Saint Mary Bernard Soubirous. Virgin. Feast Day, Today, 18 February.

Text from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal,
unless stated otherwise.

Saint Mary Bernard Soubirous.
   Virgin. 
   Feast Day 18 February.

Double.

White Vestments.

Bernadette Soubirous, when a child.

Date: Circa 1858.

Source: Weltwoche 8/08.

Author: Unknown.

(Wikimedia Commons)

"The Song of Bernadette" (1943).

Available on YouTube at

YOU TUBE

Bernadette Soubirous was born at Lourdes in 1844. Our Lady appeared eighteen times to her in The Grotto of Massabielle, at the beginning of 1858 (Collect).

On 25 March 1858, The Blessed Virgin said to her: "I am The Immaculate Conception", thereby confirming The Dogma officially proclaimed by Blessed Pope Pius IX in 1854.

Leaving everything to purchase at such a price The Kingdom of Heaven (Gospel), she entered The Convent of The Sisters of Charity, at Nevers, France, in 1868. Here, she was given the name of Sister Mary Bernard, and died on 16 April 1879, after a hidden life of Prayer and Penance (Secret).

English: The Grotto at Lourdes, where Our Lady appeared to Saint Bernadette.

Português: Gruta de Lurdes.

Photo: 15 February 2014.

Source: Own work.

Author: José Luiz.

Attribution: © José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro / CC BY-SA 3.0

(Wikimedia Commons)

She was Canonised by Pope Pius XI on 8 December 1933. In 1936, her Feast was ordered to be Celebrated, by The Universal Church, eight days after The Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes on

11 February.

Mass: Vultum tuum.

Commemoration: In Lent, of The Feria.

Commemoration: Saint Simeon.

The following Text is from Wikipedia - the free encyclopaedia.

Saint Bernadette Soubirous (Occitan: Bernadeta Sobirós; 7 January 1844 – 16 April 1879), also known as Saint Bernadette of Lourdes, was the first-born daughter of a Miller, from Lourdes (Lorda, in Occitan), in The Department of Hautes-Pyrénées, in France, and came to be Venerated as a Saint in The Catholic Church.

Saint Mary Bernard Soubirous has become best known for The Marian Apparitions of a "Young Lady", who asked for a Chapel to be built at the nearby Cave-Grotto, at Massabielle, where Apparitions are said to have occurred between 11 February 1858 and 16 July 1858. She would later receive recognition when "The Lady", who appeared to her, identified herself as The Immaculate Conception.

Illustration: Copyright to Christine McDonald at AD MAJOREM DEI GLORIAM

Despite initial scepticism from some Church authorities, Saint Bernadette's claims were eventually declared "worthy of belief", after a Canonical Investigation, and The Marian Apparition became known as Our Lady of Lourdes.

Since her death, Saint Bernadette's body has apparently remained internally incorrupt, but it is not without blemish; during her third exhumation in 1925, the firm of Pierre Imans made light wax coverings for her face and her hands, due to the discolouration that her skin had undergone after her body was cleansed. These masks were placed on her face and hands before she was moved to her crystal Reliquary in June 1925. The Marian Shrine at Lourdes (Midi-Pyrénées, from 2016 part of Occitanie) went on to become a major Pilgrimage site, attracting over five million Pilgrims of all denominations each year.

On 8 December 1933, Pope Pius XI declared Saint Bernadette a Saint of The Catholic Church. Her Feast Day, initially specified as 18 February — the day her "Lady" promised to make her happy, not in this life, but in the next — is now observed in most places on the date of her death, 16 April.