subject: Saint Bernadette And The Sounds Of Hell [print this page] One of the most powerful Marian Apparitions we have researched, occurred in Lourdes, France in 1858. The visionary, a girl who grew up to become St. Bernadette, was basically a no-nonsense person. She was very down to earth, without any outward ethereal qualities, not at all the type you would envision as being a Mystic or Visionary. And yet she was the one whom Our Lady chose to visit, and affirm the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, proclaimed by Pope Pius IX just four years before.
"We once wrote that Bernadette was a simple girl, an illiterate at the time that Our Lady appeared to her, but never did we consider her a stupid girl. Her behavior throughout the period of the Apparitions, her inner strength to hold up against great powers in the government and the Church, are a strong indicator of this. Her life after the Apparitions, and in the Convent of St. Gildard in Nevers, is proof of her strength.
"She really underestimated her role in the Apparitions at the grotto of Massabiele in the little hamlet of Lourdes. Our Lady needed one such as she knew Bernadette could be. This was a very important message she was bringing the people of the world. She could not take a chance on trusting a weak person, who could be reduced to tears or shot down at the first sign of adversity. She needed someone who would have the strength to stand up before the powers of Hell, and Bernadette was that person."
St. Bernadette never actually had a vision of Hell, as much as she experienced the Sounds of Hell during one of the times when Our Lady appeared to her. This occurred during the fourth apparition, which took place on Friday, February 19, 1858. Our Lady had no sooner appeared to Bernadette, when the child heard the most horrible roaring sounds, much like screaming and raving, very low and guttural at first, very angry. The sounds seemed to come from the River Gave, which was in front of the Grotto of Massabiele. They started off with a low rumble, and graduated to loud yells. In his book on St. Bernadette, Abbe Francois Trochu describes the experience as follows:
"At a certain time, the apparition seemed different from before. Suddenly loud yells, belched from the Gave (River), had rent the sacred silence of Massabiele. They 'challenged, crossed, collided with one another, like the clamor of a brawling crowd'. One voice, more furious than the rest, dominated them all and roared out: 'Get out of here!...Get out of here!' Bernadette guessed rightly that the threatening curse was by no means addressed merely to her humble self, but was an attack directed beyond her to the Vision of Light standing above the child.
"The Vision merely glanced in the direction of the rushing stream. This single look, one of sovereign authority, reduced the invisible mob to silence: the enemy of all good would not drive her from the grotto where she gave her audiences."
