“ Bouche de trop à nourrir que j’étais, pour les enfants mouchés, les brebis gardées, merci !
“ Merci mon Dieu pour le procureur, le commissaire, les gendarmes, et les mots durs de l’abbé Peyramale !
“ Pour les jours où vous êtes venue, Notre-Dame Marie, pour ceux où je vous ai attendue, je ne saurais vous rendre grâce qu’en Paradis !
“ Mais pour la gifle de Mlle Pailhasson, les railleries, les outrages, pour ceux qui m’ont crue folle, pour ceux qui m’ont crue menteuse, pour ceux qui m’ont crue avide, merci, Dame Marie !
“ Pour l’orthographe que je n’ai jamais sue, la mémoire des livres que je n’ai jamais eue, pour mon ignorance et ma sottise, merci !
“ Merci, merci ! Car s’il y avait eu sur terre fille plus ignorante et plus sotte, c’est elle que vous auriez choisie…
“ Pour ma mère morte au loin, pour la peine que j’ai eue quand mon père au lieu de tendre les bras à sa petite Bernadette m’appela “ Sœur Marie Bernard “, merci Jésus !
“ Merci d’avoir abreuvé d’amertumes ce cœur trop tendre que vous m’avez donné !
“ Pour Mère Joséphine qui m’a proclamé bonne à rien, merci !
“ Pour Mère Maîtresse, sa voix dure, sa sévérité, ses moqueries, et le pain d’humiliation, merci !
“ Merci d’avoir été celle à qui Mère Marie-Thérèse pouvait dire : “ Vous n’en faites jamais d’autres ! ”
“ Merci d’avoir été cette privilégiée des semonces dont mes sœurs disaient : “ Quelle chance de n’être pas Bernadette ! ”
“ Merci pourtant d’avoir été Bernadette, menacée de prison parce qu’elle Vous avait vue, regardée par les foules comme une bête curieuse, cette Bernadette si ordinaire qu’en la voyant on disait : “ C’est ça !...”
“ Pour ce corps piteux que vous m’avez donné, cette maladie de feu et de fumée, ma chair pourrie, mes os cariés, mes sueurs, ma fièvre, mes douleurs sourdes ou aiguës, merci mon Dieu !
“ Et pour cette âme que vous m’avez donnée, pour le désert des sécheresses intérieures, pour Votre nuit et Vos éclairs, Vos silences et Vos foudres, pour tout, pour Vous absent ou présent, merci Jésus ! ”
Marcelle Auclair, Bernadette (Paris: Bloud et Gay, 1957), 181-182. Singled out here for special mention is René Laurentin, Sens de Lourdes (Paris, P. Lethielleux, 1957): “For this reason I have not burdened [this account] with a weighty bibliography. I have gone to the sources and I wish to give special thanks to Abbé René Laurentin for his useful book, Le sens de Lourdes, in which he has set in correct focus the incidents, the dates, and the words which Our Lady spoke at Massabielle" (185, as trans. 1958, below, p. 198). But as I say below, I have not found anything in Sens de Lourdes that corresponds to this passage in Auclair.
“ All this is for the extreme poverty of my father and mother, the failure of the mill, the plank that brought unhappiness, the wine of fatigue, the black sheep, thank You, my God.
“ For ‘the extra mouth to be fed ’ that I was, for the ragged children, for the sheep that I watched, thank You.
“ Thank You, my God, for the procurator, the superintendent of police, the policemen and for Abbé Peyramale’s hard words !
“ For the days when you came, Our Lady Mary, for the days when you did not come, only in paradise can I give you thanks!
“ For the slap given me by Mademoiselle Pailhasson, for the bantering, the insults, for those who believed I was crazy, for those who believed I was lying, for those who believed I was greedy, thank you, Lady Mary!
“ For the spelling I never learned, the knowledge of books I never had, for my ignorance and my stupidity, thank you!
“ Thank you! Thank you! Because had there been in this world a girl more ignorant and more stupid than I, you would have chosen her.
“For my mother who died so far away, for my sorrow when my father instead of opening his arms to his little Bernadette called me Sister Marie Bernard, thank You, Jesus!
“ Thank you for having filled with bitterness the far-too tender heart you gave me!
“For Mother Josephine who said I was good for nothing, thank you!
“For the mother mistress’ sarcastic remarks, for her hard words, her ridicule and the bread of humiliation, thank you!
“ Thank you for making me the one to whom she could say : you are not like all the others.
“ Thank you for making me the privileged recipient of her rebukes, so that my sisters used to say : ‘ How lucky that we are not Bernadette! ’
“ Yes, thank you, Lady Mary, that I am Bernadette, threatened with prison because I saw you, whom the crowds stared at as at a strange animal, who was so ordinary looking that people would say : ‘ Is that the one? ’
“ For the pitiful body You have given me, this illness of fire and smoke, my rotting flesh, my riddled bones, my sweats, my fever, my dull pains and my sharp ones, thank you, my God!
