The Song of Bernadette

 General Description:

The Song of Bernadette

By Franz Werfel

This is the classic work that tells the true story surrounding the miraculous visions of St. Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes, France in 1858. Werfel, a highly respected anti-Nazi writer from Vienna, became a Jewish refugee who barely escaped death in 1940, and wrote this moving story to fulfill a promise he made to God. While hiding in the little village of Lourdes, Werfel felt the Nazi noose tightening, and realizing that he and his wife might well be caught and executed, he made a promise to God to write about the “song of Bernadette” that he had been inspired by during his clandestine stay in Lourdes. Though Werfel was Jewish, he was so deeply impressed by both Bernadette and the happenings at Lourdes, that his writing has a profound sense of Catholic understanding.

“On re-reading the Song, what struck me most about Werfel’s craft was how deeply this Jewish writer, who had long been interested in Catholicism but who had never converted, had entered into Catholicism’s sacramental imagination. For all its unsparing depiction of the poverty of the French Pyrenees, the pettiness of local officialdom, the skepticism and institutional-mindedness of local churchmen, The Song of Bernadette is shot through with a sense of the extraordinary that lies on the far side of the ordinary, revealing itself through the simplest things.” —George Weigel, from the Foreword

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St. Bernadette of Lourdes

Feast Day: Roman Rite Calendar - 04/16 Patron Of: Sick Poor Also known as     * Bernada     * Bernardetta     * Bernardette Soubirous     * Bernardette     * Maria Bernadette     * Marie Bernarde     * Sleeping Saint of Nevers   Memorial  16 April  18 February in France Profile Oldest of six children in a very poor family headed by Francois and Louise Casterot. Hired out as a servant from age 12 to 14. Shepherdess. On 11 February 1858, around the time of her first Communion, she received a vision of the Virgin; her own account of it is in the Readings section below. She received seventeen more in the next five months, and was led to a spring of healing waters. She moved into a house with the sisters of Nevers at Lourdes where she lived, worked, and learned to read and write. The sisters cared for the sick and indigent, and at age 22 they admitted Bernadette into their order since she was both. Always sick herself, and often mistreated by her superiors, she died with a prayer for Mary's aid. Since the appearances of Mary to young Bernadette in 1858, more than 200 million people have visited the shrine of Lourdes. Born 7 January 1844 at Lourdes, France Died 16 April 1879, Nevers, France of natural causes; body incorrupt Beatified 1925 Canonized 1933 by Pope Pius XI Name Meaning brave as a bear Patronage  against bodily ills  illness  Lourdes, France  people ridiculed for their piety  poverty  shepherdesses  shepherds  sick people  sickness All information used with permission of the Patron Saint Index.

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