St. Bernadette

Feast Day: April 14

Patroness of Bodily illness, Lourdes, France, shepherds and shepherdesses, against poverty, people ridiculed for their faith

In 1858, while gathering firewood, a very beautiful lady appeared to St. Bernadette while she was gathering firewood in a grotto. The woman wore blue and white and smiled at Bernadette just before beginning to pray her rosary. Shortly after, the apparition asked her to return to the grotto each day for 2 weeks. One vision of the woman asked her “to drink of the water of the spring, to wash in it and to eat the herb that grew there”. This was an act of penance in which Bernadette partook. The next day, the waters of the grotto were fresh and clear, instead of muddy like they had previously been. To avoid the limelight, she later joined a religious order working at a hospice until her time of death. While St. Bernadette was on her deathbed, sick at age 35, her last words were, “Blessed Mary, Mother of God, pray for me. A poor sinner, a poor sinner.”