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Bernadette of Lourdes
English, French (translation)
243 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
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About the author
René Laurentin
238 books5 followersFather René Laurentin was a French theologian. He is widely recognized as an expert in the field of Mariology and is the author of numerous books and scholarly articles on topics including Marian apparitions such as Lourdes and Medjugorje; visionaries and mystics including Bernadette Soubirous, Thérèse de Lisieux, Catherine Labouré, and Yvonne Aimée de Malestroit; as well as biblical exegesis, theology, and Vatican II.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 13, 2022
Het levensverhaal van Bernadette Soubirous is eigenlijk een triest verhaal. Bernadette is een arm, ziekelijk meisje. De familie leeft in een vochtig en donker 'cachot', wat natuurlijk zeer ongezond is. Als Bernadette op een dag hout gaat sprokkelen met enkele vriendinnen, wordt ze aangetrokken om het riviertje de Gave over te steken tot bij een grot. Daar ziet ze (en zij alleen) een figuur in het wit, die lijkt op een jong meisje. De eerste keren dat ze haar ziet, heeft de 'dame' geen boodschap voor Bernadette, het is eerst later dat ze enkele woorden zal spreken, en Bernadette zal vragen om een putje te graven, waar later water uit opborrelt, en ze vraagt ook om een kapel voor haar te bouwen.
Wat Bernadette vertelt, wordt door zowel de kerkelijke als de administratieve met veel scepsis onthaald, maar het aantal mensen uit de streek dat ook naar de grot trekt, neemt steeds toe. Ook Bernadette verbieden om naar de grot te gaan, haalt niets uit, als ze de aandrang voelt, gaat ze toch.
Na enkele weken houden de verschijningen op.
Daarna wordt het latere leven van Bernadette beschreven, vooral haar kloosterleven. Ze hield er niet van dat mensen haar wilden komen bezoeken, haar wilden aanraken, of haar dingen wilden laten aanraken die ze dan als een relikwie zouden vereren. Daarom was ze blij met de bescherming van het klooster. Ze heeft daar echter geen gemakkelijk leven gehad, integendeel, het leek wel of de oversten harder tegen haar waren, om te vermijden dat ze 'trots' zou worden.
Bernadette (zuster Marie-Bernarde) is op 35jarige leeftijd, na een lang ziekbed, overleden in het klooster Saint-Gildard van Nevers.
Ik denk dat de schrijver van dit boek wel zo veel mogelijk historisch accuraat probeerde te zijn, en niets toe te voegen dat niet echt bewezen is (er wordt bijvoorbeeld over geen enkel erkend wonder gesproken, en de beschrijving van de verschijningen is zeer sober gehouden). Maar het gaat hier natuurlijk over het katholieke leven van Bernadette, dus soms is er wel enige subjectiviteit te bespeuren, vind ik. Toch is dit historisch waardevolle literatuur voor mij. Ik had niet meer van dit boek verwacht.
Wat Bernadette vertelt, wordt door zowel de kerkelijke als de administratieve met veel scepsis onthaald, maar het aantal mensen uit de streek dat ook naar de grot trekt, neemt steeds toe. Ook Bernadette verbieden om naar de grot te gaan, haalt niets uit, als ze de aandrang voelt, gaat ze toch.
Na enkele weken houden de verschijningen op.
Daarna wordt het latere leven van Bernadette beschreven, vooral haar kloosterleven. Ze hield er niet van dat mensen haar wilden komen bezoeken, haar wilden aanraken, of haar dingen wilden laten aanraken die ze dan als een relikwie zouden vereren. Daarom was ze blij met de bescherming van het klooster. Ze heeft daar echter geen gemakkelijk leven gehad, integendeel, het leek wel of de oversten harder tegen haar waren, om te vermijden dat ze 'trots' zou worden.
Bernadette (zuster Marie-Bernarde) is op 35jarige leeftijd, na een lang ziekbed, overleden in het klooster Saint-Gildard van Nevers.
