The Lady Smiled at Me

By Sister Redempta Twomey

In the semi-darkness of the confessional, the priest, Fr Romain listened to the little girl. Poor and unlettered, she told him of the strange event that had happened two days previously on the eleventh of February 1858 in the grotto of Massabielle. In the local dialect she said, "I saw something white, in the shape of a lady." A good man, he listened without showing any interest though he was amazed at the coherence of her story. One detail in particular struck him: as she bent to remove her shoes and stockings to cross the little stream and join her two companions in gatherings sticks, Bernadette said she heard a noise, 'like a gust of wind.' The priest thought of the 'gust of wind' at Pentecost in Acts Ch 2. Was this too the Holy Spirit? It was then that the child saw 'something white' and knelt and prayed the rosary before her.

Afterwards there was nothing but the drizzling rain falling on the grey rock. The grotto at the time was a poor, dirty place where one might find sticks and old bones. The little shepherdess had gone there to look for wood for the fire in her wretched hovel she called home. But now she sat on a stone, happy and at peace; she wanted to keep silence about the vision, to hold it in her heart. But her little sister, Toinette and friend Jeanne winkled it out of her.

And so, the word spread, the people came and little Bernadette faced priest and prosecutor with unwavering calm. The lady asked her to come to the grotto for 15 days and despite opposition, Bernadette obeyed. The lady asked for a church and processions, she asked that people wash in the water Bernadette had so humiliatingly uncovered. The child faithfully relayed all her requests. But who was this lady?

The parish priest, Dean Peyramale, gave an ultimatum: "If she wants a chapel let her tell you her name." When Bernadette asked her, the lady simply smiled. "She is having a lot of fun with you," the Dean said. But he was struck by the huge numbers that went to the grotto, by the fervour and conversion of the people. Who was this woman?

In the morning light on March 25th, Bernadette knelt at the grotto and was overcome with joy when the lady appeared. This time she replied, "I am the Immaculate Conception." Not understanding the words, little Bernadette kept repeating them as she rushed off to the parish house and blurted them out to the priest. The Dean was dumbfounded. Only four years previously the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary had been proclaimed in Rome. But Bernadette would have known nothing of this, nor of the enormity of the revelation given to her. Her joy overflowed when she understood that it was indeed the Virgin Mary who had appeared to her.

Lourdes quickly became a place of pilgrimage; today over six million pilgrims come to pray at the grotto, to drink the water, to light candles and walk in processions. This year, the 150th anniversary of the apparitions, is a special Jubilee Year when even more pilgrims from all over the world are expected. In this place of prayer and healing the sick are welcomed and many are healed both physically and spiritually. There were three people present when Our Lady first appeared to Bernadette in February 1858. Exactly one hundred and fifty years later over 70,000 pilgrims united in prayer and celebrated the Eucharist by the Grotto.

In celebration of the Jubilee the façade of the Rosary Basilica (pictured left) has been covered with magnificent mosaics depicting the five Luminous mysteries of the rosary. These glowing images by Fr Marko I Rupnik are a marvellous evocation of the gospel. As one pilgrim said, "To gaze on them is to pray."

A new station walk for the sick lies by the River Gave. The beauty and power of the sculptures lead one to a deeper contemplation of the passion of Christ. Bernadette's own life was marked by the Passion from her childhood to her death in the convent of Nevers at the age of 35. She herself in her humility and simplicity is the greatest witness of Lourdes. "The beautiful young lady smiled at me and we prayed together." A century and a half later Lourdes remains impregnated with that smile and that prayer.

Pilgrims praying at the newly erected stations by the River Gave.

[Far East Magazine]