Dear John,
I have a special love for Bernadette. Every year on my birthday, my mom asked St. Bernadette to pray for me, since I was born on the feast day of Our Lady of Lourdes. When I struggle with my own inadequacies, I remember Bernadette's story. Today I pulled Melanie Rigney's book Sisterhood of Saints and read.
People were openly skeptical about why the Blessed Virgin would appear to a girl who was functionally illiterate; who at the time of the first apparition had not even made her First Communion. Bernadette was so unimportant! She lived with her family in a one-room cottage that had once served as a jail!
But Bernadette was spiritually indifferent to the doubts and verbal rocks thrown her way. With unfailing simplicity and calm, Bernadette shared what had happened—nothing more and nothing less—about the eighteen times in six months that she saw Our Lady. When investigators changed her words or tried to add to them, she corrected them. When they asked what it meant when Our Lady said, “I am the Immaculate Conception,” she said it was not her responsibility to explain these things, only to share the message.
And when the visions ceased, Bernadette did not make a single attempt to trade on her fame. She entered a convent—not leaving even for the dedication of the Lourdes Basilica. When someone asked why she herself, sickly her entire life, was not cured by the waters, Bernadette responded: “The Blessed Virgin perhaps desires for me to suffer. I need it.”
It can be tempting to do some self-aggrandizement, to inflate our own importance to the well-being of our family, our parish, or our employer. Yet we are all only vessels for God’s work in the world. May we, as Bernadette did, respond to the profound gifts we are given with humility, modesty, and clarity.
“From this moment on, anything concerning me is no longer of any interest to me. I must belong entirely to God and God alone. Never to myself.” —St. Bernadette Soubirous
In these difficult times, I wonder if St. Bernadette would challenge us to do something good for a family member or a friend in secret. Melanie Rigney's book, Blessed Are You: Finding Inspiration from Our Sisters in Faith, would make a perfect gift. I'll make it easier for you by marking it down by 30% off today with discount code Blessed30 to celebrate the simple and grace-filled life of Bernadette.
I wish you peace and good in these troubled times.
Warmly,
Patty Crawford
Director of Marketing, Products
