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St. Bernedette
00:19:46
Join Mary McGeehan and Dr. Arielle Harms for a discussion of St. Bernedette.
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- [00:02]
A
You're listening to a podcast on Catholic Saints. This podcast is produced by the Augustine Institute, an apostolate helping Catholics understand, live, and share their faith. Hello. Welcome to Catholic Saints. My name is Mary, and I'm joined with Dr. Ariel Harms. Dr. Ariel, thank you for joining us.
- [00:28]
B
Thank you for having me.
- [00:30]
A
Excited to dive into the life of St Bernadette, a beloved saint by so many. And an incredible pilgrimage site is associated with the Marian apparitions that she received. So excited to learn more about her, just as we look to the lives of saints for inspiration in our own life as well. So let's begin with her early childhood and family life. Can you cast a sketch of where she came from, what her. Her childhood was like, that we know.
- [01:01]
B
Yeah. So she was born January 7th in 1844. She was the oldest of nine children born to her parents, Francis and Louise, near what we now know as Lourdes. Francis was a miller, but he wasn't very good either with managing his family's money or with his trade work as a miller, unfortunately. And the family was extremely poor. By the time Bernadette was a teenager, they were actually living in a basement that had formerly been used as a jail.
- [01:36]
A
That's crazy.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Wow. Okay. So great destitution, great poverty, and a big family.
- [01:45]
B
Yeah, yeah. Not all the children lived past infancy, but it wasn't a small number of people living in this basement that was actually called the dungeon.
- [01:55]
A
Okay, and did you say she never formally received an education? She didn't go to school?
- [02:00]
B
Yeah. She was extremely sickly as a child and even into her adult life. I think I read somewhere that she never grew past, like, 4ft, 7 inches, which people were shorter back then, but that was still really short. And that was because of her illnesses. She had asthma. She'd suffered from a couple other different illnesses with complications. And so education really wasn't practical for her because she just wasn't healthy enough to go to school.
- [02:30]
A
Yeah. As a quick aside, why do you think suffering and illness is such a common thread in the life of so many of these saints?
- [02:38]
B
I mean, we can't be saints without suffering. Right. That's what it means to love in our fallen world. Right. And if we suffer, we can take the sufferings that we have and offer them to God. I mean, that's what we have through the. Through the cross. Right. Is to be able to say, I can unite this with Christ's sacrifice on the cross and the merit of my suffering then takes on the merit of his suffering. Right.
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A
And it's redemptive pathway to sanctity.
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B
Right.
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A
Well, what is Saint Bernadette most known for?
- [03:12]
B
So she's most known for a series of visions that she had when she was 14, starting on February 11, 1858. So she was out with her sister and a friend, gathering firewood near the grotto of Massabiel, when she experienced her first vision. There's a little stream there, and she was looking for a place to cross where she didn't get her feet wet, because I'm sure it was wet and cold. And she's sickly, so she doesn't want to get any sicker from this. And she finally sits down to take off her socks and shoes, and she hears the sound of wind, but sees nothing moving, and then notices a wild rose in the grotto moving slightly. Then from the alcove behind it, she saw a dazzling light and a white figure. And that was the first of 18 visions of a small young lady that she saw. And her sister and her friend didn't see anything at that point.
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A
It was just her.
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B
It was just her.
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A
And were the subsequent visions operations with just Bernadette?
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B
Yes. Bernadette was the only person who ever saw anything with these visions.
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A
Okay.
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B
And they all occurred kind of in a short span of time. Her first one was February 11th. The last one was July 16th. So all within six months?
- [04:48]
A
Yes. I read that in one of the first apparitions, the Blessed Mother had said to St Bernadette, would you be so kind as to come here for 15 days? And I just love the gentleness in which Mary, Mother of God, you know, is requesting little Bernadette to come be with her. So I'd love to know more about, you know, the message or the content of those apparitions. But just to start, I loved how much Mary catered, the way she spoke to Bernadette in a way that Bernadette would feel comfortable and received and was just so gentle.
- [05:27]
B
Right, right. Mary was very gentle. Mary didn't even tell Bernadette her name. And Bernadette didn't assume either, especially when she was presenting what she saw to the priest at her parish or to the other church authorities. When she was talking about what she saw, she would describe the woman, but she would never assume this is Mary.
- [05:49]
A
That's a very important point to emphasize.
- [05:52]
B
Yeah, that was shocking to them because she was uneducated, so they figured she would. It was some kind of pious hallucination or something like that. And they were trying to trip her.
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A
Up because she was sickly, easy to Attribute her illness. What else did Mary reveal then to St. Bernadette? And how did she find out that this was actually the Mother of God?
