According to the legend, Sister Maria Crocifissa Della Concezione was soaked in ink after arousing from her devilish trance. She found a strange letter in her belongings and she believed that it had come during the night.
It was scribbled with enigmatic symbols. Enhancing the sense of mystery within the situation, the nun said that it was written by Satan himself. Yet, no one was able to understand this.
Is there Satan, where Christ is?
Sister Maria had taken bible retreat on the island of Sicily where it is considered a place of profound Christian lore. It is said that Saint Paul has sermonized there around 2000 years ago.
Yet, it is debatable that Satan is also there where there is Christ. That’s because of the perpetual battle between good and evil is a primary belief of Christian credo.
Was the nun possessed?
Isabella Tomasi joined a Benedictine convent in the Sicilian town of Palma di Montechiaro when she was 15 years old. She was born in 1645. She was baptized and given name Maria Crocifissa Della Concezione at that place.
Work, peace, and prayer are what usually the Benedictine order teaches. Yet, Sister Maria appeared restless because of all her struggle and fidelity. She affirmed that she was owned by the Devil himself.
Struggling with the Devil
Even though the Devil exists or not, Sister Maria seemed that she had belabored a lot. She allegedly got shocked and became unconscious when whenever she reached the convent altar.
She claimed that Satan was attempting to turn her towards evil. The nun appeared that she was going through many inner conflicts. No one could understand whether it was real or she was faking it.
The Devil’s letter
Next, something creepy happened. Torturing Sister Maria for a long time, the Devil finally took control of the nun’s body or she stated so on one day in 1676. Also, she wrote a satanic letter.
The message was not written in with a recognizable language and the alphabet did not seem familiar. Yet rather, these letters seemed to be similar to a clutter of archaic letters and occult symbols.
It was not the first time
But, this wasn’t the first time that the Devil had paid visits to the convent. Surprisingly, a similar incident happened in 1632 as well. It was after six months of calamitous plague infestation.
A group of 17 nuns was locked up within the walls of an Ursuline convent in Loudun, France. Moved away from the usual way they lived before, next, they began to behave absurdly.
The bizarre behavior of nuns
At the onset, many nuns claimed that they have visions. Next, they started to behave strangely and indescribably. They curse, shouted, and even they barked. Because of this scenario, these nuns began to grab the attention of onlookers.
With this dissension now winding in Loudon. Also, the convent’s pastor believed that the nuns were possessed by Satan. Because of these reasons, church authorities decided to have an investigation.
Who was responsible?
With the results, they found out that the main reason for these creepy incidents was local holy man Father Urbain Grandier. Grandier was said to be a dangerous warlock who had done many diabolical things.
He’d fashioned a detestable agreement with Lucifer, cast dim spells, and invoked evil spirits that had the Ursuline nuns. In 1634 a preliminary was in this manner directed, and the minister was immediately decided to be blameworthy.
Father Urbain Grandier
Grandier’s sentence demonstrated, “We have ordered… Urbain Grandier duly tried and convicted of the crimes of magic, maleficia, and of causing demoniacal possession of several Ursuline nuns… He is to be taken to the public square… and fastened to a stake on a scaffold… And there be burned alive… and his ashes scattered to the wind. ”
And then Grandier was punished. But executing him never gave a solution for the current predicament. The possessions of Satan were still subsiding and at the same time, new possessions were reported.
The cryptic letter
Concurrently, after several years, the letter which was written by the hand of Sister Maria Crocifissa Della Concezione appeared so enigmatic that no one can understand it. Her peer nuns also considered this seriously.
Nonetheless, the letter was put on to the public display. Many scholars and sophisticated people tried to break the code which was supposed to be the Satanic language over many evolving years. Yet, till 2017, no one was able to crack the code.
The LUDUM Science Center in Catania
Indeed, a team of computer scientists based at the LUDUM Science Center in Catania was able to break the code in 2017. This is a privately funded institution that was founded in 1969.
