Chapter 4
To the number of eighteen
“Go and tell John what your own eyes
and ears have witnessed; how the blind
see, the lame walk, how the lepers
are made clean and the deaf hear...”
(St. Matthew 13: 4-5)
Several gifted authors have written the authentic story for millions
of readers. Here I attempt only an introductory synopsis for those who are
new to the phenomenon. If their interest is aroused they can go on to bigger,
better works, incorporating important and fascinating details that are outside
my brief.
Today, we see the little Soubirous girl enthroned in glory. But that
person is not the object of our study. In 1858, Lourdes was a town of some
four thousand people, deep in the magnificent Pyrenees Mountains and
close to the Spanish border, some eight hundred kilometres from Paris. In
Lourdes, from every side, green hills peer over the shoulders of the people;
and beyond, snow-clad peaks ride in majesty, circling the town. Constantly,
these great works would have been before the eyes of Bernadette.
No special importance
Lourdes was then a place of wooden shoes clattering on uneven
pavements. A place where many men went off daily to work in marble and
slate quarries, scarring the nearby slopes. Essentially, Lourdes was a market
town where farmers sold animals and produce. It had no special importance.
In 1858, Bernadette was aged fourteen and small for her age. Her clothing
was neat but patched. She could neither write nor speak French and her
spoken language was the dialect of this Bigorre region. Her life was not
exactly full of Great Expectations. Bernadette’s contemporaries were
correct. From any angle she was a most improbable object for the Divine
favour, upsetting, as she did, many pious preconceptions. Yet this was the
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