When I was six or seven years old I remember asking my mom what I should do if the Virgin Mary ever appeared to me. She told me kneeling would be appropriate and then added not to worry about it because it was not likely to happen. I was satisfied with her answer. At least I knew what to do in case she did appear.
Bernadette Soubirous was a poor and illiterate 14-year old peasant girl in the small town of Lourdes, France in 1858 when the Virgin Mary appeared to her while gathering wood. The Soubirous family was going through economic hardship and had to move into the abandoned city jail house. Bernadette was chosen by God to be the bearer of a great message of mercy and healing. The Virgin Mary told Bernadette she could not offer her happiness in this world but in the next and asked for a sanctuary to be built.
Bernadette’s family and parish priest were skeptical of her stories. Many thought she was mentally disturbed when she began drinking muddy water from a spring that the Virgin Mary made appear. At the parish priest’s request, Bernadette asked the beautiful lady what her name was and she answered in Bernadette’s own Provencal dialect, “Que soy era Immaculada Conceptiou” – I am the Immaculate Conception. When the priest heard this he was amazed and believed. How could an illiterate poor girl come up with these words? Bernadette had no idea what the words meant nor did she know the Pope had recently defined this ancient title of Our Lady.
Lourdes is a reminder to us that, as Saint Paul wrote, “God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something.”
We cannot get comfortable with material and financial success and look down upon the less fortunate. Just like Saint Bernadette, so many lowly people have played instrumental roles in God’s plan of salvation, beginning with the Blessed Mother. The poor and lowly, Scripture and history confirm, certainly have God present among them.
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