Last year, I had the opportunity to lead a pilgrimage through the holy places of France. The pilgrimage started in Lourdes. The magnificent Marian shrine there in the French Pyrenees certainly set the spiritual tone for the rest of the travels. 

In Lourdes, we were able to do “the water gesture,” a modified version of the baths where pilgrims wash their face, hands and arms in the spring water. We also visited the various places associated with St. Bernadette. We also prayed, and I offered Mass at the famous grotto.

It was powerful to be at the place where Our Lady appeared and to learn first-hand about her visits and messages to the holy seer. On this particular pilgrimage, I was especially struck by Our Lady’s honesty, when she told St. Bernadette, “I do not promise to make you happy in this world but in the other.” 

It was that promise that stuck with me as we continued to the other holy places in France. It was especially at the forefront of my mind and heart when we visited Nevers, the site of the Shrine of St. Bernadette.

Most people don’t know much about St. Bernadette after the apparitions, which took place between Feb. 11 and July 16, 1858. Many people aren’t interested to know where the young woman went or what happened after the apparitions were over. Honestly, I never thought of it. And so, I found a hidden lesson of Lourdes in the unexpected town of Nevers.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us that private apparitions are a help to us in living out the Christian way of life: 

“Throughout the ages, there have been so-called ‘private’ revelations, some of which have been recognized by the authority of the Church. They do not belong, however, to the deposit of faith. It is not their role to improve or complete Christ’s definitive Revelation, but to help live more fully by it in a certain period of history. Guided by the Magisterium of the Church, the sensus fidelium knows how to discern and welcome in these revelations whatever constitutes an authentic call of Christ or his saints to the Church” (67).

And so, I guess it shouldn’t have been a surprise to learn that, after the apparitions, their investigations, and the completion of the initial shrine at Lourdes, Bernadette — like all Christian young people — pursued her vocation and sought holiness out of the spotlight and in the ordinary course of life.

St. Bernadette felt a call to religious life, and she pursued it. It led her to a hidden life in a small town. Bernadette went to Nevers with no fanfare, no hype and no crowds of people surrounding her. 

When others raised questions about her entrance into apparent anonymity, the young Bernadette responded, “The Virgin used me as a broom to remove the dust. When the work is done, the broom is put behind the door again.”

The poor French girl wanted the apparitions to do in her life what they’re supposed to do in each of our lives, namely, to encourage and help us to live the Christian call to holiness. 

When my group arrived in Nevers, we were taken to the reception hall of the original novitiate. It was in that room that Bernadette would have been received into the cloister and begun her life as a Sister of Charity. 

It was a simple hall, with no markings, burning candles or hanging rosaries. There was nothing in that room that resembled the sanctuary in Lourdes in any way, except it was there in that room where the graces of Lourdes came to fruition in the tender soul of its visionary.

The young woman who met the Blessed Virgin Mary, the person who was invited to pray the Rosary with Our Lady, and the good soul that was given the powerful declaration, “I am the Immaculate Conception” by the Blessed Mother herself was integrating the graces of these experiences and letting them enrich her interior life and lead her to greater holiness through the daily living out of her vocation.

Holiness is not found in signs and wonders. It is not found in apparitions and preternatural phenomena. Holiness can be inspired by such things and can be encouraged by such experiences, but the real work of holiness requires a lot more from us. 

Holiness is rolling up our sleeves and seeking to encounter God in the mundane, regular duties of our life. Holiness is found in the virtuous completion of the tasks and responsibilities of our vocation. Holiness is found in the trenches. It is living by faith and seeking to do all that God is asking of us in our daily lives. 

St. Paul reminds us all:

“And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3:17).

There is no enigma to holiness. It has no riddles. Holiness is practical and tangible. It is oftentimes found in easy-to-find places, such as a small quiet room in a backwoods town where a sickly young woman says “Yes” to her vocation, enters the convent, and seeks to do the unknown, insignificant things of her daily schedule with great attentiveness and love. There’s holiness. 

In retrieving and highlighting the universal call to holiness, the Second Vatican Council taught:

“Finally, all Christ's faithful, whatever be the conditions, duties and circumstances of their lives — and indeed through all these, will daily increase in holiness, if they receive all things with faith from the hand of their heavenly Father and if they cooperate with the divine will. In this temporal service, they will manifest to all men the love with which God loved the world” (Lumen Gentium, 41).

The conditions, duties and circumstances of our daily lives are the means by which we grow and increase in holiness. If we want authentic holiness, there is no maneuvering around or avoiding its real work. Holiness is found right in front of us. 

It is a blessing to be inspired by sanctuaries and shrines, apparitions and miracles. Our faith sometimes needs these gifts. They animate us and motivate us to pursue the things of God, to cooperate more generously with grace, and to recommit ourselves to the way of the Lord Jesus, especially through the many daily crosses that make us holy.

Lourdes is a beautiful and powerful place that compels holiness in the lives of those who visit or learn about it. And yet, if there are not countless variations of Nevers behind Lourdes where people are seeking to do the daily work of holiness, then it has missed the mark and is not the place Our Lady wants or the place the Lord Jesus deserves.

 

Join Father Kirby for a pilgrimage in the footsteps of St. Paul this June: 206Tours.com/frkirby.