Faithful, like Bernadette

One of my latest artworks features the little French saint Bernadette, as she kneels in contemplation of Our Lady of Lourdes.

I loved making this artwork. I felt so free with the marks: laying them down and erasing them away almost like a sculptor, and yet I love how the image hints at both ink drawings and linocuts. I’ve always admired ink for it’s flow that pulls you along, and linocuts for their decisiveness: a cut here, a cut there, and an image is formed.

St Bernadette is my Confirmation saint. I’ve never been particularly close to her, and so early last year I decided to try and remedy that by featuring her in an artwork.

I depicted her kneeling, facing the viewer and praying the rosary with her eyes raised to Heaven.

Logically, my design was good… but it just wasn’t right. After several struggles I consigned it to the design trash heap of “OK ideas that just didn’t work”.

My attempt was over, I thought. I wasn’t meant to draw St Bernadette.

But then late last year while working on something else, an image jumped almost fully formed into my head.

The image was St Bernadette kneeling and gazing up at Our Lady. It would be simply drawn and a strong image. I didn’t want it to look particularly sweet, although Our Lady with roses on her feet would do that naturally. What I wanted was the peasantness of Bernadette to emerge.

There’s no such thing as instant art. It certainly took time and developed over days: lines added here, taken away there – but it flowed. And I think St Bernadette was exactly as she wanted to be: pictured with Our Lady, the spotlight not on her.

Now I don’t know if St Bernadette has taken a closer interest in me since making this artwork, or if it’s just the right time in my life, but as this year has begun, she’s been popping up repeatedly.

I began 2025 at the Immaculata Mission School, and for the first time ever, my share group was St Bernadette. I thought it was sweet, a Heavenly nod to my Confirmation, but nothing much else. But I felt it should be. I wanted to be closer to Bernadette.

And then a few weeks ago while praying into a ministry, she appeared in my thoughts. I’d been praying about a ministry situation where I felt renewal was needed, and getting a sense of a dam or valley of baked dry clay, and then springs welling up and filling it with water. I prayed: where do we get those springs? And suddenly there in my mind was St Bernadette; little Bernadette who at the direction of Our Lady began to dig in the earth where no water had ever been found, faithfully following Mary’s directions. Those watching her thought that the young seer might be going mad, and perhaps thought their suspicions were confirmed when she began drink a little of the muddy water that began to appear and wash her face with the mud.

Little Bernadette, by faithfully following Our Lady’s directions, had found the spring of Lourdes.

And because she didn’t care about being misunderstood, Lourdes is now a place where millions of people are blessed by God’s healing touch each year.

It struck me that St Bernadette is a wonderful model for those in ministry, and I’ve chosen her as my patron saint this year.

And I pray to be as faithful – and courageous – as she was.