What makes Bernadette a Saint?
Bernadette was an illiterate peasant girl who spoke only the local dialect of the region, Occitanie. She was just fourteen years old when, on eighteen separate occasions between February and July 1858, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to her in a niche above a grotto-cave in the small town of Lourdes, south-western France.
Even before the apparitions ceased, Bernadette had become one of the most famous figures in France; endlessly quizzed and relentlessly interrogated. For an illiterate teenager it was a highly distressing experience for her and her family. Bernadette was regularly dismissed as insane or hailed as a mystic. She was nonetheless resolute in her faith and steadfast with determination in carrying out the requests of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
After the Apparitions
It's Time to Glow
She was subsequently taken in by the Sisters of Charity of Nevers and she moved from Lourdes to Nevers in central France where she learnt to read, write, speak French and later become an accomplished seamstress.
Bernadette Soubirous has the singular distinction of being the first ever Saint to be photographed.
Bernadette died on 16th April 1879 at the age of 35 after a lifetime of illness and medical issues. She was buried in the grounds of the Convent of the Sisters of Charity in Nevers.
Bernadette was canonised on December 8th 1933 by Pope Pius XI.
As part of the canonisation process, her body was exhumed on three separate occasions; in 1909, 1919, and finally in 1925. By the final exhumation, the church – advised by a series of doctors – pronounced her body “incorrupt” and she was therefore placed in a Christal casket.
A few ribs were removed and sent to Rome as relics, after which Saint Bernadette’s body was placed on display at the Chapel of Saint Gildard at the Sisters of Charity in Nevers. Millions have visited Nevers to see her incorrupt body and pray in the chapel next to her.
Bernadette is the Patron Saint of: Lourdes, France; of shepherds and shepherdesses; of people ridiculed for their faith; invoked against bodily illness and poverty.
St Bernadette, pray for us!
Patron Saint of Lourdes, France
Patron Saint of Shepherds and Shepherdess
Patron Saint of persecuted Christians
