On the Way: A Pilgrim's Journal from Lourdes

Part Four: Every Grace Begins with Jesus

Sr. Bernadette Moriau’s Miracle • Healing flows from Christ

"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." ~ Hebrews 13:8

"All healing in Lourdes comes from Jese in the Eucharist."

Eight years ago, another pilgrim stood in that same basilica.

Sister Bernadette Moriau, a French religious sister named after St. Bernadette of Lourdes, had suffered for decades from severe neurological disease. Multiple surgeries had failed. She lived with chronic pain, required morphine, wore a rigid back brace and leg splint, and relied on a spinal neurostimulator.

By every medical measure, her condition was irreversible.

In July 2008, she made a pilgrimage to Lourdes and received the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick. She also participated in the same Eucharistic Procession inside the Basilica of St. Pius X.

Although deeply moved spiritually, she experienced no immediate physical healing and returned home.

A few days later, during Eucharistic Adoration in her own convent chapel, she found herself recalling the blessing she had received in Lourdes. As she prayed before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, she experienced an overwhelming warmth and interior peace. She felt prompted to remove her brace and medical devices.

To her amazement, she could walk normally.  Her pain was gone.  Her digestive disorders disappeared.

She never again required her brace, neurostimulator, or pain medication.

After years of careful medical investigation and review by physicians and the Church, her healing was officially recognized as medically inexplicable; the 70th officially recognized miracle of Lourdes.

Standing in that same basilica where Sister Bernadette encountered Christ made today's procession profoundly personal.

Reflections By Seminarian Mitchell Carey

St. Francis de Sales Seminary