MEMORIAL: FEBRUARY 11
When Bernadette of Soubirous was out with her sister and friend looking for firewood on February 11, 1958, she saw a vision of Lady dressed in white. Bernadette immediately went over to start praying with the woman, however her sister and friend could not see the woman. The vision occurred near a grotto and river in Lourdes, France, and Bernadette was 14 at the time. The next Sunday, when Bernadette returned to the apparition site, the lady was present again. Bernadette was eventually asked to return to the site everyday for the next two weeks.
Soon crowds started to follow her, but only Bernadette could hear and see the woman. The woman asked Bernadette to do penance for sinners like eat weeds and drink from a muddy pool. Consequently, the crowds became suspicious of this strange behavior. Yet, miraculously days later the muddy water turned into a clear pool of water and a woman’s paralysed arm became the first of many healings that would come from this pool. Because of these events, many people were conflicted about the veracity of Bernadette’s claims.
The woman told Bernadette to exhort the priests to build a chapel at the spot of the apparition, but her parish priest would not do so until the woman would identify herself. Initially, the woman remained silent when Bernadette asked the question, but on the feast of the Annunciation she answered, “I am the Immaculate Conception!” A term that had been recently dogmatically defined about Mary the Mother of God being conceived without Original Sin, Bernadette would have had no way of understanding what she said due to her poor, uneducated status. But her parish priest and bishop were stunned. Slowly many people were convinced that the apparitions were real.
In all, Mary appeared to Bernadette 18 times and the local bishop approved the apparitions four years later. Eventually, a basilica was built on site and the pool became a pilgrimage destination for those who wished to be healed. To date, there have been over 70 approved miracles that have occurred at the healing pool and countless other spiritual and physical healings that remain undocumented. As for Bernadette, she lived a life of hardship after the apparitions and eventually entered a religious order where she would die of an illness at the age of 35 and was later canonized a saint.
