St Bernadette first spent time at the village of Bartres, about three miles from Lourdes, when she was a baby. An accident had prevented her mother from breast-feeding her, and a lady in Bartres, Marie Lagues, who had just lost a baby, agreed to wet-nurse St Bernadette.Her second stay was when she was 13, from the summer of 1857. St Bernadette returned to the Lagues farm to help with the housework, looking after two young children, and the sheep and goats that were kept in a field about five minutes' walk outside the village. Above is the sheepfold where St Bernadette used to shelter the sheep. Below, in a photo taken on the walk back from the sheepfold, you can see how the Church of St John the Baptist, dominates the scene.
The view from outside the Church across the fields is impressive:
Inside, the Church is quite beautiful:
Here are close-ups of the three panels above the High Altar: on the left, the Visitation:
In the centre, the Baptism of Our Lord:
and on the right, the head of St John the Baptist presented to Herod's wife on a dish:
The Lady Chapel of the Church is very special. Although the Church has been enlarged since St Bernadette's time, she would have known the altar and reredos. She used to join the first Communion class in the Lady Chapel, run by with Fr Ader, a devout priest who recognised the simple holiness of St Bernadette.
Unfortunately, Fr Ader left the parish in January 1858. He tried his vocation with the Benedictines but his health was not up to it and he was appointed to another parish, eventually dying relatively young.From the point of view of St Bernadette's story, his departure is significant. The parish was left vacant and St Bernadette resolutely returned to Lourdes towards the end of January, to the "Cachot", the cramped former prison cell where her family lived, so that she could continue with her instruction for first Holy Communion with the Sisters of Nevers. It was on 11 February that Our Lady first appeared to her at the grotto of Massabielle. St Bernadette made her first Holy Communion on 3 June 1858; Our Lady had appeared to her seventeen times and the grotto had begun to become famous. Only a few days later, the Mayor of Lourdes barricaded the grotto and the last appearance of Our Lady there was to St Bernadette as she knelt outside the fence. St Bernadette said:
I thought I was at the Grotto, at the same distance as I was the other times. All I saw was Our Lady ... She was more beautiful than ever.
6 comments:
Ok... this time I think I got it right... Didn't Salome get the Baptist's head, and she presented it to her mother, Herodias?
;-P
It is possible to walk from Lourdes up to Bartres. The route is pretty much that taken by St Bernadette's father when he went up to visit her at Bartres, and by Bernadette when she went to Lourdes to visit her family,as she used to do on a Sunday during her second stay there. Since it is also the way Bernadette walked on her last return to Lourdes, it is possible to see it as her way towards her first Holy Communion.
It is much quicker coming down again, and there are some lovely views that you see on the way down but can miss on the way up. The Lourdes end of the walk isn't that scenic, but you might well encounter small groups of fellow pilgrims. As a pilgrimage walk, this walk enables a real encounter with the spirituality of St Bernadette.
Had meant to include the link in my previous comment: http://www.lourdes-france.org/upload/pdf/BARTRES2.pdf
Thanks so much for posting this, i love to read and see photos that bring me closer to knowing a little more about my Confirmation Saint.
Thankyou for this lovely, inspired post, Fr Tim. I was in that church a few weeks ago myself and it is awesome to contemplate that it pre-dated the Lourdes apparitions and that only a few weeks after leaving there, Bernadette returned to Lourdes and to Massabielle where she witnessed the first apparition. It also struck me that being dedicated to St John the Baptist, that church, hidden away in the middle of nowhere, pre-figured the future role that Lourdes and Our Lady would play for the world. I loved that church too and could have stayed there for hours. Your post and photos have now inspired me to go and pray the Glorious mysteries in my garden. Thankyou.
I hope you had a wonderful break and that The Shack didn't spoil it too much. x
Many thanks, Joe. Yes, the walk is quite do-able; one of the families on pilgrimage from Blackfen all walked there one day earlier this year. At the Forum Information, the map you link to, with some added instructions, is available in various languages from the Forum Information for a suggested donation of 1 euro.
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