From Lourdes to Nevers, faithful to herself (1/3)

Sister Élisabeth, you have agreed to share with our readers of Bernadette manuscripts kept in the Nevers archives. What do they tell us about her?

Sister Élisabeth: We rarely show these documents because they are very fragile: they have crossed the wars, the fires, the captures linked to the passion that Bernadette arouses. We were able to save her first learning notebooks for writing and calculation written to the hospice of the sisters of Charity of Lourdes, her correspondence with her family, her pharmacy notes when she officiated to the infirmary at the convent Saint-Gildard de Nevers, his letter to Pope Pius IX, his intimate notebook …

These documents reveal his personality, his fierce desire to learn, his loyalty to his family and his testimony of the appearances which has never varied, but also his love of life, his humility, his modesty, his liveliness. They finally testify to his spiritual journey.

Precisely, between the schoolchildren’s pages and the intimate notebooks of maturity, is it the same Bernadette who is expressed?

S.é. :: It is the same Bernadette but her Marian spirituality born at the Massabielle cave opens to Christ in Nevers. Mary led him to Jesus. At the end of his life, Bernadette writes: “Jesus alone for master, Jesus alone for guide. Two times ago in Bernadette’s life: the period of testimony received and transmitted to Lourdes, which runs from 1858 to 1866, and the accomplishment of the message during the thirteen years spent in Nevers.

Lourdes first, where it all starts with a gale at the cave. Bernadette feels looked at for the first time in her life.

Father Vincent: The context of the event is important. At the time of the appearances, Bernadette made a gesture of daily life, she picks up dead wood to bring it back to the dungeon where the Soubirous family survives in great poverty. In this place which is anything but a palace – an obscure cave, a muddy ground – Marie chooses to address an ordinary young girl, of fragile health, without social status, insignificant in the eyes of the world.

Bernadette becomes famous overnight. We question her, we question her sincerity. Anyone would have cracked!

Father Vincent: Not her! Apparitions act as a revealer of his deep personality. Bernadette could have dissolved under pressure, she came out reinforced. The clarity of his testimony carries the conviction of all, of Father Dominique Peyramale, parish priest of Lourdes, to the bishop of Tarbes, passing by the commissioner. The gift she received gives her the inner strength to face everything.

S.é. :: Marie woke up the best of herself. “I am not afraid of anything, because I have always said the truth,” she said, when she is threatened with prison “I am responsible for telling you, not to make you believe,” said -I still. Whatever her interlocutor, the girl does not stop with the testimony of what she saw.

The world crowns in Lourdes to see “the one who saw”. Does the development of the railroad and the appearance of photography play a role in this vague pilgrim?

PV: The appearances of Lourdes see all the energies of the century converge: the images of Bernadette – the first clairvoyant to be photographed – and the cave propagate and attract pilgrims who can now make the train trip. The sanctuary develops, we come from everywhere in drinking processing at the source discovered by Bernadette. In 1873, the Assumption organized the first national pilgrimage, then, very quickly, that of the sick. The pilgrim-which serves as a link to all those who go to the cave-was born that year in the same momentum.

S.é. :: Bernadette who dreams only of discretion and erasure is found in full light. This is one of the reasons for his departure. She will write to her family: “I go to Nevers to hide. »»

Precisely, does Bernadette leave heavy of his own free will or do we decide to exfiltrate him because her presence causes the troubles?

S.é. :: It is badly knowing Bernadette to think that you can force her hand. She stayed eight years at the Hospice of the Sisters of Charity of Nevers in Lourdes. Protected by the curious, she educated herself there, her schoolboy notebooks testify to this, and she forges her vocation in contact with the sisters and the sick. To the bishop of Nevers who visits her to offer her to enter the congregation, she responds calmly: “I will think about it. She will think two years before saying yes! His decision to leave is fully matured.

Why does Bernadette choose the congregation of the Sisters of Charity of Nevers?

S.é. :: At the start, she wanted a contemplative life and wanted to enter Carmel but the rule was too hard for her fragile health and she did not want derogation. To the hospice of the sisters of charity, she discovers the beauty of apostolic life, the richness of a community life in the service of the poor: she understands that we can pray and act, devote herself to God and to the little ones, without being cloistered. “Have no other business than those of charity, no other interests than those of the unfortunate”, this word of the founder of our congregation meets his expectations.

Was Bernadette happy in Nevers? Was it treated more severely than the others? His mail expresses his difficulties.

