Bernadette Soubirous

Bernadette Soubirous ( Bernadeta Sobirons in Gascon), of her true name Marie-Bernarde Soubiroux ( Maria Bernada Sobeirons ), born the January 7th 1844 with Heavy, and deceased the April 16th 1879 with Nevers, is a holy catholic, famous to have announced Apparition S of the Vierge in a cave of its birthplace.

Childhood

His/her parents, François Soubirous (1807 - 1871) and Louise Castérot (1825 - 1866), exploit the Moulin of Boly, where it was born, until in 1854. Soubirous which had, says one, makes a love match, had on the whole nine children of which five died in low-age. Bernadette is the elder one. On this date, the family company is ruined (too much artisanal for this time of industrialization, and undoubtedly badly managed). Bernadette knows the hunger and the disease, it can hardly read and write. Of fragile health (it is in particular asthmatic), it appears less than its age. It is in addition beautiful girl, according to testimonys of the time and as the photographs attest some which were taken of it. Its religious feeling is already very extremely even if she is unaware of about all catechism ( “  if the Blessed Virgin chose me, it is because I was most ignorant! ” will say it later).

The parents of Bernadette send it in her godmother and aunt, Bernarde Castérot (1823 - 1907), which employs it as maidservant at the house and the counter of its cabaret.

Soubirous move for a cell of the old prison of the High street, called the dungeon (which one can currently visit) and where they place to six in 3,77 X 4,40 Mr. In 1857, François Soubirous is marked (apparently wrongly) flight of two bags of flour. It is sent in prison. The Soubirous family is during one time of black distress.

Appearances

Bernadette testifies to appearances of the Virgin starting from 1858. During its ninth appearance, it follows the indications of the Vierge and discovers a source of water to the foot of the Grotte of Massabielle, with Lourdes. Between the February 11th and the July 16th 1858, the Virgin appears eighteen times to him.

  1. Thursday February 11th 1858. With his/her sister Marie (1846 - 1892), known as Toinette, and Jeanne Abadie, a friend, Bernadette goes along the Gave to collect bones and deadwood. Because of its precarious health, she hesitates to cross Gave, frost, like her sister and her friend. She is then surprised by a noise and raises the head towards the cave of Massabielle: “  I saw a lady vêtue of white: it wore a white dress, a white veil also, a blue belt and a yellow pink on each pied  ” . Bernadette recites a prayer, the lady disappears.

