Saint Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us!

Today is the Feast Day of Saint Bernadette Soubirous. Our Lady appeared to her in Lourdes, France in 1858, when she was fourteen years old. The Blessed Mother appeared to her 18 times.

In one of the apparitions, she told Bernadette to drink from the fountain within the grotto. This fountain was unknown and there was no sign of its location. Bernadette scratched the ground and a spring gushed forth from the spot from which she was asked to build a chapel.

This is where The Blessed Mother proclaimed, "I am the Immaculate Conception."

Since Our Lady appeared to Bernadette, Lourdes has been a site for miracles. There have been 67 miracles from the site that have been proven scientifically inexplicable. Mount Saint Mary's Grotto of Lourdes was built two decades after the apparitions of Mary to Bernadette. The grotto at Lourdes is a place of miracles, healings, laying on of priestly hands, and blessings for the sick.

Bernadette entered the convent of the Sisters of Notre Dame in Nevers in 1866, serving our Lord with dignity, grace, and love in her short life. She passed away from tuberculosis in 1879 and was canonized as a saint in 1933. To this day, her body remains incorruptible, showing no signs of decomposition or decay, a sign of the miracles associated with her.

Saint Bernadette once said of the spring she discovered that “one must have faith and pray; the water will have no virtue without faith.” Let us all be inspired by this prayer to Our Lady of Lourdes approach her with faith, hope and love!  

Prayer to Our Lady of Lourdes and Saint Bernadette
Mary, you showed yourself to Bernadette in the crevice of the rock. In the cold and grey of winter, you brought the warmth, light and beauty of your presence. In the often obscure depths of our lives, in the depth of the world where evil is so powerful, bring hope, return our confidence!

You are the Immaculate Conception, come to our aid, sinners that we are. Give us the humility to have a change of heart, the courage to do penance. Teach us to pray for all people. Guide us to the source of true life. Make us pilgrims going forward with your Church, whet our appetite for the Eucharist, the Bread for the journey, the Bread of Life.

The Spirit brought about wonders in you, O Mary, by His power, He has placed you near the Father, in the glory of your eternal Son. Look with kindness on our miserable bodies and hearts. Shine forth for us, like a gentle light, at the hour of our death.

Together with Bernadette, we pray to you, O Mary, as your poor children. May we enter, like her, into the spirit of the Beatitudes. Then, we will be able, here below, begin to know the joy of the Kingdom of Heaven and sing together with you: Magnificat!

Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us.
Saint Bernadette, pray for us.