S.é. :: It is necessary to put things back in context: in the 19th century, a certain severity was to put the convent and the novices subject to a fairly strict discipline. Bernadette sometimes regimens but also writes to her family that she is treated “like a princess” during her frequent stays at the infirmary.

It is certain that his relationship with the mistress of novices was complex: Mother Vauzou hoped from Bernadette a greater opening of the heart but, not used to confidences and impressed by this great lady, Bernadette remained on her reserve. If the two women considered themselves – Mother Vauzou entrusted responsibilities to Bernadette – they have not always understood.

The day after his arrival in Nevers, he was asked to make a last time the story of the appearances, then to blend into religious life.

S.é. :: In front of three hundred sisters, from the top of his 1.44 m, still in Pyrenean costume, Bernadette is so impressed that she begins her story in patois. She will find the necessary protection at the Saint-Gildard convent but not anonymity: photographers and journalists will not leave her in peace.

To a passage bishop who drops her cap at his feet and asks her to pick her up to have a relic, she answers greenly: “Pick up it yourself!” “At a postulating arrival in Nevers the year after her, who, when he saw her, whispering, designating her:” Bernadette, right? “Yes, that’s just that!” Answers the interested party from TAC. Bernadette is likely, carried away, impulsive, she is aware of it: “crucifying my own love”, she writes in her intimate notebook.

Bernadette has a very fragile health and dies at 35 years old. Is it because she is touched in her flesh that the patients turn to her?

S.é. :: Her experience of pain pushes her to relieve those who suffer. In Nevers, she was a help-infirmière, then responsible for the infirmary before he left it and “become a pillar” according to her. You have read his “prescriptions”. She treated the sisters, the orphans, the soldiers during the war against Prussia with a mixture of authority and affection that was doing wonder. The last years of her life, when bone tuberculosis struck her down, she took root in the infirmary in a curtain bed that she called “her white chapel”.

PV: From his first visions, Bernadette was surrounded by infirm and fragile people. CHÉTIVE, Asthmatic, she radiated and gave courage to the weakest who felt understood and raised by her. The miracle of Lourdes is that: Marie says nothing about the patients and the patients feel there at home. Lourdes is not a clinic, the miraculous healing rate is very low and yet all human suffering converges.

S.é. :: Exactly. The patients converge in Lourdes, welcomed as ordinary people. In Nevers, we come from all over the world to see and talk to Bernadette.

PV: With the COVID-19, the great temptation would be to empty heavy of the patients. Before the arrival of the virus, we went to Lourdes because we were suffering; From the pandemic, we would like to prevent the most fragile from coming under penalty of getting sick. But it’s not heavy that makes you sick! This precautionary principle begins our spiritual freedom. This August 15, we will welcome the sick, under the health conditions necessary for their safety, but they will have their place.

Bernadette writes: “I will not live for a moment that I do not pass it while loving. What does she mean?

S.é. :: It is at the same time a commitment, a desire and a prayer. Bernadette asks a grace, she would like to live for a moment without loving.

PV: For Bernadette, love is like the strength of the Gave current. She wishes to let the torrent of love run in her.

S.é. :: She also writes: “I am ground like a grain of wheat. Bernadette knows by her father, who was a miller, the destiny of a grain of wheat. Sick, she understands that we must accept to disappear to be reborn: like the ground of ground wheat which becomes flour and shared bread.

PV: A bag filled with grains cannot be consumed as is. Crove, transformed, it produces flour. From the test is born from bread. We recognize the origins, the common sense of Bernadette in this image.

To the sisters and all those who ask her to remember them in heaven, she affirms before dying: “I will not forget anyone. »»

PV: Bernadette does not claim that she has a good memory. All her life, she paid attention to others; She will keep each in her heart when leaving.

S.é. :: Yes, Bernadette is a mediator who has our prayers. In Nevers, we collect hundreds of intentions and sometimes find photos posed under her shrine. From Lourdes and Nevers, express this same thirst for protection, these gestures of popular piety.

And you, what intimate link do you have with Bernadette?

S.é. :: For me, Bernadette is a sister of the charity of Nevers, who accomplished, in Nevers, his vocation in an ordinary life. I entrust our congregation to him, our communities around the world, young people, elders, patients, new vocations, I ask her to transmit to myself the confidence she has received to carry out my mission.

PV: I like Bernadette because she knew how to keep a child’s heart, keep her spontaneity in the face of the trials of life. I am touched by his ability to love: Mary’s gaze has not only dazzled her, he avoided his on others. By Bernadette, Mary says all the tenderness of God for suffering humanity.