14th June 2025 marks the centenary of the beatification of Bernadette Soubirous. This anniversary is the occasion for numerous spiritual and cultural events in Lourdes and Nevers, where her body lies intact.
Come and spend three days of grace with Bernadette Soubirous in Lourdes.
Programme for the Triduum of the Beatification of Bernadette at Lourdes ( 12th-14th June 2025)
Thursday 12th June 2025:
• 11.15am: Mass at the Rosary Basilica
• 2.00pm: In Bernadette’s footsteps (Meet at the Information Centre)
• 3.00pm: Rosary at the Grotto
• 3.30pm: Jubilee Way (Meet at the Information Centre)
• 4.15pm: Catechesis on the message of Lourdes centred on Saint Bernadette (Meet at the Information Centre)
Friday 13th June 2025:
• 9.15am: Way of the Cross
• 11.15am: Mass at the Rosary Basilica
• 2.00 pm: In Bernadette’s footsteps (Meeting at the Information Centre)
• 3.00pm: Rosary at the Grotto
•3.30pm: Jubilee Way (Meet at theInformation Centre)
•4.15pm: Catechesis on the message of Lourdes centred on Saint Bernadette (Meet at the Information Centre)
•5.00pm: Eucharistic procession
• 9:00 pm: Marian procession with relics (Rosary Esplanade)
Saturday 14th June 2025:
• 10.00am: Thanksgiving Mass at the Grotto
• 2.00 pm: In Bernadette’s footsteps
• 3.00pm: Rosary at the Grotto
• 4.15pm: Catechesis on the message of Lourdes centred on Saint Bernadette (Meet at the Information Centre)
• 5:00 pm: Eucharistic procession
• 9:00 pm: Marian procession with relics
Open-air exhibition on the centenary of Bernadette’s beatification, in partnership with the Convent of Saint-Gildard in Nevers and the Sanctuary’s archives and heritage department, on the walls of the Saint Bernadette church, opposite the Grotto.
Bernadette Soubirous' path to holiness
Bernadette Soubirous, born in 1844 in Lourdes, joined the Sisters of Charity hospice in 1860, where she learned to read and write. In 1864, she expressed her desire to join the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity, but the Bishop of Tarbes, Monsignor Laurence, asked her to wait until the Grotto at Lourdes had been inaugurated. So, she began her postulancy in Lourdes before leaving for Nevers to join the convent of Saint Gildard on 4th July 1866.
In Nevers, she followed religious training and kept a low profile, avoiding mentioning the Lourdes apparitions. Her confessor, Father Douce, reminded her, “You must be the first person to live out the message.” Suffering from chronic illnesses, she accepted her suffering as an act of love for sinners. On 16th April 1879, she died at the age of 35, murmuring, “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for me, a poor sinner.”
Bernadette Soubirous was beatified on 14th June 1925, then canonised on 8th December 1933 by Pope Pius XI on the feast of the Immaculate Conception. Her feast day is commemorated on 18th February (the day of the 3rd apparition, one week after the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes), and on 16th April according to the Roman Martyrology.
Her body, which has remained intact, rests today in the chapel of the Sisters of Charity in Nevers, where it is visited by thousands of pilgrims every year.
Beatification of Bernadette Soubirous
On 14th June 1925, Bernadette Soubirous was beatified by Pope Pius XI. The official Vatican declaration, signed by Cardinal Gasparri, declared:
“We grant permission for the venerable Servant of God MARIE-BERNARD SOUBIROUS, a professed Religious Sister of the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity and Christian Instruction of Nevers, to be henceforth called BLESSED. Issued in Rome, at Saint Peter’s, under the Fisherman’s ring, on the fourteenth day of June in the year 1925, the fourth of Our Pontificate. P. Card. Gasparri, Secretary of State.”
A century after this event, Lourdes and Nevers are celebrating this anniversary with various religious and cultural events.
“A poor beggar's prayer to Jesus.”
“O Jesus, give me, I pray you,
the bread of humility,
the bread of obedience,
the bread of charity,
the bread of strength to break my will and melt it to yours,
the bread of inner mortification,
the bread of detachment from creatures,
the bread of patience to bear the pain that my heart suffers.
O Jesus, you want me crucified, fiat,
the bread of strength to suffering well,
the bread of seeing only you alone in everything and always,
Jesus, Mary, the Cross, I want no other friends than these.”
Bernadette Soubirous