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B
Yeah. So Mary's main message to Bernadette was just about prayer and penance. Right. She wanted her to pray. She wanted her to do penance. Not just her, of course, but everyone. Right. That's a good message for all of us.
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A
Always, always true.
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B
Right. And so she also wanted a chapel to be built at that time in that place. And she. We associate Lourdes now with a healing spring. Right. And so in one of the visions, Bernadette was told to drink the water of the spring, to wash in it, and eat the herb that grew there as an act of penance. And the people watched her. There was just this little bubbling, dirty water there. And they watched her wash in this mud, drink this mud, and then eat the weeds next to it. And people thought she was crazy.
- [07:17]
A
Yes. That would be a very natural reaction to see someone shoving their face in dirt.
- [07:22]
B
Right. And especially because they couldn't see her. Right. And they thought Bernadette was crazy even before that. You know, when she came and said, oh, I've been having, like, I saw this thing. I don't know that she ever said, I've had this vision. I think she just said, I saw this lady or something like that. Right? Yeah. But the next day, everyone who'd been laughing at her had to kind of change the way they looked at things. Cause by the next day, the water was clear and there was a real spring.
- [07:50]
A
Oh, that's really neat. Okay, so look who's laughing now.
- [07:55]
B
Right, Right. And it wasn't until toward the end of her visions that Bernadette asked who this lady was. She'd asked her for her name. And the lady just smiled. She asked again. The lady just smiled. She repeated the question three times and finally heard the lady say, I am the Immaculate Conception. And, you know, we all know now with hindsight, who that is. Right. That that is Mary. We all have on our miraculous medal the Immaculate Conception. But at that point in 1858, the Immaculate Conception had just been proclaimed a dogma by pius IX in 1854. So it was relatively recently someone poor and uneducated like Bernadette would not have heard of it. But to the church officials who she reported this to, they took that kind of as a sign there's something going on here.
- [08:55]
A
Right.
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B
Because she couldn't have come up with that language on her own.
- [08:58]
A
Okay, that. No, that makes a lot of sense. Do you think that might Be one of the many reasons why Mary decided to appear to Bernadette was she knew she'd be receptive of this message and that further, the lack of her education would actually further corroborate this to be a authentic vision, an operation from. From God, from the Blessed Virgin.
- [09:27]
B
I wouldn't want to speculate exactly as to why Mary would want to appear. Right. But I do think that Bernadette's humility and simplicity were certainly attractive. Right.
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A
Yes, that makes sense. What happened after the apparitions?
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B
So after the apparitions, they were approved in 1862.
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A
Pretty quick as well.
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B
Right? That is pretty fast. Four years later, the church doesn't move very quickly. We know this, that four years in church time isn't that long at all. Right. And we know now that, you know, there is a large pilgrimage site built at Lourdes. Right. Where people come from all over the place to see the apparition site and to be immersed in the water from the spring that St. Bernadette had. Right. But Bernadette herself, in 1866, entered the Sisters of Charity of Nevers, where she had eventually gone to school. So after she had the vision, she did go to school and get some education. She was able to read and write later in life. And as a sister, she spent most of her time working in the informal infirmary with the sick sisters.
- [10:49]
A
Okay.
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B
But she contracted tuberculosis and ended up dying at the age of 35, April 16, 1879.
- [11:00]
A
Okay. Also a short life. We. We were talking earlier, though, how sadly, neither of us have been to Lourdes, but it's on our bucket list of sites to visit. And just how you were mentioning so many people from across the world go as a pilgrimage site to see this grotto, to see this place of Mary's visitation on Earth. And so many cases of healings have happened. Can you share a little bit of what's happening at Lourdes, or why do you think it's such a popular pilgrimage site to the people of today?
- [11:39]
B
Yeah. So, I mean, I think the primary reason people go to Lourdes is the virtue of hope. Right. We hope for something better for ourselves or our loved ones, that we're looking for healing. Right. Especially in bodily illnesses.
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A
Yes.
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B
I think we pulled up the numbers where 7,000 reported miracles at Lourdes and 70 of them have been confirmed by the church.
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A
Yeah.
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B
It's incredible that. That is an incredible number. But the question comes up, like, why doesn't everyone get healed? Right. And I think that's important to think about in terms of our faith and to also look at the way Jesus healed, too. Right. When the paralyzed man was lowered down through the roof in front of Jesus, the first thing he said to him was not, pick up your mat and walk. Right. It wasn't a physical healing. It was, your sins are forgiven. Right. And I have to imagine that for the 70 confirmed miracles at Lourdes that deal with physical healing, how many people have had some kind of spiritual healing? Right. Some kind of conversion experience by going there, which we know that a healing of the soul is much greater and much more important than a physical healing. Right.
