At the age of 14 St. Bernadette (1844-1879) was living in abject poverty with her family in a one-room basement which had previously been used as a jail, in the town of Lourdes in southern France. She was a sickly child, having fallen victim to Cholera in 1854 and would battle asthma and tuberculosis for the rest of her short life. Bernadette was illiterate and is characterized in many accounts as slow or ignorant. It was in her 14th year that Bernadette was granted 18 visions of a ‘Lady’ at a grotto in Massabielle. The Lady instructed Bernadette to come daily to the grotto to receive the visions, eventually proclaiming ‘I am the Immaculate Conception’. A spring at the grotto, which appeared where Bernadette was instructed to dig, has been a site of miraculous healing. The Lady also asked that a chapel be built in the grotto for pilgrims. Today the Marian shrine at Lourdes is one of the world’s most popular.

During and following the period of visions, the saint was examined rigorously by Church and local authorities. The popular excitement around the visions left her subject to persistent questioning and attention. Eventually she sought protection by retiring to a home for the poor in a nunnery. She took her vows in 1866 with the Sisters of Charity at Nevers. She worked as an infirmary assistant, and later a sacristan, but by the end of her life she was too sick to participate in convent life. She died at the age of 35, humble and penitent until the end.