Ik denk dat de schrijver van dit boek wel zo veel mogelijk historisch accuraat probeerde te zijn, en niets toe te voegen dat niet echt bewezen is (er wordt bijvoorbeeld over geen enkel erkend wonder gesproken, en de beschrijving van de verschijningen is zeer sober gehouden). Maar het gaat hier natuurlijk over het katholieke leven van Bernadette, dus soms is er wel enige subjectiviteit te bespeuren, vind ik. Toch is dit historisch waardevolle literatuur voor mij. Ik had niet meer van dit boek verwacht.
May 18, 2024
A FINE BIOGRAPHY OF THE SEERESS OF LOURDES
Father René Laurentin (1917-2017) was a French theologian and Mariologist. He wrote in the Prologue of this 1978 book, “Bernadette Soubirous, the seer of Lourdes, died at the age of thirty-five on April 16, 1879, twenty-one years after the apparitions of the Virgin Mary to her in 1858. She died in the convent of Satin Gildard in Nevers, France, after living the life of a nun for thirteen years. She alone had seen the Virgin Mary in the grotto. It is thanks to this virgin alone---poor, uneducated and disdained---that the shrine of Lourdes was established and is now visited by four million visitors and pilgrims each year… And yet she id the most secret of the saints, as many like to point out… they are thinking of the private, hidden quality of her holiness, a holiness devoid of notable deeds, great writings, and human triumphs. Hers is a holiness of the poor. The secret of this holiness escaped Bernadette’s own mistress of novices… [who] did not want to hear any talk about Bernadette’s canonization… Her life, devoid of artifice and studied introspection, prompts us to avoid commentary and to simply repeat her deeds, actions, and words, staying as close to the authentic documents as possible. That is the best chance we have of revealing her secret, which is a secret of transparency.”
He recounts, “At the start of 1957, continuing unemployment puts the Soubirous [family] out on the streets again. They must depart from their seedy lodging in the Rives house… Where are they to find a roof over their heads? … No one wants the Soubirous any more. The las chance open to them is The Jail, which is described as ‘a foul, somber hovel’… The Jail was the scarcely habitable room of the old prison.” (Pg. 11) “Back in The Jail, she once again discovered the poverty, the dampness, the stench, and the gloominess. But she also has the affection of her own family once again. This is the choice she has made.” (Pg. 23)
On February 11, 1858, she and two others were looking for wood by a rocky cliff with a grotto. “Bernadette … looks behind her… Bernadette sees a wonderful girl, dressed in white. She opens her hands in a welcoming gesture … ‘The vision made the Sign of the Cross… I knelt down and I said my rosary in the presence of the beautiful lady. The vision fingered the beads of her own rosary, but she did not move her lips. When I finished my rosary, she signed for me to approach; but I did not dare. Then she disappeared, just like that.’” (Pg. 27-28) “In a few words, Bernadette confides the secret of the apparition to Toinette [her younger sister]. It arouses inf Toinette both fear and a certain envy of Bernadette… [Back at home Toinette] blurted out, “Bernadette saw a white girl in the grotto of Massabielle.’” (Pg. 29-30) “Troubled, Louise [her mother, and a friend] questions] Bernadette… Their conclusion is: ‘It’s a dream… an illusion. She must not go back to Massabielle again.’” (Pg. 31)
Bernadette goes to confession on the 13th, and tells the priest. “I saw something white, in the shape of a lady.’ … Father Pomian … says to Bernadette: ‘May I speak to Reverend Father … about this?’ Bernadette says yes… That very evening Father Pomian meets Dean Peyramale… and appraises him of this minor matter. ‘We must wait and see,’ is all that the Dean has to say.” (Pg. 32) On the 16th, “Madame Milhet’s interest in the grotto affair is aroused. She is an opulent woman… who came into a nice fortune… Bernadette is the first to get to the grotto… They have barely begun their rosary when Bernadette murmurs … ‘She is here.’… It had been agreed that Bernadette was to [ask] the apparition, ‘Would you be so kind as to write down your name?’ … The other two women … see nothing and they cannot even hear Bernadette’s voice… The mysterious young lady of the rock…. Replied simply… ‘It is not necessary.’ [Madame Millhet] had her own request to make to Bernadette … ‘Would you have the graciousness to come here for fifteen days?’ … Bernadette had promised to come on the impulse of the moment… ‘And what if it was the Holy Virgin?’ remarks Madame Millhet on the way back home.” (Pg. 36-38)