This institution regularly fraternizes with a variety of educational and research organizations. It appeared that the group went to some murky spots to unveil the truth about this incident.
All set to crack the code
The researchers were merely able to decode Sister Maria’s letter with the aid of a strong and extremely restraint decryption program. This software is used only by governments and general people supposed to have no access to it.
Also, this software doesn’t seem to be there within easy reach. This team was managed to get it from the dark web. It was there hidden among many other things on the internet which deals in the black market.
Who wrote the mysterious letter?
The group of scientists guessed that the code was created by herself using a mixture of existing alphabets. She was a proficient linguist because she had exposed to religious scripture.
Also, she was a professional in both ancient and modern languages. She had a thorough knowledge of reading and writing of these languages as she had worked with many religious texts. Thus, at that point, the conjecture of these scientists proved to be accurate.
Cracked the code!
With the use of the software, they try to break the code. For that, first, they use many ancient languages such as Greek, Arabic, and 2 other languages. They worked constantly to transcribe this letter.
“We heard about the software, which we believe is used by intelligence services for code-breaking,” Daniele Abate, the team’s leader, told British newspaper The Times in 2017. “We primed the software with ancient Greek, Arabic, the Runic alphabet, and Latin to unscramble some of the letters and show that it is devilish. ”
Was it the Devil or the nun?
After delving int details, they were able to break the code partially. To specific, it was 15 lines. They did it although it was jumbled and incomprehensible. Through these parts, they managed to frag out some information about what happened.
It carried some dissenting statements that were potent enough to put Sister Maria into grave trouble. She may have been a classified mutineer. Or she may want to joke around. Or possibly she was mentally ill that part of her mind has split from the rest.
What was in the letter?
All we know is that the person who had written this letter had claimed that God is merely an origination of human beings. Also, the writer had further claimed that God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost are “dead weights.”
“God thinks he can free mortals,” says the letter. “This system works for no one.” Moreover, it seems that there is a reference to the mythical river that was said to be on the edge of the underworld, and in another sentence, it is said, “Perhaps now, Styx is certain.”
The Devil sent many other letters
Yet, the letter of Sister Maria is not the only reported specimen of evil writing. In John Ashton’s book, “The Devil in Britain and America” which was written in 1896 stated that it was consisted of “the only known specimen of the Devil’s handwriting.”
That example was itself sourced from a sixteenth-century book in Latin by Teseo Ambrogio Degli Albonesi. The work’s title can be interpreted as Introduction to the Languages of Chaldean, Syrian and Armenian, and the Ten Other Languages.
Italian sorcerer Ludovico Spoletano
Concurrently, the handwriting was said to be recorded by Italian sorcerer Ludovico Spoletano. He had done things that are still a conundrum to modern historians. Even this person is an enigma to the archivists.
Albonesi may have first caught wind of Spoletano through Guillaume Postel – a French scholarly who shared the creator’s enthusiasm for “mysterious” dialects. For sure, the two are known to have compared the matter.
The story of the other letter
The story is as follows. Spoletano called forth Saran himself and asked a variety of questions. It seemed that the Devil was pleased to answer indeed all those questions in writing.
Nevertheless, instead of possessing the warlock, Satan putatively caused a pen to float midair. Next, he wrote the answers on Sploetano’s paper straight away, or this was how the legend had told the story.
It’s getting more mysterious
The script may have been procured from Amharic a language used in the region of Amhara in Ethiopia as per Ashton. The writer too stated, “According to a legend, [Amharic] was the primeval language spoken in Eden.”
Numerous contemporary specialists fight that the scriptural nursery of Eden was just a mythic creation. Notwithstanding, however, the example distributed by Ashton keeps on intriguing researchers.
What did the letter say?
Modern-day academics and amateur code-breakers such as the writer of website Cipher Mysteries claim that the writing has no meaning. It may be not astounding that no one could transcribe the text.
Eventually, the thought that the example shows the “Fiend’s penmanship” might be simply an intricate trick at Postel and Albonesi’s cost. All things considered, at any rate, the content has to some degree an evil appearance, as a couple of the characters appear to take after pitchforks.
