On February 11, 1858 in Lourdes, France, Bernadette and her childhood friends went out to the fields to gather firewood. Bernadette came to a cave near a river, and saw a beautiful Lady dressed in blue and white, with stars around her head and roses at her feet. When Bernadette told her family about the beautiful Lady, they did not believe her. But the Lady kept reappearing. One day the Lady told Bernadette to dig where she stood, and a fresh spring of water came bubbling out of the ground. Blind people who washed their faces in the spring could see. Sick people who washed their bodies in the water became well. The Lady told Bernadette to build a great church there. This came to be known as the Shrine of Lourdes. Many miracles still happen there to this day. Saint Bernadette, you were only a little child when Our Lady appeared to you. Help me to find Jesus and Our Lady in my own life.

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Our Lady of Lourdes

We are weary, Mother, we are tired in heart and mind and body. We worry because of the difficulties in our family and among our loved ones and all over the world. We can only turn to you and hold out our hands. We know that you are holding out your hands to us.

So many times you have come to your children in the world and told us, as you did to little Bernadette at Lourdes, that we must pray and you will help us. Why are we so wayward, so ignorant, so thoughtless, like small headstrong children who do not listen to you?

We notice that you always appeared to children or those of childlike hearts like Juan Diego a Guadalupe. We know that you did so because children would listen to you and sincerely and fervently repeat your words. Adults puzzle over everything, and in our pride we are often doubtful. But children report at once what they have seen. So through the years they have been your messengers. You told them we must pray and do penance to save our souls. It is very simple.

You wanted the children to be an example for us in their faith, simplicity, trust, and humility. Jesus said, "Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Mt. 18:3).

Bernadette at Lourdes is such a beautiful person. How can we not be inspired by her faith and prayerfulness? When people asked her about her visions and then sometimes said they did not believe her, she replied simply, "You asked what I saw. I do not ask you to believe it."

Bernadette was an unlikely person for God to choose to deliver a most important message, at least in our way of thinking. But God's ways are not our ways. God did choose her. She was the most surprised. God, bless her for her wonderful and sincere humility.

God chose a child, and not just any child, but one that was a slow learner. She was the first to admit that she was not bright. When the priest would not believe her and said that she was the least learned child in the school, she only replied, "That is true." But she would not waver from the details of what she saw and what Mary told her.

Mother, the people asked Bernadette to ask you your name and you responded, "I am the Immaculate Conception." Poor Bernadette was totally confused. The priest asked Bernadette if she knew the meaning of that expression. Little Bernadette said, "How could I know a thing like that?" And the priest said, "How indeed," and he began, at least a little bit, to believe her.

Bernadette would not change one word of your message. The police threatened her. She thought she might go to jail, a most fearsome notion to her, but never did she change her story. What faith, what trust this little girl had. No wonder you chose her, Mother.

And how simple she was. Following the miracles at Lourdes, the greatest sculptor in France was commissioned to make a statue after the description the child game him of Mary. Everyone who saw it said it was the most beautiful statue they had ever seen. Bernadette was taken to see it. She looked at it for a long time and said it was very beautiful, but it was not nearly so beautiful as the Blessed Mother was when she appeared to her.

Bernadette, as a Sister, was visited by many people. She hated this attention but patiently talked to her visitors. Sometimes bishops came. Bernadette once observed, "I think it would be better if they stayed with their people."

When Bernadette was dying with a malignant tumor on her knee, a Sister said that she should go to the grotto for a cure. Bernadette smiled and said, "The water is not for me."

Our Lady of Lourdes, bless us as you have blessed so many people at your shrine. Make us patient and simple and childlike and trusting as little Bernadette. Give us but a bit of her strong faith and trust in you. Be our help in all our troubles.

Amen.