  2. Sunday February 14th 1858. His/her parents prohibit Bernadette from turning over to the cave. She insists, they yield. On the spot, she recites Chapelet S and sees appearing the lady. She throws water bénite to him. The lady smiles, inclines the head and disappears.
  3. Thursday February 18th 1858. Bernadette, under the pressure of a Lourdian middle-class woman, asks the lady to write her name to him. This one answers him: “  It is not nécessaire  ” . Then she adds “  I do not promise to you to go happy in this world but in the other. Do you want to have the grace to come here during fifteen jours ?   ”
  4. Friday February 19th 1858. Bernadette comes to the Cave with a candle blessed and lit (what became, since, a habit). The lady briefly appears.
  5. Saturday February 20th 1858. The lady learns a personal prayer with Bernadette who, at the end of her vision, is seized by a great sadness.
  6. Sunday February 21st 1858. A hundred people accompany Bernadette. The lady is presented (to Bernadette alone) and the Jacomet police superintendent questions it on what she saw. Bernadette is satisfied to repeat: “  aquerò  ” (that)
  7. Tuesday February 23rd 1858. Accompanied by one hundred fifty people, Bernadette goes to the cave where the appearance reveals a secrecy to him “  only for elle  ” .
  8. Wednesday, February 24, 1858. The lady transmits a message to Bernadette: “  Penitence! Penitence! Penitence! Request God for the sinners! Kiss the ground in penitence for the pécheurs !   ”
  9. Thursday February 25th 1858. Three hundred people are present. Bernadette explains that the lady asks him to drink with the source: “  Drink with the fountain and wash you there. You will eat this grass which is là.  ” . Bernadette will tell later: “  I found an only little muddy water. With the fourth test I pus boire.  ” . Crowd shows it to be insane and she answers: “  It is for the pécheurs  ” .
  10. Saturday February 27th 1858. Eight hundred people accompany Bernadette. The Appearance remains quiet, Bernadette drinks water.
  11. Sunday February 28th 1858. Two thousand people attend the extase of Bernadette who requests, kisses the ground, crawls on the knees. Ribes judge the threat of prison.
  12. Monday the 1st er March 1858. Thousand five hundred people accompany Bernadette, of which, for the first time, a priest. The same night, Catherine Latapie, a friend of Bernadette, goes to the Cave and hardening its arm uncoupled in spring water: its arm and its hand find all their flexibility.
  13. Tuesday March 2nd 1858. Crowd is very important. The lady asks Bernadette: “  Say to the priests who one comes here in procession and which one there masonry a chapelle  ” . The abbot Peyramale, priest of Doors wants to know the name of the lady and requires a precise proof in addition: he wants to see flowering the rose tree/wild rose of the Cave in full winter.
  14. Wednesday March 3rd 1858. Three thousand people accompany Bernadette. The vision does not come. Later, Bernadette feels called and turns over to the cave where she asks her name the Lady who answers him by a smile. The Peyramale priest insists: “  If the Lady wishes really a vault, that she says her name and that she makes flower the rose tree of Grotte  ”
  15. Thursday March 4th 1858. Approximately eight thousand people await a miracle with the cave. The vision is quiet. During twenty days, Bernadette does not feel any more the invitation to be gone to the cave.
  16. Thursday March 25th 1858. Appearance shows with Bernadette and known as in Gascon bigourdan - the language which Bernadette spoke -, raising the eyes with the sky and uniting its hands: “  That soy will era immaculada councepciou  ” . Bernadette retains these words, which it does not include/understand, and short to say them to the priest, who is disturbed: four years earlier, the pope Pie IX made expression Immaculate Conception a Dogme and Bernadette known as be unaware of that it indicates the Vierge. The rose tree still did not flower.
  17. Wednesday April 7th 1858. Doctor Douzous notes that the flame of the candle that Bernadette holds during the appearance surrounds its hand without burning it.
  18. Thursday July 16th 1858. It is the last appearance. A palisade prohibits the access to the cave. Bernadette crosses the Gave and sees the virgin exactly as if it were in front of the cave.

Recognition of the appearances by the Church

The July 28th 1858, is twelve days only after the last appearance, Mgr Laurence, bishop of Tarbes, joins together a board of inquiry intended to establish the credit which the Church must bring to the assertions of Bernadette Soubirous. This commission is charged to check the validity of the “  miracles  ” announced, by collecting various testimonys and the opinions of scientists or clergy. It is also charged to question Bernadette whose sincerity will seem “  incontestable  ” ( dixit ) with the bishop: “  Who doesn't admire, by approaching it, simplicity, frankness, the modesty of this child? She speaks only when it is questioned; then she tells all without assignment, with a touching ingenuity, and, with the many questions that one addresses to him, she makes, without hesitating, of the clear, precise answers, full of by the way, impressed with strong a conviction  ” . The fact that the young girl repeats words called by the Virgin that it could not (thinks one then) of not knowing have regard to its lack of instruction, will be a decisive argument.

Meanwhile, the crowd of the pilgrims coming to see the cave and to ask it of the assistance to Marie does not cease growing, it comes from people of all Europe and of new testimonys of miracles accumulate. “  If one must judge the tree by his fruits, we can say that the appearance told by the young girl is supernatural and divine; because it produced supernatural effects and divins  ”

Four years later, the January 18th 1862, the bishop delivers his opinion - favorable: “  We judge that the Immaculate Marie, Mère of God, really appeared in Bernadette Soubirous, the following on February 11th, 1858 and days, eighteen times, in the cave of Massabielle, close to the town of Doors; that this appearance revêt all characters of the truth, and that the faithful ones are founded to believe it some. We humbly subject our judgment to the Judgment of Sovereign pontiff, who is charged to control the Church universelle  ” .