It was the nun
Moreover, Abate states that it is dubious the Devil wrote then despite the religious content of Sister Maria’s scribbled ramblings. She guesses that the letter was written by the nun herself.
She said to The Times, “I believe that the nun had a good command of languages, which allowed her to invent the code. And [Sister Maria] may have suffered from a condition like schizophrenia, which made her imagine dialogues with the Devil. ”
Possessed or mentally ill?
Most of the symptoms of schizophrenia are nearly similar to how Sister Maria behaved. One of the major symptoms is showing signs of demonic possession. Also, bizarre fantasies and auditory hallucinations are included in them.
Furthermore, also, the unfathomable “word salad” spoken by some who possess the illness – which appears to mirror a breakdown in the rational idea – is maybe much the same as the marvel of talking in tongues.
Schizophrenia
Another important fact is that the varieties of misapprehensions encountered by people who have schizophrenia seem to reflect their cultural context. For instance, those aslant faiths are woven around shame in Japan.
In Pakistan, in the meantime, loved ones can be a wellspring of distrustful dreams. What’s more, in firmly Christian social orders, the hallucinations frequently include religion -, for example, trusting oneself to be a prophet or controlled by the Devil.
Finding the actual reason
Nonetheless, religion itself may be an incentive for psychological collapse. There are two reasons for this argument. One is because of its registrable themes and ethereal. The second reason is as it can give rise to the splitting apart of the psyche.
It appears to be noteworthy that Sister Maria encountered her otherworldliness as a wellspring of contention. Despite looking for shelter in a religious community, she was unable to discover salvation. Rather, the religious woman was assailed by those equivalent devilish powers that the Bible implores us to stand up to.
Is demonic possession really mental illness?
Yet this maybe not the only reason in this scenario. Every psychiatrist does not believe that demonic possession is a mental illness, astonishingly. They believe that there is something beyond.
For example, Dr. Richard Gallagher of Columbia University states that he has discerned several possession cases. Demons are real and speaking strange languages is a favorite thing of them according to Gallagher.
Dr. Richard Gallagher
Instead of limiting it to mental illness, Dr. Richard Gallagher goes to the extent to say that demons are there around us and they have been here for thousands of years. “[Demons are] fallen angels,” said Gallagher to newspaper The Daily Mail in June 2018.
“They’re extremely bright, much brighter than humans. They’ve been around for millennia, so they speak all languages. I’ve heard them speak Chinese [and] ancient Greek, which I studied. I’ve certainly heard them speak and understand Latin… [They do it] probably to freak you out or to show off, to boast. ”
The evil spirits are real!
Moreover, he further goes on to explain his point. “I understand [that] believing in evil spirits is not a very comforting belief, and it has implications that you know, we don’t want to accept,” Gallagher went on.
“Having said that, there’s plenty of alternate theories. [But] I don’t think that those theories usually hold water. And when you’ve seen some of these cases, you realize that this is not something that could be explained by psychopathology, or trickery, or anything like that. ”
Not only Dr. Richard Gallagher
The doctor is not alone as he got support from his colleagues. In fact, many other mental health professionals believed that what Dr. Richard Gallagher says and at the same time they share Gallagher’s belief.
In Dr. Mark Albanese, psychotherapists identify that there a role to play in an individual’s spiritual beliefs no matter what they are. “There’s a certain openness to experiences that are happening that are beyond what we can explain by MRI scans, neurobiology, or even psychological theories,” he told CNN in August 2017.
Exorcism and psychotherapy
At the same time, psychiatrist Dr. Stephen Diamond believes that exorcism maybe some kind of old psychotherapy. As an example, he explains that Jesus Christ was known for exiling “demons” who are within sick people.
Furthermore, Hippocrates the top-level figure of western medicine is also known to be an exorcist. It seems that the practice of exorcism has a vast history that runs years back and was practiced by many religions across the world.
