Bernadette of Lourdes: The School Girl

Bernadette of Lourdes: . . .

Last fall, on the occasion of my visit to Bartres (the country parish where Bernadette of Lourdes tended the sheep, just before the Apparitions), the parish priest proudly displayed to our view a rough draft which contained Bernadette’s very first efforts at writing.

On one side of the page, the straight strokes, and on the other the thick and thin strokes which Bernadette had traced under the guiding hand of her teacher, Antoinette Tardhirail, who was tutoring her in reading and writing. At the bottom of the page, the teacher had written Bernadette Soubirous, Dec. 16, 1858. Precious document indeed which helps us to know of Bernadette’s efforts on the eve of her fifteenth birthday.

Bernadette knew very well that she was “ignorant.” She even said that is why the Blessed Virgin had selected her. At the time of the Apparitions, therefore, Bernadette didn’t know how to read or write. She couldn’t even read a calendar and she even got mixed up when it came to indicating the exact spot of the miraculous spring. Her memory had never been trained and all she could remember from the preparatory examination for her First Communion were the first two answers of the penny Catechism. She knew nothing of the Mystery of the Blessed Trinity – such is the lot of the poor when they have to earn their daily bread from the time they are children.

However, Bernadette was not bereft of intelligence, or even of refinement. Jean Barbet, the teacher at Bartres, testified. “She makes a great effort to understand the meaning of the explanations,” and her replies to the local Commissioner, Mr. Jacomet, prove it. But her intelligence had not been cultivated. She had to go to school to learn. She was behind the others.

. . . The School Girl

The mayor of the City, Mr. Lacadé and the pastor, Father Peyramale, agreed that Bernadette couldn’t be left this way. So, by an administrative arrangement, on July 15, 1860, they had her enter the City Hospital conducted by the Sisters of Nevers as an “indigent sick person”. This permitted Bernadette to be withdrawn from the eyes of the curious. There she would pursue a normal school year as a boarder at the hospital. So, there she was at a private school but, at her request, in the lower class.

By now, she was 16 years of age. As Sister Garros testified; “She did not follow the regular classes. She received private tutoring because she was too far behind to have the same home work as we did.”

Poor Bernadette! What courage it took to learn everything from scratch; reading, writing, handwriting, French, Arithmetic! Many rough drafts from her homework prove it. At the hospital, Bernadette is a humble pupil trailing behind the others. But her determination is put to the test and finally, she will succeed in writing letters to her family – even to the Holy Father in Rome! Alas, however, she must conform her style to the models given to her!

Hence the vast difference between her writings and her sharp off-the-cuff repartee in everyday conversation! At least, through her writings, we have her own account of the apparitions, written several times by her own hand, as well as her personal notebook.