“ And for the soul You have given me, for the desert of interior dryness, for Your nights, for Your lightning, for Your silences and Your thunder, for everything, for You absent and for You present, thank You, Jesus! ”
Marcelle Auclair, Bernadette, trans. Kathryn Sullivan (Purchase, NY: Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart, 1958), 194-195. “The French edition of this book was published in 1957 by Bloud & Gay of Paris. The official English translation was made from the author’s manuscript. It contains slight changes that were made by the translator with the author’s approval” ([4] (title verso)).
For the poverty in which my mother and father lived, for the failure of the mill, all the hard times, for the awful sheep, for constant tiredness, thank you, my God!
For lips, which I was feeding too much, for the dirty noses of the children, for the guarded sheep, I thank you!
Thank you, my God, for the prosecutor and the police commissioner, for the policemen, and for the harsh words of Father Peyramale!
For the days in which you came, Mary, for the ones in which you did not come, I will never be able to thank you…only in Paradise.
For the slap in the face, for the ridicule, the insults, and for those who suspected me for wanting to gain something from it, thank you, my Lady.
For my spelling, which I never learned, for the memory that I never had, for my ignorance and for my stupidity, thank you.
For the fact that my mother died so far away, for the pain I felt when my father instead of hugging his little Bernadette called me, “Sister Marie-Bernard”, I thank you, Jesus.
I thank you for the heart you gave me, so delicate and sensitive, which you filled with bitterness.
For the fact that Mother Josephine proclaimed that I was good for nothing, thank you.
For the sarcasm of the Mother Superior: her harsh voice, her injustices, her irony and for the bread of humiliation, thank you.
Thank you that I was the privileged one when it came to be reprimanded, so that my sisters said, “How lucky it is not to be Bernadette.”
Thank you for the fact that it is me, who was the Bernadette threatened with imprisonment because she had seen you, Holy Virgin; regarded by people as a rare animal; that Bernadette so wretched, that upon seeing her, it was said, “Is that it?”
For this miserable body which you gave me, for this burning and suffocating illness, for my decaying tissues, for my de-calcified bones, for my sweats, for my fever, for my dullness and for my acute pains, thank you, my God.
And for this soul which you have given me, for the desert of inner dryness, for your night and the lightening, for your silences and your thunders, for everything.
For you—when you were present and when you were not—thank you, Jesus.
Though I haven't looked hard for it, the source of that translation (the one just above) has so far eluded me.
Is this 1) authentic, 2) a pastiche of sentences uttered by Bernadette at various points in her life, or 3) a complete fabrication? It does not, I think, appear as such—as is sometimes said—in
or in any of the following critical biographies and collections (in progress):
- L.-J.-M. Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes d'après les documents et les témoins, III. La chapelle et Bernadette, fevrier 1859-avril 1879, 2nd ed. (Paris: Gabriel Beauchesne, Éditeur, 1926). All I saw was a reference to the Imitatio Christi and to the “j’ai peur” on p. 258. Searched for absent, gendarmes, lassitude, merci, mon pére, moqueries, moulin, orthographe, outrages, and sottise, but to no avail. No reference to a “Testament” in the index.
- René Laurentin, Sens de Lourdes (Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1955). This is the book that Auclair singles out for "special thanks." Yet I scanned all of its quotations without seeing anything even remotely comparable to this.
- René Laurentin & Sœur Marie-Thérèse Bourgeade, eds., Logia de Bernadette: étude critque de ses paroles de 1866-1879, 3 vols. (Paris: Apostolat des Éditions; Lourdes: Œuvre de la Grotte; Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1971). 1. La vie active (7 juillet 1866 - 17 janvier 1873); 2. L'emploi de malade (17 janvier 1873-16 avril 1879); 3. Le secret (partie synthetique). Though I have not read these volumes, I have skimmed vols. 2 and 3 looking for an extended "saying" such as the one above, but without any success so far.
- René Laurentin, Bernadette of Lourdes: a life based on authenticated documents, trans. from Vie de Bernadette (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1978) by John Drury (Minneapolis, MN: Winston Press, 1979). "This account[, which I didn't just skim, but read from cover to cover,] has not been fictionalized. The names, the events, the dialogues, and the quotes have been drawn scrupulously from authenticated documents. Fictitious elements, which still abound today in many works, have been excluded. The correctness of each detail can be verified in my other volumes, where I have tried to authenticate the life of Bernadette: Lourdes, documents authentiques (D); Lourdes, histoire authentique des apparitions (H); and Logia de Bernadette (L)" ("Author's Appendix," 241).
- Sœurs de la Charité de Nevers, eds., Les écrits de sainte Bernadette et sa voie spirituelle, 3rd ed. "revue, corrigée et enrichie" (Paris: P. Lethielleux; Lourdes: Œuvre de la Grotte, 1993). Though I have not read this volume, I have skimmed it, but without any success so far.
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