I’ve loved St. Bernadette ever since I researched her story for a school project at 9 years old. St. Bernadette is best known for being the young visionary who Mary appeared to in Lourdes, France. She saw the Blessed Mother 18 times throughout the year 1858. Over the course of the apparitions, Mary spoke to Bernadette and eventually asked her to dig a grotto and have a chapel built at the apparition site. Despite receiving scrutiny from her community and countless questions from local authorities, Bernadette obeyed Mary’s request — and it paid off. The grotto she dug began to heal people, and today it remains one of the most popular Marian pilgrimage sites to visit.
I was immediately awed by St. Bernadette. She was a young girl, just like me, who did amazing things by following Mary’s commands. How cool was that? Struck by her story, I turned to this fascinating saint for every subsequent saint project, and she has remained one of my favorite saints to this day.
However, I paid little attention to her life after the Marian apparitions until recently.
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A couple of years ago, my friends gave me a book of St. Bernadette’s writings for my birthday. The book was the first time I read Bernadette’s own words. She was warm yet wise, funny yet so full of trust for the Lord.
Most of the book included letters that Bernadette sent after she left Lourdes — after the apparitions stopped — and became a Sister of Charity in Nevers, France. Her life as a religious was ordinary — she worked as a nurse’s assistant in the hospital and served as a sacristan at the chapel. Unfortunately, she was mostly ill during this time, and her health declined until her death at the age of 35.
Bernadette’s quiet humility as she suffered was powerful: She never complained but bore her cross with love and trust. She never saw herself as anything more than a humble child of God. And she never questioned why those visits with Mary ended.
While most of our spiritual journeys are not as dramatic as Bernadette’s, we, too, will leave our own “mountaintop moments” and enter times when faith is difficult or simply ordinary. This might look like coming off of a spiritual high from a retreat, having an immense feeling of peace after receiving a sacrament for the first time, or being inspired after a powerful talk, and then returning to daily life. Bernadette’s quiet devotion gives us three takeaways about living the ordinariness of everyday life after a spiritual mountain.
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Being rooted in humility
In Bernadette’s letters, she emphasized that she was a poor sinner in need of prayers. It’s surprising that a saint who received so many prayer requests from others wished for prayers for herself in return! Even after directly communicating with Mary, Bernadette saw herself as an instrument of God. One time, a sister asked Bernadette if she felt special because Mary spoke to her. Bernadette simply replied, “The Blessed Virgin used me like a broom. What do you do with a broom when you have finished sweeping? You put it back in its place, behind the door!”
When we feel God’s presence strongly — whether it be through the beauty of nature or a powerful talk — we experience a special grace from God. Yet, we receive this grace for a particular reason — in order to share it with others. Just as Bernadette knew her visions of Mary were for founding the grotto, so also are the graces from our own spiritual highs meant to be shared. For example, during one holy hour, I felt a very deep peace from Christ. I shared the feeling of this experience with others to explain the power Christ’s presence in the Eucharist had on my life. Sharing our graces with someone else keeps the true meaning of the spiritual high — a sign of God’s love for us — in our hearts.
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Remaining present for others
Something that struck me about Bernadette’s letters was how invested she was in the lives of those around her. Even after she left her hometown to join the Sisters of Charity in Nevers, she was constantly praying for the people dearest to her back home. Her family, friends, and acquaintances were always on her mind despite her frequent bouts with illness.
After she learned that her younger brother, Pierre, was getting into trouble back home, Bernadette constantly reached out. In one letter, she reprimands her brother’s behavior but also gives him guidance filled with the love of a godmother. She concludes by reaffirming her prayers for him and all their family back home.
Like Bernadette, we can use the graces from our past spiritual mountains to care for the needs of others. No matter how she was feeling physically, Bernadette made time to write to those she loved. We, too, can check in on those in our lives, even when we’re busy. Instead of solely dwelling in past memories, we can use the love we received from those moments and share it with our neighbors, no matter what is going on in our lives. Even using these graces to pray to others — maybe to a particular saint like St. Bernadette with Mary — keeps us in the present moment.
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Practicing gratitude for the graces received
When I was a freshman in college, I went on a very moving retreat. At the end of the retreat, the leaders asked us to plan how we wanted to incorporate prayer into our lives. Eager and inspired by the talks of the weekend, I made several ambitious plans. By the end of the first week back, these plans failed because it was harder to be grateful for the graces through the noise of campus life.
St. Bernadette shows us how we can let spiritual gifts fuel our lives, instead of forgetting them. While Bernadette never went back to the grotto after she left for Nevers in 1866, she always remembered the graces tied to that place. In letters, she would frequently ask her friends and loved ones to say a prayer at “my dear grotto,” especially asking for our Lady’s intercession.
We too can turn to those saints — or even those people — that remind us of spiritual highs and say a prayer of gratitude. The main theme of my retreat was being “sent out” into the world like the apostles and St. Paul. One of my campus’ chapels is named after him, and when I go, I look at St. Paul’s statue and remember the graces from that retreat with gratitude in my heart.
Those spiritual climaxes invigorate our faith, but God is present in all the little, mundane moments of our lives, too. May we use those moments of spiritual intensity as a torch for humility, prayerfulness, and gratitude in our everyday lives.
St. Bernadette, pray for us!
