Saint Bernadette Soubirous

Bernadette Soubirous was born into a very poor family in Lourdes, France, in 1844. In 1858, at the age of fourteen, she reported a series of eighteen apparitions of a lady she later identified as the Virgin Mary, at a grotto by the Gave river. During one of the apparitions, a spring of water emerged from the ground that continues to flow to this day and has become associated with reports of healing. Bernadette faced considerable skepticism and interrogation from local authorities and clergy, but maintained a simple, consistent account of what she had seen and asked of her. She later joined the Sisters of Charity of Nevers, living a hidden, humble religious life marked by chronic illness until her death from tuberculosis in 1879, at the age of 35. She was canonized in 1933. Lourdes has since become one of the most visited Catholic pilgrimage sites in the world.