“With the help of reports and rumors, there are eight people at the grotto on Friday, February 19…and one hundred people on Sunday, February 21. The apparition returns, in silence… Who is it? And what will take place on the last of the fifteen days…? Will there be some miracle, some revelation, or some disaster? Rumors run rife.” (Pg. 39)
Bernadette was questioned by the police: “‘And that thing did not say to you: ‘I am the Holy Virgin?’ ‘Aquero [‘that thing’] did not way that to me.’ ‘But that is what the people in town are saying.’ Yes, that is what people are saying. Indeed that is what is being printed in the local weekly…” (Pg. 43) By the time of the 8th apparition on February 24th, “Bernadette has a hard time getting to ‘her’ lace amid a crowd of almost 300 people… Bernadette… has just prostrated herself and kissed the ground at the request of the apparition.” (Pg. 53) “At the end of her ecstasy before 1,650 people on March 2, Bernadette sets out for the rectory. She is preceded there by some of the devout, who have gotten a message out of her: ‘Go tell the priests that people are to come here in procession and to build a chapel here.” (Pg. 62)
“The last day of the fifteen has come. It is the ‘big day,’ as everyone puts it… the police commissioner if at the grotto… the people are crushed into every nook and cranny of the grotto… Estimates [of the crowd] range from 8,000 to 20,000… At the third Hail Mary of the second decade of the rosary, Bernadette goes into ecstasy… The apparition has been a long one, lasting a good three-quarters of an hour… However, there has been no miracle and no revelation. The crowd dwindles away.” (Pg. 66-68) But later, a girl is said to have been cured of blindness; yet a priest concludes, “The girl was never blind, but the state of her health is not good.” The girl herself will die the next year.” (Pg. 71)
In the early morning of March 25, Bernadette goes to the grotto, and trepeatedly asks the apparition who she is, and it tells her, ‘Que soy era Immaculada Councepciou’ [‘I am the Immaculate Conception’]… [Dean] Peyramale [says to her]: ‘A woman cannot have that name! You are mistaken! Do you know that that means?’ Bernadette shakes her head no.” (Pg. 75-76) The police forbid anyone from visiting the grotto. “Bernadette … had stayed completely out of this feverish business. She… counseled people against crossing the barricades… Five days [later] … Bernadette feels drawn to Massabielle… Groups of people are there on their knees, praying silently in the direction of the barricaded grotto across the way. Bernadette kneels down, too… The rosary is scarcely begun when Bernadette’s hand open wide in a greeting of joyous surprise. Her face pales and lights up… She recites the rosary for some length of time… Then she got up. It is over. This final apparition had been a silent one… Bernadette had only this to say: ‘I saw neither the boards nor the Gave... I saw only the Holy Virgin.’ It was the last time she would see her on this earth.” (Pg. 83-84)
In April of 1864 Bernadette “found enlightenment about this decision on her religious vocation in the Communion she received that morning.” (Pg. 115) “On October 30, 1867 Bernadette makes her religious profession.” (Pg. 149) “From 1875 on, the story of Bernadette’s life is inextricably bound up with that of her illnesses. Henceforth ‘useless,’ she makes every effort to shoulder her new situation as a ‘job’ in the service of God. ‘The job of sickness,’ she herself would call it.” (Pg.171) “Bernadette accomplishes this passage amid a series of mysterious trials and a dark night of the soul. She is not afflicted with suffering only…” (Pg. 185) She was severely interrogated again: “These interrogations entailed suffering for Bernadette. Indeed she had made a surprising confidential remark to Bishop Bourret… on September 1, 1877. She told him how reluctant she was to talk about the visions she had seen when she was so young: ‘All those things… are already so far back, so long ago. I no longer remember. I do not like to talk about them too much because, my God, what if I made a mistake?’ The remark should not astonish us too much. Such forgetfulness and doubting are a classic phenomenon in the case of mystics. It is difficult and often impossible to recall the memory of those states which lasted but a few seconds…” (Pg. 217)
This is a marvelous biography of Bernadette Soubirous; it does not cover the subsequent history of Lourdes, healings, etc.---but it will be of great interest to anyone wanting to know more about Bernadette herself.
