Blessed St. Bernadette Feast Day

On the afternoon of April 16, 1879, at approximately 3:15, Bernadette Soubirous—known as Sister Marie-Bernard within her religious order—passed away in the Sainte Croix (Holy Cross) Infirmary at the Convent of Saint-Gildard in Nevers, France. She was thirty-five years old.

As she lay on her deathbed, the nuns of the convent gathered around her, reciting prayers for the dying. In a faint voice, she uttered, “Blessed Mary, Mother of God, pray for me! A poor sinner, a poor sinner—” but was unable to finish.

News of her passing quickly spread, drawing crowds to the convent as people chanted, “The saint is dead! The saint is dead!” Her body was placed in a sealed casket and buried near the chapel of St. Joseph on the convent grounds. In 1908, during an official exhumation conducted as part of the investigation into her life and virtues, her body was found to be intact and incorrupt.

In August 1913, Pope Pius X declared her Venerable, and on June 14, 1925, she was beatified. Today, her body rests in a glass reliquary at the Chapel of the St. Gildard Convent in Nevers, watched over by a statue of the Blessed Virgin and the nuns who continue to keep vigil.

On December 8, 1933, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Pope Pius XI canonized Bernadette Soubirous—a humble visionary and devout religious sister—as a Saint of the Roman Catholic Church. Her Feast Day is celebrated on April 16, although in her native France, it is observed on February 18.

St. Bernadette, pray for us who are all poor sinners!

Incorrupt St. Bernadette in Nevers, France