Dr. Stephen Diamond’s designs
As exorcism is something that was practiced around the world, the professionals tried to find the connection between psychotherapy and exorcism. Diamond explained the similarities between these two fields in an article that was published by the website, Psychology Today in 2012.
He explained, “Psychotherapy, like exorcism, commonly consists of a prolonged, pitched, demanding, soul-wrenching, sometimes tedious bitter battle royale with the patient’s diabolically obdurate emotional ‘demons.’ [This is] at times waged over years or even decades rather than weeks or months – and not necessarily always with consummate success. ”
The connection between exorcism and psychotherapy
Probing into more details, he goes on explaining about the differences as well. His ideas are logical and correct. It seems that he has exact knowledge not only about psychotherapy but also on exorcism as well.
Diamond added, “The main difference between psychotherapy and exorcism is that modern psychotherapy is typically a secular treatment for figurative, metaphorical ‘demons’ – mental, emotional or psychological traumas, memories or ‘complexes’ – whereas exorcism takes the existence of demons quite literally. Doing so can have certain advantages in treating patients who believe in the Devil, demons, and exorcism – if for no other reason than the extremely impressive power of suggestion. ”
Demonic possession within a metro
In the meantime, the belief in demonic possession keeps on escalating comparatively among some contexts. Many incidents regarding demonic possessions have been reported after that.
For instance, in Mexico, a passenger on a crowded metro train filmed a sudden ‘exorcism’ that happened in the middle of many straphangers in 2018. The video shows a well-dressed man seeming to entreat Jesus Christ, while a woman- who is supposedly had – shrieks “demon.” The video was watched more than a million times.
What exactly happened then?
“In the name of Jesus, leave… You need to leave in the name of Jesus. You need to go! ”, The man says at a point in the video. The woman first shows that she would incur and what happens then is never expected by anyone.
Next, she started to strike the man with a large umbrella. The media sources of the vicinity report that there are no prior similar incidents happen on the metro trains of the city and that this incident is the first one.
Religious opinions; good or bad?
Besides, religious opinions are most of the time so evocative and held profoundly and as a result, they spawn moral panic. This can be dubious but there are some instances where this ideology is proved correct.
In September 2019, for example, St. Edward Catholic School in Nashville cleansed its library of Harry Potter books upon the state so of the school minister, who had been educated by a number concerning exorcists.
Magic; good or evil?
Then Rev. Dan Reehil explained the reason why he did exclude those books from the school library. He contacted all the parents of the students of the schools and explained the reason behind his actions.
He wrote, “[The Harry Potter] books present magic as both good and evil – which is not true but a clever deception. The curses and spells used in the books are actual curses and spells which, when read by a human being, risk conjuring evil spirits into the presence of the person reading the text. ”
Moral panic versus cogent action
Yet circumstances where moral panic impedes cogent action, the outcomes have the possibility of being disastrous. An incident that happened in London in 2016 is a good example of this.
Kennedy Ife, who was 26 years old, initially had a sore throat and insomnia and this is how his “possession” began. Then he became fallacy and disturbed and asserted that there was a serpent inside him. He also became aggressive, one of his brothers said during court testimony.
Kennedy Ife’s possession
Reportedly, who was said to be fascinating Christians had to dismiss all the kitchen knives and to hold him back, they had use rope and handcuffs. The relatives tried a home exorcism and it was not successful.
Allegedly, Ife’s breathing got worked, and he began to groan of feeling dehydrated. Also, heartbreakingly, the youngster would inevitably kick the bucket, with his sibling’s endeavors to play out a formal “restoration” at last being without any result.
A type of psychotherapy
After that incident, the belief in demonic possession began to continue until now. This belief goes so much and the Roma Catholic Church had to attempt training a new generation of exorcists.
Some Protestant holy places, as well, have taken to throwing evil presences in a self-declared otherworldly fight against the powers of haziness. Yet, do their endeavors speak to anything over a showy – and conceivably harming – a type of psychotherapy?
