All Saints' Day
A Reflection on The Saint of Lourdes
For those that don’t know, Halloween is not just for Protestants to blast social media with Reformation Day memes and pictures of their favorite heretic, Martin Luther. Nor is it meant to be a time for sexually confused women to dress as scantly clad witches and nurses. It’s the time of year where Christians remember the lives of the saints, reflect on the words they wrote, and typically receive an exhortation for to strive to be saints today.
If I had to describe it to a non-Catholic, Halloween is not some secular time to drag out your dead. It’s probably best described as, Catholic Memorial Day. Just as our nation would not exist without the courageous soldiers who sacrificed their lives for it, so too the Church would not exist if every saint defected and started their own church at the first sign of trouble. After all, Israel didn’t start itself.
This doesn’t mean that all saints are martyred for their faith. As Father Mike Schmitz once said, “some saints give all their blood at once, and others give it drop by drop.” St. Bernadette falls into the latter category. Her testimony is one that has made a serious mark in the world, history, and Christianity.
The Immaculate Conception
She is most known for her visions of the Blessed Virgin, who appeared to Bernadette at Lourdes in France, beginning February 1858 and concluding in July of that year. Bernadette was a sickly child. She had a severe case of asthma, that nearly killed her many times throughout her life. She was born into an extremely poor family. As a result, God, through Mary, challenges are our perceptions of what “it takes” to be a saint.
Why would God choose a poor, young, French girl, who didn’t even speak formal French. She spoke a different dialect of French known as patois, which didn’t even have words for the Marian title, “Immaculate Conception”. Furthermore, she had very little understanding of the Catholic Faith, at a time where to not understand the Faith intellectually was seen as sign of laziness and apathy.
We may want to ask, “Why did God choose you, Bernadette?” To which she would respond (seriously, this is what she said)…
“If the Blessed Virgin chose me, it was because I was the most ignorant…I had no right to the favor.”
— Bernadette Speaks, René Laurentin. 550.
Just four years earlier, in 1854, Pious the IX issued an infallible decree that Mary’s Immaculate Conception was now a required dogma to be believed by all the faithful. Depending on your preconceived notions about the nature of the Catholic faith, you might suspect that Mary would appear to a high church leader, someone notable and distinguished in theological ability. Yet, Christ said, “Blessed are those who believe, and have not seen.” Is there any better picture of this, than a young girl, whose language could not even contain the revelation that God intended for his whole Church to believe?
This mysterious woman had now revealed who she was, the Immaculate Conception, Mary, the Mother of God, that had garnered the attention of thousands of pilgrims, the local and national governments, and now the Church. Yet this little girl was going to have a life of intense challenge and pain. She was interrogated her entire life, even when suffering severely from asthma and other ailments.
Pride & Humility
Her health was always a problem throughout her life. At one point, she developed a tumor on her knee that stiffened the leg and made her last days on earth excruciating. According to the superior general, Mére Adélaïde, as reported by biographer René Laurentin,
“[Bernadette] had a tumor that stiffened the knee, [she was in ] excruciating pain — we did not know how to move her; huge knee, withered leg [sic]. Sometimes, [it took] one hour to find her a [bearable] position.”
— Ibid. 526.
But these trials occurred well after the apparitions, yet the churchmen and visitors continued to attempt to interview and ask Bernadette her testimony of the apparitions. Even when she was suffering from asthma and tumors on her knee, she still had to endure the constant pestering of sisters and churchmen who wanted to hear for themselves, the testimony of the young girl who saw the Blessed Mother.
Through it all, she was tempted beyond what most people would be able to endure. Many pilgrims would come to her offering her money, food, or favors to improve her life. She turned them all down. Even at a young age and in extreme poverty, she apparently rejected all gifts. Some people had the audacity to even sneak gold into her pockets without her knowing, to which she would respond, “it burns me!” According to Laurentin,
This was not contempt, because she knew its worth and the deprivation of its lack. It was her declaration of independence. Her witness remained steadfast, despite the thousand and one attempts to corrupt her, from the most Machiavellian to the most naive, from the most subtle to those inspired by thoughtfulness and friendship.
For her, poverty was not merely a shortage of and a refusal of money; it was an evangelical attitude as much concerned with being as it is with having — a state of humility.
Ibid. 550.
What we see in Bernadette is an example of God’s grace, as well as God’s desire to continue to use Mary, the Mother of God, in His plan of salvation. Just as Mary visited Elizabeth, she continues to visit those in need of God’s grace to accomplish the will He has for their lives.
That said, it’s no wonder that someone so poor, when elevated to such heights, would struggle with pride. Bernadette, throughout her life, said that she struggled with this vice. This is odd to anyone who reads her story because she seems so humble. For example, after discussing the apparitions with one of her sisters, Bernadette reportedly said the following,
“What do you do with a broom when you’re done sweeping?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“Yes, I’m asking you where you put it when you’re done with it?”
“…In a corner, behind the door.”
“[gleefully] Well, I was like a broomstick for the Blessed Virgin; when she no longer needed me, she put me in my place behind the door…[claps her hands and joyfully responds] Here I am and her I’ll stay.”
Ibid. 551.
But on the other hand, it should not surprise us that someone who had such humility acquired it precisely because she had wrestled with the evil of pride. In doing so, she discovered that the antidote to pride is humility. Is it any wonder then, that an experienced fighter of pride, would have such wisdom and simple humility in her responses?
One may doubt that these events ever happened. But then the question you have to ask is, “If God wanted Jews to believe that He had become a man, what would He do to convince them?” Well, rising from the dead might do the trick. Yet, even with the witnesses, the miracles, the persecutions, and martyrs, Saul, who would later become Paul, still didn’t believe. Even after the Damascus road experience, the rest of the Christians were skeptical of his conversion. Similarly, how would God get people to believe that He really did want Christians to believe specific things about Mary, the Mother of God? Well, He might just send His mother to visit a poor girl, who barely knew any theology, and then make her a voice to the world, not by any merit of her own, but purely to show the world what Mary can do with broken and sinful creatures.
This should not surprise anyone that God uses Mary to dispense grace, because He uses all of us to communicate grace to those around us. Are we really so prideful to think that the good someone experiences through us is something that we possess? Perish the thought! When Christians talk about Mary’s grace, we know that it’s a grace that comes entirely from God. It’s His love that permits Mary to participate in His plan, and it’s His divine wisdom that orchestrates the economy of salvation, such that, even a poor girl in France can play an exceptional role in it.
Now one might quip, “Well if it’s a dogma now, why did the Church take so long to declare it if it was so important?” To which we can say, “Why did God wait 2000 years to become a baby, and then 33 years to die on a cross?” In the end, if God has a doctrine that He wants His followers to submit to, He knows the best way to get our attention and submission to it. Sometimes, that might mean sending Jesus himself, as He did with Paul on the road to Damascus. At other times, God may, in His divine wisdom, which He and only He knows, decide to send His mother.
In this case, Mary, in total cooperation with the will of God, chose Bernadette a young, poor, French girl, to receive a profound grace. In these apparitions, Mary demonstrates a love for Bernadette similar to how Mary experienced the love of God at the Annunciation. It’s not that Mary replaces God; it’s that she intensifies His love for us in the way only a Mother can. Thus, as Laurentin keenly observes,
“In this Bernadette, was a reflection of the Virgin of the Magnificat. She too was aware of having been chosen for her poverty: “The Lord has looked upon the poverty of his handmaid.” Lk. 1:48.
Ibid. 550.
Thanks for reading, keep thinking!
— DR