Bernadette of Lourdes

Last week I travelled to Lourdes on pilgrimage with a group from the parish. It was here that Our Lady appeared to the young girl Bernadette eighteen times in 1858. We stayed at Hosanna House run by the HCPT Pilgrimage Trust, in a village a few miles outside the town called Bartres. When Bernadette was ten months old, she was sent to Marie Lagus who lived here, where she was nursed for eighteen months before returning home to Lourdes.

Her family fell on hard times and had to move out of the mill Bernadette’s father ran. In 1857 they ended up living in one room that had once been a jail, known as the Cachot. It measured 3.72 metres by 4.3 metres. In this space, serving simultaneously as kitchen, dining room and bedroom, lived Mum and Dad, Bernadette, her sister and two brothers. Because Bernadette was sick and suffered from multiple night-time asthma attacks, it was decided to send her back to Bartres, to the house of her former wet nurse. It would mean one less mouth to feed.

Part of the agreement was that Marie Lagus had promised to let her learn the catechism so that she could make her First Communion. This never seemed to materialise. Bernadette was expected to look after the sheep, babysit, clean and do all manner of household chores. Marie Lagus obtained a copy of the diocesan catechism written in French, which Bernadette did not understand because she spoke Occitan, a Romance language, particular to that region of France. She was forced to learn by heart phrases that were meaningless to her. Marie got angry and called her good for nothing saying, ‘You are too stupid, you will never make your First Communion.’ A few days earlier the nurse had said, ‘My poor daughter, you are not even worth the bread you cost us.’ At age fourteen Bernadette had had so little schooling, she was constantly referred to as ‘ignorant’. But Bernadette was determined to make her First Communion, and so she left Bartres, returning to the cramped conditions of the Cachot.

Fr Michael Liston writes:

I love the joy of liberation on people’s faces when they stand in the Cachot as pilgrims and wonder at all that Bernadette did with her life without material wealth. It was this seemingly ignorant and poor girl that was chosen by God to experience the appearances of Our Lady at the Grotto and share the messages given by her. It was on a cold February morning in 1858 that Bernadette left the Cachot with her sister Toinette and friend Baloume to collect firewood when she saw in the crevice of the rock a young girl smiling and surrounded by light. So often God chooses the person who is insignificant to do great things. For many reasons countless people feel unsure of themselves today. Their sense of self-worth can be undermined by many of the assumptions regarding education, health, social status sucess and so on. Bernadette drew from deeper wells. She was the victim of so many assumptions about what is the dignity of a human being. She knew what a fragile economic situation can do to a family. We can look to her to give us a healthier perspective on the dignity of all.