By Fr. Frederick Edlefsen

Light broke through winter’s gloom on February 11, 1858, from the cave Massabielle along the Gave River near Lourdes, France.

Bernadette Soubirous was born into poverty on January 7, 1844, in a flour mill. She cried through her baptism. “She’ll be a bad one,” said her godfather. She suffered from stomach and breathing ailments. As a child, she was illiterate and spoke Occitan, not French. She tended bar at her aunt’s tavern, famously offering free draughts of wine to friends, “Here! Drink this!” At thirteen, she did housework and tended sheep for relatives. “I’m bored,” she said. “I want to prepare for my First Communion.”

Cold was the rainy morning of February 11. “There’s no wood!” The firewood that Bernadette collected had been sold for bread. She and two others headed to Massabielle to collect more. Before wading across the icy river, Bernadette was taking off her stockings when she heard a gush of wind. But the poplars were still. From the cave, a serene light radiated from a smiling woman, clad in white and yellow.

Bernadette was shaken and took out her rosary. The woman made the Sign of the Cross. Fear left Bernadette. The woman passed rosary beads through her fingers…then disappeared without a word. Bernadette called her, “Aquero,” which in Occitan means, “the thing.” Before March 25, the woman didn’t reveal her identity in her apparitions. Who was Aquero?

On the Feast of the Annunciation, Bernadette visited Massabielle at 4:00 AM and saw Aquero. After four faltering asks, Aquero slipped her rosary over her right arm, unfolded her hands, extended them downward, then folded her hands upon her breast, raised her eyes to heaven, and said in Occitan: “Que soy era Immaculada Counchetsiou.” “I am the Immaculate Conception.”

Bernadette had no idea what that meant. She ran full speed to her Pastor’s rectory, repeating the mysterious name to herself. Bursting through the door, she yelled, “Aquero said, ‘Que soy era Immaculada Counchetsiou!’” Abbe Peyramale replied, “Do you know what that means?” The priest choked back his tears.

Bernadette thought, “If Abbe Peyramale doesn’t know, who does?” That evening, a local tax collector, Jean-Baptiste Estrade, broke into tears when Bernadette told him what Aquero said. He explained it to her. Bernadette then knew it was the Virgin Mary, on the Feast of the Annunciation.