Father René Laurentin (1917-2017) was a French theologian and Mariologist. He wrote in the Prologue of this 1978 book, “Bernadette Soubirous, the seer of Lourdes, died at the age of thirty-five on April 16, 1879, twenty-one years after the apparitions of the Virgin Mary to her in 1858. She died in the convent of Satin Gildard in Nevers, France, after living the life of a nun for thirteen years. She alone had seen the Virgin Mary in the grotto. It is thanks to this virgin alone---poor, uneducated and disdained---that the shrine of Lourdes was established and is now visited by four million visitors and pilgrims each year… And yet she id the most secret of the saints, as many like to point out… they are thinking of the private, hidden quality of her holiness, a holiness devoid of notable deeds, great writings, and human triumphs. Hers is a holiness of the poor. The secret of this holiness escaped Bernadette’s own mistress of novices… [who] did not want to hear any talk about Bernadette’s canonization… Her life, devoid of artifice and studied introspection, prompts us to avoid commentary and to simply repeat her deeds, actions, and words, staying as close to the authentic documents as possible. That is the best chance we have of revealing her secret, which is a secret of transparency.”
He recounts, “At the start of 1957, continuing unemployment puts the Soubirous [family] out on the streets again. They must depart from their seedy lodging in the Rives house… Where are they to find a roof over their heads? … No one wants the Soubirous any more. The las chance open to them is The Jail, which is described as ‘a foul, somber hovel’… The Jail was the scarcely habitable room of the old prison.” (Pg. 11) “Back in The Jail, she once again discovered the poverty, the dampness, the stench, and the gloominess. But she also has the affection of her own family once again. This is the choice she has made.” (Pg. 23)
On February 11, 1858, she and two others were looking for wood by a rocky cliff with a grotto. “Bernadette … looks behind her… Bernadette sees a wonderful girl, dressed in white. She opens her hands in a welcoming gesture … ‘The vision made the Sign of the Cross… I knelt down and I said my rosary in the presence of the beautiful lady. The vision fingered the beads of her own rosary, but she did not move her lips. When I finished my rosary, she signed for me to approach; but I did not dare. Then she disappeared, just like that.’” (Pg. 27-28) “In a few words, Bernadette confides the secret of the apparition to Toinette [her younger sister]. It arouses inf Toinette both fear and a certain envy of Bernadette… [Back at home Toinette] blurted out, “Bernadette saw a white girl in the grotto of Massabielle.’” (Pg. 29-30) “Troubled, Louise [her mother, and a friend] questions] Bernadette… Their conclusion is: ‘It’s a dream… an illusion. She must not go back to Massabielle again.’” (Pg. 31)
Bernadette goes to confession on the 13th, and tells the priest. “I saw something white, in the shape of a lady.’ … Father Pomian … says to Bernadette: ‘May I speak to Reverend Father … about this?’ Bernadette says yes… That very evening Father Pomian meets Dean Peyramale… and appraises him of this minor matter. ‘We must wait and see,’ is all that the Dean has to say.” (Pg. 32) On the 16th, “Madame Milhet’s interest in the grotto affair is aroused. She is an opulent woman… who came into a nice fortune… Bernadette is the first to get to the grotto… They have barely begun their rosary when Bernadette murmurs … ‘She is here.’… It had been agreed that Bernadette was to [ask] the apparition, ‘Would you be so kind as to write down your name?’ … The other two women … see nothing and they cannot even hear Bernadette’s voice… The mysterious young lady of the rock…. Replied simply… ‘It is not necessary.’ [Madame Millhet] had her own request to make to Bernadette … ‘Would you have the graciousness to come here for fifteen days?’ … Bernadette had promised to come on the impulse of the moment… ‘And what if it was the Holy Virgin?’ remarks Madame Millhet on the way back home.” (Pg. 36-38)
“With the help of reports and rumors, there are eight people at the grotto on Friday, February 19…and one hundred people on Sunday, February 21. The apparition returns, in silence… Who is it? And what will take place on the last of the fifteen days…? Will there be some miracle, some revelation, or some disaster? Rumors run rife.” (Pg. 39)
