Bernadette and Lourdes

The French town of Lourdes lies at the bottom of a valley as though in the palm of a hand. In this simple place, on Thursday, February 11, 1858, in the sixth year of the reign of Emperor Napoleon III, a young girl named Bernadette Soubirous beheld a vision of a Lady in white. Over the next four months, this Lady would appear to Bernadette a total of eighteen times, assuring her of happiness not in this world but the next; exhorting her to pray and to do penance on behalf of sinners; bringing a spring of healing water up from the ground; and eventually telling to Bernadette her name: “I am the Immaculate Conception”—identifying herself as the Mother of God, Mary most holy.First published in English in 1954, Bernadette and Lourdes recounts the story—the “song”—of Bernadette and drama of Lourdes in full. Based on a deep study of all the relevant documents and historical, religious, psychological, and medical research, Michel de Saint Pierre’s account exercises discretion in the face of controversy and faithfulness in light of the sacred and miraculous nature of the apparitions. A “human and moving witness,” in the words of Bishop Patrice Flynn, de Saint Pierre vividly narrates both the visions and Bernadette's later life as a religious sister, painting the real Bernadette and the Lady of Lourdes with such rich, living color that the chronicle reads like a novel and resonates like a testament. Read more