Is it mere psychotherapy?
Similarly, in seventeenth-century Sicily – thus several years before the introduction of Freud and present-day psychiatry – could the encounters of Sister Maria, the nuns of Loudon, and endless others have been portrayed in some other terms than otherworldliness?
Regardless of what is true, the ostensible Devil’s letter which was written by Sister Maria is eerie enough to keep us busy guessing even today. Most of the time, it is the gray areas between fact and fiction the give us more curiosity.
The most popular story
Yet, no story is equivalently fascinating as the story of Saint Bernadette. That story is highly intriguing that one can’t argue there are more interesting stories despite this one.
It is true that well all feel there is something real about her story. You see in the pictures, you’ll notice that something is bizarre. Even though she has been dead for 140 years, her body is still the same as it was on day one.
Bernadette Soubirous
Bernadette Soubirous was known to be a charming girl with simple attributes. Also, she was a very religious girl and she was from a small town in France. It was in 1909 that the experts dug her body out and it’s been 30 years since her death.
To find what’s mysterious about her body, doctors are arranging to do the first exhumation of her body. They might hope that it’s because there is natural decomposition in usual instances. Yet, Bernadette seemed an absurd person.
Bernadette’s mysterious tale
She started seeing visions of the Virgin Mary when she was still a teenager in Lourdes. With this, she became quite famous. As she was a simple girl, she didn’t want to encounter this unnecessary attention.
She lived the rest of her days simply at a Catholic convent in Nevers, France with the intention of hiding away from the attention. But she was not fortunate to live longer. She died at the age of 35 due to tuberculosis.
What’s so divine about her?
The intention of digging out Bernadette’s body was to find out some proof about the divine encounters which made her popular when she was young. Thus, the experts dug out his body in 1909.
Then, the group of experts carefully removed the stone slab off her tomb, split it, and opened the coffin. What they saw next was sinister; her body was still the and it remained unchanged even though it had been three decades since her death.
Bernadette’s childhood
Saint Bernadette was born on January 7, 1844, with the name of Marie Bernarde Soubirous. Her home town was Lourdes in France near the Pyrenees mountains. Also, she had eight siblings with her in the family.
She didn’t come from rich family background and life was no easy for them. Bernadette’s father whose name was François worked at a mill as his livelihood and her mother, Louise, did laundry. Hence, her family had to struggle with financial austerity.
Poverty and sickness
In the meantime, for Bernadette, it was not only poverty that bothered but also sickness also lingered near her always. Poverty plus sickness was obviously not a great experience for her.
When she was still a kid, she got cholera. Some people identify this as a reason why Bernadette was a small woman. She was only 4 feet and 7 inches in height. Apart from all these illnesses, she also had a severe breathing problem that was there with her throughout her life.
No proper education
This enfeebled health of Bernadette also dented her education as well. As she was sick always, she couldn’t go to school regularly as her peers did. She was weak in her lessons as she missed classes often.
She couldn’t write and read properly. For example, she was so weak in French. She merely had a very narrow knowledge of French. Apart from speaking French, Bernadette was fluent in speaking Occitan that was the tongue native to the Pyrenees region where she lived.
Downtrodden with poverty
There were some points in Bernadette’s childhood in which her family was financially drowned to its depth. All eleven members had to live together in one underground room as they had no house of their own.
Thanks to a relative of Louises’s, they didn’t have to pay rent to this room. Although they were free from the fee, the state of the room was not the best. It was a prison cell previously and was called “the dungeon.”
Worked without getting paid
In the meantime, parents of Bernadette had to all kinds of work to feed their numerous children. Bernadette didn’t stay back without doing anything. She worked for her former wet nurse, Marie Lague in the closeby village of Bartrès.
Marie had taken the girl with the intention of looking after her. But it is said that she was helping Marie with her own brood. Not only that but also it had reported that she looked after the sheep without any payment.
