About
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Our Patron Saint
St. Bernadette was born Marie Bernarde Soubirous (her nickname was Bernadette) on January 7, 1844. Her family was very poor and Bernadette was in poor health all her life. When she was 14 Bernadette began to have visions of Mary at a grotto beside a river. Mary instructed the young girl to have a chapel built where people could wash in and drink from a spring, which appeared when Bernadette began to dig.
The visions Bernadette had totaled 18; during one of the visions she asked Mary her name and she responded, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” Bernadette joined a convent in 1864 where she lived a happy and humble life before dying of tuberculosis. Before her death the Basilica at Lourdes was begun and the healing waters are still something people seek each year. Bernadette became a saint on the feast of the Immaculate Conception.
St. Bernadette of Lourdes was best known as a saint who received visions from the Virgin Mary in a cave near Lourdes. Pope Pius XI canonized her as a saint in 1933. Her feast day is April 16th.
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