Saint Bernadette More Saints
From
her letter about
The Apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Lourdes by
Saint Marie Bernadette
Soubirous, virgin
(1844-1879)
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The Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to Saint Bernadette in 1858 at Lourdes, France within the cave of Massabielle. Through this humble
girl, brought up in abject poverty by loving parents devoted to daily recitation of the rosary, Mary called sinners to repentance and conversion. Through this apparition, the Blessed Virgin enkindled within the Church a great zeal for prayer, works of charity, and service to the sick and poor. Coming on the heals of the Protestant reformation, where an estimated one million Catholics left the faith, this visit by the Virgin Mary is said to have brought an estimated three million souls into the Catholic Church. Miraculous cures still take place at the site. Waters still flow from the spring described in Bernadette's letter below, and five millions of pilgrims visit the Lourdes shrine each year. Bernadette died in 1879 at age 35. Her body lies visible and uncorrupted at her convent outside Paris. The letter she wrote gives the details of her encounter with the Blessed Virgin Mary. Bernadette was canonized a saint by Pope Pius XI on December 8, 1933 on the feast of The Immaculate Conception.
The lady spoke to me
I had gone down one day with two other girls, to the bank of the river Gave when suddenly I heard a kind of rustling sound. I turned my head toward the field by the side of the river but the trees seemed quite still and the noise was evidently not from them.
Then I looked up and caught sight of the cave where I saw a lady wearing a lovely white dress with a bright belt. On top or each of her feet was a pale yellow rose, the same color as her rosary beads.
At this I rubbed my eyes, thinking I was seeing things, and I put my hands into the fold of my dress where my rosary was. I wanted to make the sign of the cross but for the life of me I couldn't manage it and my hand just fell down.
Then the lady made the sign of the cross herself and at the second attempt I managed to do the same, though my hands were trembling. Then I began to say the rosary while the lady let her beads slip through her fingers, without moving her lips. When I stopped saying the Hail Mary, she immediately vanished.
I asked my two companions if they had noticed anything, but they said no. Of course they wanted to know what I was doing and I told them that I had seen a lady wearing a nice white dress, though I didn't know who she was. I told them not to say anything about it, and they said I was silly to have anything to do with it. I said they were wrong and I came back next Sunday, feeling myself drawn to the place. . . .
The third time I went the lady spoke to me and asked me to come every day for fifteen days. I said I would and then she said that she wanted me to tell the priests to build a chapel there. She also told me to drink from the stream. I went to the Gave, the only stream I could see. Then she made me realize she was not speaking of the Gave and she indicated a little trickle of water close-by. When I got to it I could only find a few drops, mostly mud. I cupped my hands to catch some liquid without success and then I started to scrape the ground. I managed to find a few drops of water but only at the fourth attempt was there sufficient for any kind of drink. The lady then vanished and I went back home.
I went back each day for fifteen days and each time, except one Monday and one Friday, the lady appeared and told me to look for a stream and wash in it and to see that the priests build a chapel there. I must also pray, she said, for the conversion of sinners. I asked her many times what she meant by that, but she only smiled. Finally with outstretched arms and eyes lookingup to heaven she told me she was the Immaculate Conception.
During the fifteen days she told me three secrets but I was not to speak about them to anyone and so far I have not.Source: The Liturgy of the Hours, Office of Readings for February 11
Bernadette's letter narrated by Mariola Paini
Amazing but true side-note to this presentation: Two weeks after recording this presentation, our guest narrator, Mariola Piani, was struck down in a crosswalk by a student on a skate board and rendered unconscious when her head hit the pavement. She was taken to the hospital in an ambulance attended by paramedics. She was hospitalized for three days and suffered severe neural reactions to the accident. She was treated for several months with no sign of improvement. Her condition grew worse. She experienced chronic dizzy spells, her legs swelled to twice their normal size, and she developed an alarming thickening of her blood. Her doctors prescribed some 50 pills daily as a necessary treatment. She was told that if she did not take the pills she would surely die since her blood had the thick consistency of syrup. Medical bills reached a staggering $50,000 and insurance companies denied her claims for coverage believing prior medical conditions were responsible for her deteriorating condition.
Mariola was unable to walk, even short distances, without pain and dizziness. Her family had all but given up hope that she would survive, and they began to prepare for her death.
The Piani family is deeply religious and a devout Catholic family. With her husband and two young daughters, the family recites the rosary daily, as well as the Chaplet of Divine Mercy daily at 3:00PM, the hour of mercy.
Mariola decided that she would make a pilgrimage to the Blessed Virgin's shrine at Lourdes. Arrangements were made and she joined a tour group for the trip. At Lourdes, Mariola was unable to keep up with the group in the long candle-light procession from the lower grotto to the Basilica above, needing to stop frequently to catch her breath. She was aided by friends accompanying her.
The next afternoon, on February 11, 2004, the feast day of Our Lady of Lourdes, at precisely 3:00 PM, Mariola's turn came up for full immersion in the icy spring waters flowing at the shrine's bath area. Toher great joy, upon entering the water, she was instantly cured! Coming out of the baths, she found herself completely dry, not even needing a towel. She knew she had been cured, and though warned by her doctors to continue taking her fifty pills daily, she discarded them and never took the pills again. Members of her tour group were stunned. They witnessed her complete cure, and observed her ability to actually run up the same hill she could barely manage the night before. She was able to carry two one-gallon containers of the miraculous Lourdes water as if they weighed nothing at all. Thanking her "Madonna", she described herself as feeling eighteen again. Mariola Paini, born in Krakow, Poland is the artist who created the oil painting of Saint Michael used on our Home Page. For more information about her interesting background click the link below: Contact her by email at: Mmariolak@aol.com