February 18 – Saint Bernadette Soubirous (d. 1879)

At Lourdes, Mary prayed her Rosary

In the life of Saint Bernadette, the Rosary is a consistent thread between the different periods:

Just before the apparitions, she had spent six months in Bartrès where one of her only joys was to have the time and the freedom to say her Rosary while keeping watch over a few sheep.

Bernadette continued to say her Rosary all her life, and the sisters of her convent in Nevers attest that she recited it with fervor. Isn’t that remarkable, considering that she had received a special prayer just for herself from the Virgin Mary? She could have considered that this prayer, given to here directly, devalued the commonplace, popular prayer of the Rosary. But no, in this as with everything else she did, Bernadette wanted to be and remain "like everyone else."

If she, the seer of Lourdes, did not consider the Rosary to be beneath her, we would be very arrogant to consider it poorly.

Bernadette always liked to occupy her fingers, and could embroider to perfection. Reciting the Rosary is also a manual activity. The Virgin herself moved the beads of her Rosary through her fingers, although her lips only moved at the end of each decade, at the Gloria Patri.

Bishop Jacques Perrier

February 2014 (Zenit.org)

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