Lourdes: the greatness of little Bernadette

The greatness of little Bernadette

I will not make you happy in this world, but in the other!

This had been heard by the "Lady dressed in white" who had appeared to her in the cave of Massabielle on 11 February 1858. She was a girl of barely 14 years old, almost illiterate and poor in all senses, both for the scarce economic resources available to the family, both for her limited intellectual capacity, and for an extremely unsteady health that, with her continuous asthma attacks, did not allow her to breathe. As a job, she grazed the sheep and her only pastime was the crown of the rosary which she recited daily, finding comfort and companionship in it. Yet it was precisely to her, a girl apparently "to be discarded" according to the worldly mentality, that the Virgin Mary presented herself with that appellation that the Church had, just four years earlier, proclaimed as dogma: I am the Immaculate Conception, the he said during one of the 18 apparitions that Bernadette had in that cave near Lourdes, her birthplace. Once again God had chosen in the world "what is foolish to confuse the wise" (see 1 Cor 23), overturning all the criteria of evaluation and human greatness. It is a style that has been repeated over time, including in those years in which the Son of God chose among the humble and ignorant fishermen those Apostles who were to continue his mission on earth, giving life to the first Church. "Thank you because if there had been a more insignificant young woman than me you would not have chosen me ..." wrote the young woman in her Testament, aware that God chose her "privileged" collaborators among the poor and the least.

Bernadette Soubirous was the opposite of a mystique; his, as has been said, was an intelligence only practical and of poor memory. Yet he never contradicted himself when he recounted what he had seen and heard "in the cave by the Lady dressed in white and with a blue ribbon tied around her waist". Why believe her? Precisely because it was coherent and above all because it did not seek advantages for itself, nor popularity, nor money! And then how did he know, in his abysmal ignorance, that mysterious and profound truth of the Immaculate Conception that the Church had just affirmed? It was precisely this that convinced his parish priest.

But if a new page of the book of God's mercy was written for the world (the recognition of the authenticity of the apparitions of Lourdes arrived just four years later, in 1862), for the visionary she began a path of suffering and persecution that accompanied her until the end of his life. I will not make you happy in this world ... The Lady was not joking. Bernadette was soon the victim of suspicions, made fun of, interrogations, accusations of all kinds, even of arrest. It was hardly believed by anyone: was it possible that Our Lady had chosen her? The girl never contradicted herself, but to protect herself from such fury she was advised to lock herself in the Monastery of Nerves. "I came here to hide," she said on the day of her dressing and carefully avoided seeking privileges or favors just because God had chosen her completely different from the others. There was no danger. It was not what Our Lady had foreseen for her here on earth ...

Even in the convent, in fact, Bernadette had to undergo a continuous series of humiliations and injustices, as she herself attests in her Testament: “Thank you for filling the too tender heart you gave me with bitterness. for the sarcasm of the Mother Superior, her harsh voice, her injustices, her irony and humiliations, thank you. Thank you for being the privileged object of the reproaches, for which the Sisters said: How lucky not to be Bernadette! ”. This was the mood with which she accepted the treatment that had happened to her, including that bitter affirmation that she had heard from the superior when the bishop was about to assign her an assignment: “What does it mean to her that it is good to nothing? ". The man of God, not at all intimidated, replied: "My daughter, since you are a good-for-nothing I give you the task of prayer!".

Involuntarily he entrusted her with the same mission that the Immaculate Conception had already given her to Massabielle, when through her she asked everyone: Conversion, penance, prayer ... Throughout her life the little visionary obeyed this will, praying in hiding and enduring all in union with the passion of Christ. He offered it, in peace and love, for the conversion of sinners, according to the will of the Virgin. A profound joy accompanied her, however, during the long nine years she spent in bed, before dying at the young age of 35, gripped in the grip of an evil that was getting worse and worse.

To those who comforted her, she replied with the same smile that illuminated her during the meetings with the Madonna: "Mary is so beautiful that those who see her would like to die to see her again". When the physical pain became more unbearable, she sighed: "No, I am not looking for relief, but only strength and patience". Its brief existence therefore passed in the humble acceptance of that suffering, which served to redeem many souls in need of rediscovering freedom and salvation. A generous response to the invitation of the Immaculate Conception that had appeared to her and that had spoken to her. And aware that her holiness would not have depended on having had the privilege of seeing Our Lady, Bernadette thus concluded her Testament: “Thank you, my God for this soul that you have given me, for the desert of inner aridity, for your darkness and your revelations, your silences and your flashes; for everything, for you, absent or present, thank you Jesus ”. Stefania Consoli

Source: Eco di Maria nr. 158