St. Bernadette Soubirous: Feast Day, Patronage & Prayers
Feast day: April 16 (kept in France and in many places; not on the General Roman Calendar)
Patron of: The sick, the poor, and Lourdes.
About St. Bernadette Soubirous
Bernadette Soubirous was born in 1844 at Lourdes, in southern France, the eldest child of a miller whose family fell into desperate poverty. By 1858 they were living in a single damp room that had once been the town jail. Bernadette suffered from asthma, had little schooling, and had not yet made her First Communion. On February 11 of that year, while gathering firewood near the grotto of Massabielle, she saw a beautiful young Lady dressed in white, who appeared to her eighteen times and, on March 25, said, "I am the Immaculate Conception."
Bernadette faced intense questioning from priests, police, and officials, and she answered simply and consistently, never seeking attention. In 1866 she entered the Sisters of Charity of Nevers, where she lived quietly, served in the infirmary and sacristy, and endured long, painful illness, saying that her work was to be sick. "The Blessed Virgin used me like a broom," she said, "and then put me back in my corner." She died in 1879 at thirty-five and was canonized in 1933. Her body, found incorrupt, rests at Nevers.
Prayers to St. Bernadette Soubirous on Daily Catholic Prayers
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