From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   April 16th - St. Bernadette   
      
   Bernadette, whose complete name is Marie Bernarde Soubirous, was a child   
   like any other. Only her gaze was extraordinary, showing a great innocence.   
   In the first apparition, she learned to make the sign of the Cross by   
   following the gestures of Our Lady. From the fact that she learned it from   
   Our Lady, witnesses used to say that during her whole life St. Bernadette   
   always made a sign of Cross that was unforgettable and incomparable.   
      
   In the Convent in Nevers that Bernadette later entered, some nuns were once   
   insisting that she describe the cloth of the dress of Our Lady to resolve a   
   quarrel. Some said it was a certain kind of material, others another.   
   Bernadette responded:   
      
   "I never said that the material was of this or that kind. I only said that   
   it was made from a material that I had never seen before. But if you are so   
   interested in knowing this, why don't you ask her to appear to you and then   
   you can pay attention to it."   
      
   She was a very humble person. Once someone asked her to say a few words for   
   the edification of the novices. She answered smiling: "I don't know   
   anything! No one can take anything good from a stone."   
      
   The Mother Superior asked her if she were not proud to be chosen as a   
   confidante of Our Lady. She answered: "What idea do you have of me? The Holy   
   Virgin only chose me because I was the most ignorant. If she could have   
   found someone else more ignorant, she would have chosen her."   
      
   The continuous suffering and vomiting of blood she experienced slowly   
   weakened Bernadette. Her physical appearance became pitiable. Once a   
   postulant came to see her so that she might know the seer. As the saint   
   passed by, a companion pointed her out and said with scorn: "Bernadette?   
   It's just this!" (Bernadette, c'est ça!)   
      
      
   Comments of the late Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira: (died 1995)   
      
   St. Bernadette Soubirous was a peasant from an area in the Pyrenees that is   
   half French, half Spanish, which constitutes, from a certain point of view,   
   a synthesis of France and Spain. If you pay attention to her photos - not   
   the sentimental statues in some churches - you find a person with a slightly   
   square face with regular lines, a dark gaze, large eyes, and a certain fixed   
   look that is Spanish. The French gaze is normally rapid, quickly moving to   
   analyze you, and then moves on to another thing. But the Spanish gaze nails   
   you and remains steadfast, analyzing everything about you, a kind of X-ray.   
   She also had a nose that was more Spanish than French, which gave coherence   
   to her whole physiognomy. It is a line that marks the face from top to   
   bottom. She also had another Spanish characteristic of saying things   
   straightforwardly.   
      
   She was always completely at ease, like a person who does not pretend to be   
   anything more that what she is. She was humble before others, but when it   
   came to the service of Our Lady, she did not care about the opinion of   
   anyone else.   
      
   She was always unpretentious. Once, when she had to stand before the police   
   to explain her revelations, she impressed her interrogators with her   
   naturalness. But before her parents, the parish priest, and her religious   
   superior, she was a model of respect and obedience.   
      
   Here you have the spirit of a true Catholic, of a true saint. She never gave   
   importance to the world's values, she didn't care about what other people   
   were thinking about her, be it good or bad. If someone gives importance to   
   the applause of the world, he ends by losing his liberty and relying on the   
   applause to go ahead. The applause becomes the music he needs in order to   
   keep dancing. To be able to enjoy complete serenity, one has to be   
   independent of the opinion of the world. St. Bernadette Soubirous was one   
   who did not care about that. She used to do what her duty was according to   
   Holy Mother Church.   
      
   St. Bernadette converted many persons who saw her making the sign of the   
   Cross. She had learned to do so from Our Lady, who is the perfect model of a   
   friend and lover of the Cross of Jesus Christ. For this reason St.   
   Bernadette also had a love for suffering and for the Cross of Our Lord that   
   propitiated her to receive from Our Lady something more of her spirit when   
   the Virgin Mary made the sign of the Cross. Something of Our Lady's majesty   
   passed to her.   
      
   Once I read a report by a lady of high society who witnessed St. Bernadette   
   during an apparition. This lady wrote that she have never seen a young lady   
   of the aristocracy who had the bearing and refinement of St. Bernadette   
   during the apparition, even though she was a simple peasant. This is because   
   she was in communication with the Queen of Heaven and Earth, and something   
   of her royalty was transmitted to St. Bernadette. It was not only majesty,   
   but also a state of virtue that passed from Our Lady to her.   
      
   So, many people witnessing this transformation in the peasant girl realized   
   that she was in contact with some person whom they did not see, but whom   
   they sensed was there. They realized that this person was Our Lady and many   
   of them converted. It is an interesting principle to consider that the true   
   devotee of Our Lady receives something of her in his soul and his bearing.   
   There is a certain communication from her to him.   
      
   The answers she gave to the nuns in the selection are indicative of her   
   vivacious personality and sense of humor. She was a keen polemicist and   
   sometimes her responses were sharp.   
      
   About her humility, what she said about herself was true. Our Lady chose her   
   because she was the most ignorant in Lourdes. Her ignorance was notable and   
   stood as one proof of the veracity of the revelations, because she could   
   never have imagined them. She was a simple, unlearned person who could not   
   have known on her own the things she said Our Lady told her, and she could   
   not even fully understand some parts of the revelations. Her ignorance stood   
   as an important argument in favor of the Lourdes apparitions.   
      
   Finally, she was short and even if she had a lively spirit, she did not   
   stand out readily. Then she became sick and her physical appearance used to   
   give a bad impression, which is why she was scorned by some of her   
   companions.   
      
   The selection does not say, but an important aspect of her life is that she   
   offered all her suffering for the sanctification of a certain person. No one   
   knows who this mysterious sinner was, because she never revealed the name.   
   Probably it was a soul that Divine Providence showed to her and asked her to   
   suffer for. Was he a man from her time, or someone from the future? No one   
   knows.   
      
   Another curious point in her life reported in good biographies is that Our   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)