Thus Heavy, modest chief town of the Pyrenees, carefully avoided by thermal tourism then in full explosion - its water did not have the curative properties allotted to those of Luchon, Cauterets or Bagnères-with-Bigorre - quickly became the most attended tourist city area. An often forgotten fact: with Garaison (today, Monléon-Magnoac, to 70 km of Doors), a named young girl Anglèze de Sagasan had affirmed to have intended the virgin to ask him to build a vault close to the source. That occurred towards 1520. The vault was indeed built and the city was a place of devotion and religious tourism at the following centuries.

The departure for Nevers

Bernadette wished to make her communion and for this reason, it was to learn how to read and write in French. She is thus allowed with " the school of the indigents" , with the old people's home of Doors, held since 1836 by the Sisters of the Charity of Nevers. There, it is informed, learned how to read and learns catechism and a trade. The observers of the time note that its meditation in prayer is impressive, but that it also merry, is enjouée, mischievous and rather authoritative with her partners - who appreciate it much nevertheless. After reflection it choist the congregation of the Sisters of the charity of Nevers to live its desire of religious life. The Head office of the congregation is in Nevers. With its higher, it is of an obedience to any test, as an anecdote testifies some: one had prohibited Bernadette from turning over to the cave and one asked him: “  If the Virgin ordered to you to go there, that would you make?   ” . Bernadette answered: “  I would return to request the permission from Mister Curé  ”.

Outside, one starts to return a worrying worship to the young person bigourdane. Its photograph is bought, the newspapers speak about it, one wants to see it. Wisest is to move away it from Doors. Certain people, like the British essay writer Ruth Harris ( Heavy. The great history of the appearances, the pilgrimages and the cures , Jean-Claude Lattès, 2001), do not hesitate to affirm that Bernadette had, to some extent “to disappear” from alive sound so that the Church can control the capitalization of the Lourdian miracles completely.

For an young girl without dowry, the life of sister was not easily possible, but Bernadette is from now on famous and various convents are ready to accommodate it.

It thus leaves the Pyrenees which it will never re-examine. It joined the July 7th 1866, the congregation of the Sisters of Charity to Nevers. It remains there thirteen years during which it will be treated without special regards. It occupies the stations of assistance-nurse, person in charge of the infirmary and sacristine. The four last years, it is especially sick.

Reached of a Tuberculosis osseous, and suffering of chronic sound Asthma contracted at the 11 years age, at the time of the great epidemic of Cholera in the Hautes-Pyrénées, she dies the April 16th 1879 with Nevers at the age of thirty-five years.

For the needs for the lawsuit in canonization, its body must be recognized. Its coffin will be open 3 times and its body found intact.

It rests since 1925 in a mounting of glass and bronze in the vault of Space Bernadette to Nevers. At the time of the exhumations, its body was washed and the contact with the " détergents" its skin had blackened: the body of worthy Bernadette is intact, the complete skeleton, the atrophied but well preserved muscles; the wrinkled skin appears alone to have undergone the moisture of the coffin. It took a color grisâtre and is covered with some moulds and a certain quantity of salt limestones crystals (…) (Dr. Talon and Dr. Count, in charge of the examination of the body after 1923), quoted by Dominique Lormier in Bernadette Soubirous , ED. CMD, 1999. In the same book one learns as a few years later, the skin of Bernadette blackened. The face of Bernadette and its hands were thus covered with a very fine wax mask for the public presentation.

Bernadette Soubirous was béatifiée the canonized June 14th 1925 then the December 8th 1933.

The Soubirous family

His/her parents

The Soubirous children

Random links:Free-wrinkle (VTT) | Culture advertizing | Tratado de París (1814) | Ring 4 | Question of Palmas | Estarrona | Comte_Palmer