Bernadette was questioned by the police: “‘And that thing did not say to you: ‘I am the Holy Virgin?’ ‘Aquero [‘that thing’] did not way that to me.’ ‘But that is what the people in town are saying.’ Yes, that is what people are saying. Indeed that is what is being printed in the local weekly…” (Pg. 43) By the time of the 8th apparition on February 24th, “Bernadette has a hard time getting to ‘her’ lace amid a crowd of almost 300 people… Bernadette… has just prostrated herself and kissed the ground at the request of the apparition.” (Pg. 53) “At the end of her ecstasy before 1,650 people on March 2, Bernadette sets out for the rectory. She is preceded there by some of the devout, who have gotten a message out of her: ‘Go tell the priests that people are to come here in procession and to build a chapel here.” (Pg. 62)
“The last day of the fifteen has come. It is the ‘big day,’ as everyone puts it… the police commissioner if at the grotto… the people are crushed into every nook and cranny of the grotto… Estimates [of the crowd] range from 8,000 to 20,000… At the third Hail Mary of the second decade of the rosary, Bernadette goes into ecstasy… The apparition has been a long one, lasting a good three-quarters of an hour… However, there has been no miracle and no revelation. The crowd dwindles away.” (Pg. 66-68) But later, a girl is said to have been cured of blindness; yet a priest concludes, “The girl was never blind, but the state of her health is not good.” The girl herself will die the next year.” (Pg. 71)
In the early morning of March 25, Bernadette goes to the grotto, and trepeatedly asks the apparition who she is, and it tells her, ‘Que soy era Immaculada Councepciou’ [‘I am the Immaculate Conception’]… [Dean] Peyramale [says to her]: ‘A woman cannot have that name! You are mistaken! Do you know that that means?’ Bernadette shakes her head no.” (Pg. 75-76) The police forbid anyone from visiting the grotto. “Bernadette … had stayed completely out of this feverish business. She… counseled people against crossing the barricades… Five days [later] … Bernadette feels drawn to Massabielle… Groups of people are there on their knees, praying silently in the direction of the barricaded grotto across the way. Bernadette kneels down, too… The rosary is scarcely begun when Bernadette’s hand open wide in a greeting of joyous surprise. Her face pales and lights up… She recites the rosary for some length of time… Then she got up. It is over. This final apparition had been a silent one… Bernadette had only this to say: ‘I saw neither the boards nor the Gave... I saw only the Holy Virgin.’ It was the last time she would see her on this earth.” (Pg. 83-84)
In April of 1864 Bernadette “found enlightenment about this decision on her religious vocation in the Communion she received that morning.” (Pg. 115) “On October 30, 1867 Bernadette makes her religious profession.” (Pg. 149) “From 1875 on, the story of Bernadette’s life is inextricably bound up with that of her illnesses. Henceforth ‘useless,’ she makes every effort to shoulder her new situation as a ‘job’ in the service of God. ‘The job of sickness,’ she herself would call it.” (Pg.171) “Bernadette accomplishes this passage amid a series of mysterious trials and a dark night of the soul. She is not afflicted with suffering only…” (Pg. 185) She was severely interrogated again: “These interrogations entailed suffering for Bernadette. Indeed she had made a surprising confidential remark to Bishop Bourret… on September 1, 1877. She told him how reluctant she was to talk about the visions she had seen when she was so young: ‘All those things… are already so far back, so long ago. I no longer remember. I do not like to talk about them too much because, my God, what if I made a mistake?’ The remark should not astonish us too much. Such forgetfulness and doubting are a classic phenomenon in the case of mystics. It is difficult and often impossible to recall the memory of those states which lasted but a few seconds…” (Pg. 217)
This is a marvelous biography of Bernadette Soubirous; it does not cover the subsequent history of Lourdes, healings, etc.---but it will be of great interest to anyone wanting to know more about Bernadette herself.