Pious and devoted
Though Bernadette went through many struggles, she managed to maintain a strong feeling towards religion. She was devoted and pious. Yet she was weak in memorizing her religious studies.
Once, when she was rebuked for failing to memorize her religious lessons, it was said that she answered by saying, “At least she would always know how to love the good God.” Also, her devoted and pious natures were noticed by local clergymen.
Bernadette was known for her pious nature
Apparently, a priest named Abbe Arder, from the commune of Bartrès seemed so pleased with Bernadette despite his limited connection with her. “She seems to me like a flower surrounded in divine perfume,” Arder claimed.
In a different instance, he said about Bernadette “Look at this small child. When the Blessed Virgin wants to appear on Earth, she chooses children like her. ” But no one thought how true what this priest said at the end.
Mysterious things started to happen
Once, Bernadette along with her sibling Toinette and a playmate named Jeanne was collecting firewood. This happened in February 1868. It is said that these girls prospected a cave.
This cave was known as Massabielle meaning “old rock”. This was located at the bottom of a hillside in Lourdes. It was known that there were cattle inside the grotto and in front of this cave, there was a streamlet.
The cave, Massabielle
The story goes that Toinette and Jeanne crossed the stream away from the cavern and proceeded on their way. Bernadette, in any case, was evidently hesitant to do likewise because of a paranoid fear of getting cold.
Hence, she looked for a dryer path. Yet there was no dryer route. Thus, at long last, the teenaged young lady purportedly concluded that she’d have to remove her shoes and stockings so as to cross the water.
The strange sound
After Bernadette then plunked down to evacuate her footwear, it appears she heard a commotion that seemed like a whirlwind. However, nearly everything remained shockingly still.
The main thing that moved with the breeze was a wild rose inside the cave. Bernadette additionally guaranteed that now, all of a sudden, a figure showed up from the murkiness of the cavern.
A young beautiful woman
Thoughts was a normal scenery for Bernadette’s sister and friend, she later told a different story. She described what she saw that a beautiful young woman was bathing in sparkling light.
The figure said to have stretched arms towards Bernadette to indicate her to come closer. Also, she had told that there was an ivory-colored rosary in the arms of this young beautiful woman.
Who was it?
There was a book written by Franz Werfel in 1941 named as The Song of Bernadette. It said that the teenaged girl first was sacred by the figure. Yet, she was not able to go away from this vision.
It appeared as something forced her to stay and she was surprisingly attached to the vision. After that, Bernadette had started to pray with her rosary in her hands. the apparition disappeared after she stopped praying for around fifteen minutes.
Bernadette’s first professed vision
It was only Bernadette who had encountered this sight. So, she told her sister about the peculiar vision she had. As she didn’t want to draw attention, she asked her sister to keep it as a secret.
Nonetheless, Toinette told her parents about what happened to Bernadette. Thus, eventually, the news about a mysterious vision in the cave was spread all over Lourdes in no time.
More to come
Nevertheless, Bernadette knew that what she saw was not her last. She felt that she would encounter the same experience again. Similarly, it was reported that she had the same vision 18 times between the spring and summer of 1858.
The second incident happened on February 14 of the same year. Bernadette visited the cave again after church and then she encountered the second vision. That time, she went with her sister and Marie and numerous people who were close to her.
The second time
According to the story, when Bernadette entered the cave, she stood up in her knees saying that she could see the same vision again. But, it seemed like she entered a trance-like state.
The other girls were normal and they did not affect. Also, according to the story, it was reported that when a person in the crowd sprayed holy water into the darkness and another one threw a stone on the ground, the apparition disappeared.
The message
Bernadette again returned to the cave on February 18 according to historian Therese Taylor. The vision appeared again in this time as well and unlike other times, the figured conveyed a message to Bernadette.
It had asked the teenage girl to visit the grotto daily for two weeks. This time frame of two weeks consequently known as “la Quinzaine sacrée” – or the “holy fortnight” and it was to define the remaining days of Bernadette’s life.
