Michelle Blanchard Ardillo

Wednesday, April 16, 2025

Day 4 of Holy Week Reflections

On the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, February 11, 2025, I shared with my parish family at the Shrine of St. Jude a reflection I wrote after visiting Lourdes in July of 2024. Today is the feast day of St. Bernadette, who was the pivotal figure in the story of Lourdes.

Bernadette Soubirous (January 7, 1844 – April 16, 1879) was the oldest of nine children and raised in a poor but devout family in Lourdes, France. She suffered poor health as a toddler and never fully regained her health. Despite her poor health and extreme poverty, Bernadette at the age of 14 would be chosen by the Blessed Virgin Mary for a mission. She was told by Mary that she should wash in the waters in the grotto area called Massabielle.

Bernadette did as she was told and continued to return to the grotto, even against her parents’ wishes. The 13th time that Mary appeared to Bernadette, Mary told Bernadette that a chapel should be built near the grotto. At a subsequent apparition, Mary told Bernadette, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”

Dying of her chronic health problems in the convent of the Sisters of Notre Dame of Nevers at only 35 years of age, Bernadette lived a short life but a powerful one. Through her quiet but persistent nature, she brought the reality of one of the most popular pilgramage sites in the world. While many were skeptical of her reports of the 18 apparitions of the Blessed Mother, there were even more who believed Bernadette. The chapel was built, the grotto surrounded by a basilica and other churches and prayer spaces, the waters of the spring fed through a system of pipes allowing the faithful to fill bottles with the water to take home. Many miracles have been attributed to the healing waters at Lourdes, water coming from the very spring uncovered by Bernadette’s digging in the dirt at the instruction of Mary herself.

The Catholic Church confirmed the authenticity of the apparitions and the miracles that were attributed to the waters of the grotto in 1862. Millions and millions have visited Lourdes over the years, an estimated 4 to 6 million a year. I can attest from my very own personal experience how moving this visit to this holy site was for me, an experience I will never forget.

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