December 18, 2013

Sister Marie-Bernard

It was in the Blessed Eucharist above all that Sister Marie-Bernard, true to her faith, sought this living Jesus. Members of the Community bore eloquent testimony to the recollected manner in which she prepared for Holy Communion, and her complete absorption in the Divine Presence during her thanksgiving. To the question, “What do you do that you take so long over your thanksgiving?” she replied: “I think that Our Lady is giving me the Child Jesus. I welcome Him and I talk to Him, and He talks to me.” Her spiritual notes give a more enlightening glimpse: “I was nothing and of this nothing, Jesus made something great.” “It is because through Holy Communion I partake of the Godhead in some way. Jesus gives me His Heart, I am thus linked closely with Him, spouse of Jesus, friend of Jesus, that is to say, another Jesus.”

Some of her companions stated that during her thanksgiving, the face of Sister Marie-Bernard would “light up—as during the apparitions at Masabielle.” The parish priest, not over-imaginative, had already mentioned something similar with regard to his little parishioner. Without doubt, Holy Communion, or rather, Holy Mass, was the culminating point of Sister Marie-Bernard’s spiritual life; to be deprived of it during her illnesses cost her more than all her sufferings. “If one must go from Tabor to Calvary, one returns from Calvary to Tabor with Jesus, that is our foretaste of heaven.” If instead of Tabor we say the Blessed Eucharist, then this saying of Sister Marie-Bernard will best express the source of her spiritual happiness, her hope and her love.

Sister Marie-Bernard, known as Bernadette Soubirous before she had taken her vows, was the girl whom no one initially believed when she said she had seen the Blessed Mother at a grotto in France. Today, that grotto at Lourdes is a pilgrimage destination for millions, Sister Marie-Bernard is now St. Bernadette, and countless physical and spiritual healings have taken place because of what Sister Marie-Bernard saw when no one else did. If she saw Jesus in the Eucharist, should we not stop and enjoy a minute or two considering this?

(First two paragraphs above taken from My Daily Eucharist II by Joan Carter McHugh, and an excerpt contained there from Bernadette and Her Rosary by Fr. Andre Ravier, SJ.)

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