About the book: But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear. For, amen, I say to you, many prophets and just men have desired to see the things that you see, and have not seen them, and to hear the things that you hear and have not heard them. - Matthew 13. 16-17
Saint Bernadette Soubirous is a two-fold story: that of the apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Lourdes, France, in 1858, as well as that of the 14-year-old peasant girl - raised in dire poverty and unable to read - to whom Our Lady appeared.
But more, it is also the story of Saint Bernadette's hidden life as a seemingly ordinary nun in her convent at Nevers, where she reached such holiness that after her death, God saw fit to preserve her body incorrupt - as it remains to this day!
Beautifully set forth in this book are Saint Bernadette's childhood and life at home, her character - honest, intelligent and straightforward - her description of Our Lady, the events surrounding the 18 apparitions, the opposition of the civil authorities, and the shrine and miraculous spring at Lourdes.
Also described are Bernadette's life in the convent, where she suffered a martyrdom in body and in soul.
Saint Bernadette Soubirous (1844-1879) (1957) is translated and adapted from the French by John Joyce, SJ. Saint Bernadette Soubirous (1844-1879) was first published in France under the same title by Librairie Catholique Emmanuel Vitte, Paris, in 1954. This English edition is published by TAN Books and Publishers in 1985.
About the author: Bernadette Soubirous (1844 -1879), also known as Bernadette of Lourdes, was the firstborn daughter of a miller from Lourdes (Lorda in Occitan), in the department of Hautes-Pyrénées in France, and is best known for experiencing apparitions of a "young lady" who asked for a chapel to be built at the nearby cave-grotto. These apparitions occurred between 11 February and 16 July 1858, and the woman who appeared to her identified herself as the "Immaculate Conception".
After a canonical investigation, Soubirous's reports were eventually declared "worthy of belief" on 18 February 1862, and the Marian apparition became known as Our Lady of Lourdes. In 1866, Soubirous joined the Sisters of Charity of Nevers at their convent in Nevers where she spent the last years of her life. Her body is said by the Catholic Church to remain internally incorrupt. The grotto where the apparitions occurred later went on to become a major pilgrimage site and Marian shrine known as the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, attracting around five million pilgrims of all denominations each year.
Pope Pius XI beatified Bernadette Soubirous on 14 June 1925 and canonized her on 8 December 1933. Her feast day, initially specified as 18 February – the day Mary promised to make her happy, not in this life, but in the other – is now observed in most places on the date of her death, 16 April. (Wikipedia)
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