Poverty, humility defined life of St. Bernadette Soubirous

Published: 2008-02-11

LOURDES, France (CNS) -- St. Bernadette Soubirous was 14 years old, poor, illiterate and did not know the catechism enough to make her first Communion when Mary appeared to her in the grotto at Lourdes. She was born into a family with comfortable means, but times got bad for the family. By 1854 Bernadette's father was a day laborer and her mother also was working. They gave up St. Bernadette, first as a servant to her aunt, then to help on a farm outside Lourdes. In 1857, the family could no longer pay rent and sought shelter from a cousin. St. Bernadette returned to Lourdes for catechism classes in 1858. On Feb. 11 that year, St. Bernadette, her sister and a friend went looking for wood. As she was taking off her stockings and shoes to cross a canal, she heard a gust of wind and saw a young woman dressed in white. That was the first of 18 Marian apparitions. St. Bernadette shunned the attention that followed. She entered religious life with the Sisters of Charity and Christian Instruction at Nevers, France. She died in 1879 of tuberculosis of the bone and was canonized in 1933.

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