National Catholic Register, Joan Frawley Desmond: When Franciscan Oblate Sister of the Sacred Heart Bernadette Moriau made the roundtrip journey for her 2008 Lourdes pilgrimage, she was transported from her French convent in an “ambulance” train car designated for the sick visiting the Marian shrine where the Blessed Virgin appeared in 1858.
Nights on the train were spent in agony, getting little rest as she lay on a narrow upper bunk. For 42 years, a painful degenerative disease of the spine had slowly taken control of Sister Bernadette’s body. And by 2008, the woman who had dreamed of bringing God’s love to the needy and trained as a nurse had been reduced to a state of powerlessness by an illness that left her dependent on others. Account is here.