November 28, 2017
La biografía de Bernadette Soubirous, la vidente de Lourdes, es un testimonio de fe y amor a Cristo y a la Virgen. El autor, destacado teólogo, expone de manera amena y didáctica, la vida de esta santa, basándose en diarios y documentos históricos. Se nota mucho la buena documentación que sostiene el relato. También destaca la capacidad de René Laurentin para describir y hacernos llegar la particular personalidad de Bernardita, su sencillez, su carácter decidido y auténtico, sin doblez alguna. Este libro me ha llevado a comprender mejor el fenómeno de las apariciones de Lourdes y me ha generado mucha simpatía por Santa Bernardita. Una joya de libro, sinceramente.
July 14, 2023
Extremely moving, not just from a religious perspective but from a historical and personal point of view.
It is extremely factual without being dull, as the many quotes from people who were in Bernadette’s life and Bernadette herself have been seamlessly drawn together with historical records, context, and the writers own knowledge to create a compelling narrative. Surprising for an unassuming, even strange and niche seeming book.
It is extremely factual without being dull, as the many quotes from people who were in Bernadette’s life and Bernadette herself have been seamlessly drawn together with historical records, context, and the writers own knowledge to create a compelling narrative. Surprising for an unassuming, even strange and niche seeming book.
October 8, 2020
I am in a state of grieving the loss of my mother who died a month ago on the 4th. I happened upon this book in her room which was one of her favorites. It was written by a French priest and I was deeply moved by his passionate story telling. Bernadette was born into a life of dire poverty in January of 1844. Her early childhood included living in a converted concrete jail with the bars removed from the windows. The uneducated girl barely managed to make her First Holy Communion. On February 11, 1858, Bernadette ventured out to seek wood for the fireplace. With a gust of wind appeared a lady dressed in white. The vision made the Sign of the Cross and held Rosary Beads in her hands. The lady in white vanished without a word. The people of the village heard of the apparition and three days later several of them followed the girl to the grotto and witnessed her in deep prayer. They saw nothing but she had another vision. Mary returned four days later and asked the girl to return for the next fifteen days. The police commissioner interrogated Bernadette and attempted to prevent her from returning to the grotto. Throughout February, the crowds following the fourteen year-old girl continued to grow. At the ninth apparition, Mary told Bernadette to wash her face at the spring. She was mocked, as the water was muddy and onlookers thought the girl insane. Soon after the hole turned into a fountain of clear water which is now a holy shrine. Mary requested a chapel be built near the spring. A local priest asked Bernadette for the name of the lady in white. On March 25, she was told, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” July 16 would be her final visitation. Bernadette suffered from severe asthma and was first given Last Rites at the age of eighteen. After being blessed with water from Lourdes, she recovered. In 1846, she became Sister Marie-Bernard at the St. Gildard Convent in Nevers. Bernadette eventually became the head of the infirmary and developed an expertise in herbs and natural healing. While caring for others she came close to death on many occasions, vomiting blood and causing alarm at the convent. The final two years of her life, most especially the last two months, were times of excruciating pain for the future saint. She died in 1879 at the age of thirty-five. I found a used copy of this book a few years ago for my mother. Like Bernadette, she suffered from unceasing physical pain from a multitude of maladies. I tried my best to comfort her but failed to get her home in her final days. It is a regret from which I will suffer for all the days of my life. Father Laurentin has written a profoundly moving book which left me breathless and in tears.
July 16, 2020
Interesting but a bit dry.
December 14, 2022
Hermosa historia 💗. Qué lindo conocer de una santa tan humilde, alegre y rebelde.
May 30, 2015
Short and brief book of the details and the important events that happened to Bernadette. Liked it. Willing to read other books with more details of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary to Bernadette.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews