Saint Bernadette of Lourdes
Book Details
Author(s)Lord Bob, Penny Lord
PublisherJourneys of Faith
ISBN / ASINB003OIBNC4
ISBN-13978B003OIBNC9
Sales Rank397,376
MarketplaceUnited States 🇺🇸
Description
There are Saints among us whose greatest virtues have been their lifelong battles against their human nature. Those of us who are privileged to study their lives, have a tendency to ignore what we believe to be their shortcomings, in an effort to go directly to their source of sanctification. When we do this, we miss the teaching the Lord has to give us by the example of His suffering servant. We go for the dream, and miss the journey. The sanctification is in the journey.
Saint Bernadette of Lourdes used to complain about the accounts she read on the Lives of the Saints, in that they all seemed too sugar coated. She said of the Saints, “They were human beings with faults and weaknesses, like all of us.” Mother Angelica once said, referring to the authors of lives of the Saints, “They should all be given forty years each in purgatory, for making these Saints seem so perfect.” Bernadette probably felt the same way.
To the little Saint Bernadette of Lourdes, the many gifts she was given during her lifetime: one, that of beholding the presence of Mary, the Mother of God, eighteen times in the year 1858; another, her ecstasies during those Apparitions, were just that, gifts. She believed that these were aids from the good God to help her get through a sacrificial life amidst a barrage of attacks, and to suppress her own fiery inclination to fight those attacks. She prayed the gifts would offset her imperfections, which included a strong will, a fierce temper, and a stinging tongue. What she may never have reallized is how Our Lord Jesus and His Mother Mary were able to use these traits for their glory.
We once wrote that Bernadette was a simple girl, an illiterate at the time that Our Lady appeared to her, but never did we consider her a stupid girl. Her behavior throughout the period of the Apparitions, her inner strength to hold up against great powers in the government and the Church, are a strong indicator of this. Her life after the Apparitions, and in the Convent of Saint Gildard in Nevers, is proof of her strength.
We never knew much about Bernadette. As a young man, I became enraptured by the Apparitions of Our Lady to Bernadette, after reading The Song of Bernadette. I fell in love with Mary, but never thought much about Bernadette. Even the first time Penny and I visited Lourdes, we didn’t see or hear much of the little visionary. This is as Bernadette wanted it. With the exception of the Cachot, where she lived during the time of the Apparitions, the Boly Mill, where she was born, and the Maison Paternelle, where the family lived after the Apparitions, Bernadette is not considered a major part of the Shrine. But Bernadette is very important, both as the intermediary for Mary during that period of time in 1858, and as a role mode for today.
Saint Bernadette of Lourdes used to complain about the accounts she read on the Lives of the Saints, in that they all seemed too sugar coated. She said of the Saints, “They were human beings with faults and weaknesses, like all of us.” Mother Angelica once said, referring to the authors of lives of the Saints, “They should all be given forty years each in purgatory, for making these Saints seem so perfect.” Bernadette probably felt the same way.
To the little Saint Bernadette of Lourdes, the many gifts she was given during her lifetime: one, that of beholding the presence of Mary, the Mother of God, eighteen times in the year 1858; another, her ecstasies during those Apparitions, were just that, gifts. She believed that these were aids from the good God to help her get through a sacrificial life amidst a barrage of attacks, and to suppress her own fiery inclination to fight those attacks. She prayed the gifts would offset her imperfections, which included a strong will, a fierce temper, and a stinging tongue. What she may never have reallized is how Our Lord Jesus and His Mother Mary were able to use these traits for their glory.
We once wrote that Bernadette was a simple girl, an illiterate at the time that Our Lady appeared to her, but never did we consider her a stupid girl. Her behavior throughout the period of the Apparitions, her inner strength to hold up against great powers in the government and the Church, are a strong indicator of this. Her life after the Apparitions, and in the Convent of Saint Gildard in Nevers, is proof of her strength.
We never knew much about Bernadette. As a young man, I became enraptured by the Apparitions of Our Lady to Bernadette, after reading The Song of Bernadette. I fell in love with Mary, but never thought much about Bernadette. Even the first time Penny and I visited Lourdes, we didn’t see or hear much of the little visionary. This is as Bernadette wanted it. With the exception of the Cachot, where she lived during the time of the Apparitions, the Boly Mill, where she was born, and the Maison Paternelle, where the family lived after the Apparitions, Bernadette is not considered a major part of the Shrine. But Bernadette is very important, both as the intermediary for Mary during that period of time in 1858, and as a role mode for today.
