Parish priest: Fr. Tom Wynne. Tel/Fax: 01397-
e-
Blessed Mary MacKillop web site: www.gaeldom.com/mmk
Weekly
Bulletin Online: www.gaeldom.com/bulletin
RC Diocese of Argyll & the Isles Charity
Registration No. SC002876
In 1909, the Episcopal Commission examining Bernadette's reputation for saintliness, virtue and miracles, with a view to canonisation, completed its work. The body was exhumed on September 22, 1909, as the first step of identification in accordance with both civil and church law and for verification of the state of the corpse. Present was the Bishop, the Chief of Police, the Mayor, surgeons and pathologists of the highest reputation. When the coffin was opened, there was no smell of putrefaction, and the body was found to be an incredible state of preservation. The nuns washed the body and replaced it in a new coffin, after which it was sealed and reburied.
Her illness and the state of her body when she died, the humidity in the vault, the rust on her rosary beads and crucifix would all seem conducive to disintegration of the flesh. However, the Church did not consider all this yet as a "miracle" in the strictest sense of the word.
When her cause had reached the stage of beatification, another identification of her body was made on April 3, 1919, when it was again exhumed under similar circumstances as before, and was found to be in much the same state as at the first exhumation.
This Sunday is the nearest to the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, and is dedicated as World Day of Prayer for the Sick. Lourdes has a special affection in our devotions as Catholics whether we have been able or not to make a pilgrimage to Our Lady's shrine. You can be sure that most homes have a bottle of Lourdes water
On February 11, 1858, Our Lady appeared to Bernadette in the grotto at Massabielle
while her sisters had gone on ahead to gather firewood. There were 18 appearances
in all, the final one being on July 16th. of the same year. Ridicule turned to belief
as thousands thronged the grotto-
I am the Immaculate Conception. There was no way Bernadette could have known what this meant. After many exhaustive investigations and the living proof of so many miracles, the Church accepted that Our Lady had appeared to Bernadette. Sometime later, Bernadette entered a convent in Nevers, south of Paris, where in the few years that were to remain to her, she lived a life of holiness and virtue in the greatest of simplicity.
She suffered intensely in her latter days from her girlhood affliction of asthma, and now from tuberculosis of the lung and a tumour on her knee, which caused her excruciating pain but which she managed to conceal from the sisters in the. community. She died peacefully and gently on April 16th, 1879.
Her body remained on view for several days before being placed in a coffin which was sealed in the presence of Civil and Church witnesses. On May 30th., it was transferred from her grave to a vault that had been specially prepared for her coffin in the convent grounds.
