St. Bernadette
By Haden Luna
One Thursday, February 11, 1858, when Bernadette was sent with her younger sister and a friend to gather firewood, a very beautiful Lady appeared to her above a rose bush in a grot to Massabielle. The Lovely lady was dressed in blue and white, she smiled at Bernadette and then made the sign of the cross with the rosary of ivory and gold. Bernadette fell on her knees, took out her own rosary and began to pray the rosary. The beautiful Lady was God’s Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary. She appeared to Bernadette Seventeen other times and spoke with her. She told Bernadette that she should pray sinners, do penance and have a Chapel built their in her honor. Many did not believe Bernadette when she spoke of her vision. But one day when asked by Monsignor Forcade, to take Bernadette, Louise Ferrand, The Mother superior of the Sisters of Nevers, replied: “ Monsignor, she will be a pillar of the infirmary. St. Bernadette was born at Lourdes, France. Her parents were very poor and she herself was poor in health. Bernadette was always a frail child, quite young. She had already suffered from digestive trouble. Then after having just escaped the cholera epidemic of 1855, she experienced painful attacks of asthma. Her ill health almost caused her to be cut off forever
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She was gradually struck by other illnesses as well as asthma: among them teberculosius, of the lung and a tubercular tumor on her right knee. On Wednesday, April 16,1879, her pain got much worse. Shortly after eleven she seemed to be almost suffocating and was carried to an armchair, where she sat on a footstool in front of a blazing fire. On April 16,1879, Bernadette or Sister Marie Bernard, as she was known within her order died in Sainte Croix (Holy Cross) Infirmary of the Covenant of Saint Gildard. She was thirty five. Born into a humble family which little by little fell into extreme