The Song of Bernadette

 February 12 is the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.

This is how the grotto of Lourdes looks in this century:

I was there in 2004 -  how is it so long?     And also experienced the candlelight procession which happens just about each evening, where thousands of pilgrims carry candles and say the rosary together, in about ten different languages

I vividly remember reading Franz Werfel's novel The Song of Bernadette  when I was about ten years old.  It made an enormous impression on me.

Bernadette was about 15 years old, from a large, impoverished family, and in poor health.

On February 12, 1858, she was out gathering wood for the fire at home, and gathering it in a dump, when the lady appeared to her.  Bernadette called her "the lady"  and also "Aquero" which means "that one" in the local dialect.

In one of the later visions, the lady called herself "I am the Immaculate Conception".  Bernadette had not heard that expression before; the parish priest had to tell her that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was born free from original sin - a doctrine proclaimed just 4 years before all this happened.

This is a long and moving story.  The book tells it better than I can.