us!
St Bernadette, pray for us!
Footnotes:
1. Trochu, Abbé François, St. Bernadette Soubirous: 1844-1879, Hauraki Publishing.
2. Op. cit.
3. Op. cit.