When I was five or six 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.
The one-room city jail house, or Chacot, where the Soubirous lived
The grotto where the Virgin Mary appeared
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.
The Basilica of Our Lady of Lourdes built over the grotto
Me following the Jubilee Pilgrimage Path at Lourdes
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In