Discovered a spring
According to the stories, the figure asked Bernadette to quench her thirst from a spring and cleanse herself in its water during one of these visits to the cave. Yet, there was no spring around the vicinity.
It is said that Bernadette herself dug into the soil and found a spring. She then took a drink from the water source. It led to starting a tradition that made Lourdes one of the most significant Catholic pilgrimage sites in the world.
Rich in water
In a little while, the spring which was discovered by Bernadette was producing thousands of gallons of water each day. Also, it continued to Produce a wide amount of water Even During periods of little rainfall.
Today it has turned into a completely different purpose. The spring is now diverted into a reservoir. It provides water for thousands of pilgrims to bathe in and drink. It is said that Bernadette did the same thing years ago.
What was next?
Uncovering the spring was not the last thing that Bernadette said to have encountered. During the seventh time that she visited the grotto, she was given a significant task to fulfill.
This task seemed quite important. It appears that the nebulous vision needed the local priests to develop a church next to the cave – a mandate that Bernadette consequently gave to her family.
The Virgin Mary
Before she was given this task, it is said that the parents of Bernadette were a bit ashamed of what she was doing and her stories. Hence, they had attempted to keep her away from the cave.
But some people of the vicinity believed Bernadette and her stories. Also, importantly, they held conception that apparition encountered by this teenaged girl was probably the Virgin Mary. Nonetheless, Bernadette herself hadn’t yet verified this doctrine.
More about the apparition
Bernadette did supply a detailed description of the vision she was seeing. According to Taylor’s 2003 biography, Bernadette of Lourdes: Her Life, Death, and Visions, the young woman described the figure as “a small young lady.”
It is said that Bernadette stated that the figure is was dressed in a white shawl and a blue belt. Also, Bernadette likewise obviously had seen a yellow bloom on every one of the figure’s feet – reverberating numerous strict delineations of the Virgin Mary.
True identity
Yet the true identity of this mystical apparition was not revealed until one of the last visions. She even didn’t receive a glimpse of what it was before that. Yet, eventually, it seemed that this cryptic figure finally revealed her identity.
The young girl asserted that she repeatedly asked the apparition what she was called during this hour-long visit. Then, the figure revealed, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” Nonetheless, it was the last time that Bernadette professed that the Virgin Mary had spoken to her.
Her stories were true
Because of what she encountered and the stories she told, Bernadette was interrogated by religious officials and government authorities. But this was never able to stop neither her stories nor beliefs of people.
Also, in 1862 the church announced the teenaged young lady’s claims to have been true. Besides, the spring that Bernadette revealed has, as indicated by the Lourdes Medical Bureau, prompted about 70 inexplicable healings.
The water had healing power
In the meantime, the mayor of Lourdes had called for that water from this cave to be tested in the same year as Bernadette’s asserted visions. Thus, the test was done by an expert.
He found that there was nothing to prove that his water contained healing power apart from increased mineral content. Nevertheless, Bernadette stated that miracles did happen because of belief and worship. She said, “The water will have no virtue without faith.”
Churches built all over Lourdes
The mysterious figure who asked to build a church at the cave didn’t stop in it. It told Bernadette to construct churches in various places in Lourdes. As a result, many worshipping places were built in various places of Lourdes.
The nearest land to the cave itself became known as the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes. With the story of Bernadette, these places became quite popular. Today, millions of devotees from all over the world are attracted to this divined place.
Unnecessary attention
As Lourdes became a pilgrimage site because of the visions which were encountered by Bernadette, she consequently began to draw the attention of a super large audience and she was not fond of it.
Eventually, to stay away from these unnecessary considerations, she had to move away from her hometown. She traveled over 400 miles to live at a religious institute run by the Sisters of Charity of Nevers. Consequently, Bernadette began to get a good education from this place.
The new life in Novers
And her life flowed in the institute. Bernadette became a novice nun in 1866. She lived the rest of her life in Novers. Her life was limited to prayers and the institute. Almost all the time, she felt lonely in that place.