- [13:08]
A
No, that's a great point. And how you mentioned St. Bernadette died of tuberculosis, so she herself wasn't healed from her own bodily diseases is part of the mystery of suffering and the hope that miracles are possible and just the mystery around. Around it.
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B
All right.
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A
Well, hopefully we'll both be able to go there someday and visit the grotto will be incredible. I think another message. Another message that Mary shared to Bernadette was she said, I do not promise you happiness in this world, but the next. Which goes back to our initial conversation just on suffering as well. Are there other applications we can look at when we're looking at the life of St Bernadette for just encouragement in our own journey here on earth?
- [13:57]
B
Yes. I think her humility is an excellent example to us. Right. We can, you know, desire to do great things for the Lord. And Bernadette certainly did, right. To be the one who receives the message from Our Lady. And, you know, it's because she was receptive that she was able to be the instrument that God used for this pilgrimage site in this healing spring and everything. But for the handful of people that it's healed, given the number of people that have visited, physically, she's the instrument for also a spiritual healing for so many more people. Right. And she said when the sisters in her community asked her about her visions, she. She said to them, the Virgin used me as a broom to remove the dust. When the work is done, the broom is put behind the door again.
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A
Wow.
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B
So she never saw her like her visions as a reason later in life to be held up on a pedestal or anything like that. She recognized that her main work that God had called her to do used her as an instrument in that way. The visible part of her.
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A
Yes.
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B
Journey was. Was done at that point. Right. And so, humbly, she retreated to doing some of. Caring for sick people is one of the most menial tasks. Right. And yet that's what she did as a sister in her community. Right. So she shows humility there for us to imitate. Right. We may see in our daily lives, like, I don't really feel like I'm doing anything great for God. Like, maybe I've done something in the past, maybe I haven't. Right. But God's using us as an instrument. No matter where we're at or what great thing it looks like we're doing.
- [15:58]
A
Yes.
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B
Or not doing.
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A
Yes. That's a really beautiful point because I'm sure St Bernadette had no clue the thousands of people who would be coming to this site years and years after her death. And. Yes. Just that call to God's wisdom. God's vision is so beyond our own and just being obedient to what he's asking of us, whether it looks great or small. Yeah. His vision is beyond ours. Yeah. It's a really beautiful point. And I was going to ask, have you seen the movie the Song of Bernadette or.
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B
I don't think I have.
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A
Okay. I love it. Beautiful movie. Makes me cry. It's beautiful. So I definitely recommend it. And then there's an incredible book by Franz Werfel about her life that's really beautiful, too. But you mentioned. Can you tell them about the film you like?
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B
Yes. So I was introduced to Bernadette as a child in grade school. Okay. And it was through a movie that's actually on the Formed platform now. It's called Bernadette, Princess of Lourdes. It's a kids cartoon, about 30 minutes, but it tells her story beautifully. And I just remember being attracted to her life and her story and everything through that short little cartoon movie as a child. It stuck with me even to this day. Right. That's still where, like, if I think of St Bernadette, I think of that movie first.
- [17:35]
A
Yeah. Oh, that's sweet. I'll have to check it out and check it out on Formed as well. One other point before we wrap up, when you were talking about her humility, how the grace and the privilege of receiving these messages from the Blessed Mother ended up being a source of almost a cross for her as she was older, because she just became, I believe, the spectacle of attention, and she wanted more of the hidden life. And so I just think that is fascinating too, that the persecution and judgment that Bernadette received from her peers who misunderstood her, or even after it was confirmed that these were from the Blessed Mother, just the spectacle that she became in her. In her later life was also a huge cross. Is there anything else about St Bernadette that we missed?
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B
Yeah. It's interesting. She was canonized, fittingly on December 8th, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.
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A
I didn't know that. That's very sweet.
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B
In 1933. So not too long in church time after she died. Right.
- [18:43]
A
And another good point. Her body is incorrupt. She is one of the incredible saints. Her body was exhumed three times. And so we have an incorruptible saint as well. I was going to add, when I was a missionary years ago, I was in a college called St. Bernadette. And one gesture we would do, an invitation for her, of St Bernadette, to particularly ask for her intercession was when we would wake up in the morning, we would just kiss the ground near our bed and ask for St Bernadette's intercession. So that was. That's been a habit whenever I'm really looking for her intercession that I like to do just to recall what you're talking about when she was being disobedient to Mary's request and digging in the dirt and shoving the water for what she didn't know was going to happen later with that. With that land. Well, thank you so much for this beautiful reflection on the life of St Bernadette. So I appreciate this information and the beautiful life to reflect upon and thank you all for listening. St Bernadette, pray for us.