My Miracle

Today I made a pilgrimage. Granted it was only forty five minutes into New Jersey but it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I don’t know if I’d still consider myself religious or merely spiritual but I know that I believe in something bigger than me. Maybe my God is more traditional than most young people- he is male, a father figure that believes in the basic rules of love and kindness. He probably looks like a cross between my psychiatrist and  my gynecologist only with a lot more answers and a lot less pills. 

If you are Catholic, you know that in eighth grade you make your confirmation and “graduate” from religious education. If you know me, you know eighth grade was one of the hardest years of my life, certainly the hardest year of my teens. And that was the year I was making my confirmation which meant I had to choose a saint and select their name as my confirmation name. One year in religion class they didn’t feel like teaching so they put The Song of Bernadette on the TV. Most kids whispered or texted but I actually watched the movie. And when it came down to writing my paper on my confirmation saint, I didn’t forget her. 

Bernadette is the patron saint of illness (she died of tuberculosis and didn’t live very long), poverty and the town of Lourdes where she grew up. She is also the patron saint of those who are made fun of for their piety and it is this perhaps that I love her most of all. Bernadette would know better than anyone how it feels to be ridiculed for their faith because when she had visions nobody believed her. Her parents even forbid her to go visit the place she was having these visions and some townspeople wanted her locked up. People started to believe her when she turned the muddy water of the grotto into clear water.

For a desperate, lonely, broken girl like me I saw Bernadette as a hero. As my hero. I didn’t go to Lourdes today. But Bernadette’s relics are on tour and they were at a church about 45 minutes from us. My parents and godparents took me today. Twice I went up to the altar, touched one of the rocks that came from the church in Lourdes and prayed my heart out. I held out my hands for Holy Water and tried to drink from it. I filled out a prayer intention and watched my family do the same. When I was fourteen I went to St. Anne’s in Quebec where people were healed. There were walls filled with crutches and walkers from people who had limped in and walked out. I begged God to take my OCD away but it never did go away and when I was twenty one I was additionally diagnosed as bipolar. Today my hand shook as I filled out my prayer intention. It’s the medication. I’m not performing miracles. But I am asking for one.