Bernadette was respected by people around her for her devotion, pleasant nature, and sharp diversion, and these traits were untiring even despite ceaseless disease and physical misery.
Frailing health
She had been struggling with tuberculosis for a longer period. Even though she was still young, she had to bid farewell to her life shortly. In April 1879, she yielded to her struggle with tuberculosis and left her life.
Also, even though in pain Bernadette was, she managed to continue praying every day until her death. It’s said that Bernadette’s last words were thus: “Blessed Mary, Mother of God, pray for me! A poor sinner, a poor sinner. ”
Reopened the tomb
Consequently, Bernadette’s body was entombed at the Saint Gildard Convent in Lurcy-le-Bourg. It was a commune that was located not so far away from Nevers. Nonetheless, the church dug up her body in 1909.
What’s more, amazingly, notwithstanding the way that Bernadette had been dead for a long time, her remaining parts were astoundingly protected. Even though the cross and rosary that lay in the casket had both rusted, the cadaver was essentially liberated from indications of rot.
The corpse was not decayed!
According to Roman Catholicism, God lets fro the remains of religiously significant individuals to avoid decomposition. And some believed that it was the reason behind Bernadette’s corpse too.
A cadaver that some way or another opposes this common rot is alluded to as incorrupt. Also, Catholic people accept this to be a marker that the proprietor of the body is a holy person.
The Saint Bernadette
It was believed that because of the asserted visions of Bernadette, she was deserving of this holy title. And this answers to the question of why her coffin was reopened by the church.
Regardless, the examination was completed by doctors Dr. David and Dr. Jourdan, who later affirmed that there had been no scent nor any visual signs of rot. And the reason couldn’t be explained scientifically either.
The investigation
Indeed, an archive that was marked by the two specialists following their assessment depicts in extraordinary detail how Bernadette’s remaining parts did not have the normal indications of decay.
The report remarks on the body’s “entirely safeguarded” hands and fingernails, for example, just as its flawless facial highlights. Besides, the nuns who had prepared Bernadette’s remaining parts for burial three decades earlier guaranteed that she showed up equivalent to she had done in those days.
Appeared more lively
Presently to be considered officially incorruptible, a body must be all around saved in force and shade and show up practically living. There should be no indications of ordinary deterioration or scent.
At the same time, there should be no reasonable clarification regarding how this condition may be the situation. Furthermore, when it came to Bernadette, her remaining parts unquestionably appeared to possess all the necessary qualities.
More about the corpse
This wasn’t the last time that Bernadette’s remaining parts were disturbed. Following the primary exhumation – after which her body was washed and changed before being come back to its resting place – the casket was opened again in 1919. Furthermore, similarly as in the past, there was an unmistakable absence of smell.
This time, be that as it may, the carcass’ skin had experienced some staining – although almost certainly, this had been brought about by individuals contacting it in 1909. Then, the skin had gotten dried up, and there was some proof of shape
A holy person
Now, Dr. Comte – one of the specialists playing out the assessment – expelled a couple of parts of Bernadette’s body to send them to Rome fully expecting her to be made a holy person.
At that point, in 1925, the sister’s remaining parts were uncovered for a third and last time. What’s more, the cadaver was in this way moved to another resting place in Nevers’ Chapel of St. Bernadette.
Now open to the public
From that point forward, Bernadette’s body has been shown in a glass coffin. Wax molds are currently set up over the face and hands to mask the obscured shade of the skin. She still attracts thousands of people.
What’s more, fascinatingly, to accomplish a similarity, these covers were made particularly by a Parisian organization, utilizing photos from when Bernadette was alive and an impression of her face.
Officially became Saint Bernadette
In the wake of being announced honored in 1925, Bernadette was authoritatively made a holy person by Pope Pius XI on December 8, 1933. Her resting place in Nevers, in the interim, keeps on being a critical journey goal.
And even 140 years after the famous nun’s death, there is still no explanation as to why her body has remained so mysteriously unchanged – except, of course, utilizing divine intervention.