Born on January 7, 1844, in France, Maria Bernadette Soubirous was the first of nine children born to François Soubirous and Louise Castèrot. In her childhood, she worked as a shepherd and domestic servant.
During the first ten years of her life, her family faced severe financial difficulties, later moving to Lourdes, where they lived in destitution, residing in the building of the old municipal prison. Although the conditions seemed unsanitary, the family lived on the upper floor of the building, which was occupied by Bernadette's father's cousin. She struggled with formal education and catechism, which delayed her first communion. She was unable to attend school and remained illiterate until the age of 14.
On February 11, 1858, the Virgin Mary appeared to Bernadette near Lourdes, France, in the Massabielle grotto. Bernadette described the event: "One day, I went with two girls to the banks of the River Gave to gather firewood. I heard a noise, turned around to the meadow, but saw no movement in the trees. I looked up and saw the grotto. Then I saw a lady dressed in white; she wore a white dress with a sky-blue sash around her waist and a gold rose on each foot, the same color as the rosary she held. Only on the third occasion did the Lady speak to me and asked if I would return for fifteen days. For fifteen days, I returned, and the Lady appeared every day, except on one Monday and one Friday. She repeatedly asked me to tell the priests to build a chapel there. She told me to go to the spring to wash and to pray for the conversion of sinners. Many times I asked her who she was, but she only smiled at me kindly. Finally, with arms and eyes raised to heaven, she told me she was the Immaculate Conception."
The priest who heard her account was astonished and moved by the realization that Bernadette was not inventing her story. She had no knowledge of the meaning of her words, let alone the recently promulgated dogma of the "Immaculate Conception" by the Pope.
While the matter was examined by the ecclesiastical hierarchy, which proceeded with cautious skepticism, scientifically inexplicable healings were reported at the Massabielle grotto. On February 25, 1858, in the presence of a crowd, a spring appeared under Bernadette’s hands—water from this spring still flows today, producing about five thousand liters daily.
Between February 11 and July 16, 1858, Bernadette claimed to have had 18 visions of the Virgin Mary at the same location. She defended the authenticity of these apparitions with an unusual firmness for a humble, obedient teenager of low educational and socioeconomic standing. She stood firm against the opinions of her family, clergy, and public authorities, enduring interrogations, pressure, and intimidation from civil authorities. Nevertheless, she never wavered in asserting the authenticity of the apparitions with full conviction.
In 1860, to escape public curiosity and harassment, Bernadette sought refuge as a "destitute boarder" at the Sisters of Charity Hospital in Nevers, Lourdes. There, she received an education and, in 1861, wrote the first personal account of her visions of Our Lady. On January 18, 1862, Monsignor Bertrand Sévère Laurence, Bishop of Tarbes, publicly and officially acknowledged the reality of the apparitions.
In July 1866, Bernadette entered the novitiate at the Saint-Gildard convent, and on October 30, 1867, she made her solemn profession in the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of Nevers. She devoted herself to the care of the sick until her death. A vast crowd attended her funeral on April 19, 1879.
Her beatification took place on June 12, 1925, granted by Pope Pius XI, and she was canonized as Saint Bernadette of Lourdes on December 8, 1933, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, by the same Pope, after the Vatican recognized her personal virtues and the miraculous cures attributed to her after her death.
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