Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age

by Ruth Harris

An in-depth history of the world's most famous healing shrine traces the dramatic influence of Lourdes on the Catholic Church and its faith, from Bernadette Soubirous's 1858 visions of the Virgin Mary to his evolution into an important pilgrimage site. Reprint.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Religion, France, Theology, Grad School, Catholic

496 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Dr. Ruth Harris is a Lecturer in History at Oxford University.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

Reviews

[Mir · Rating 5 out of 5]

An impressively thorough and unbiased work, also quite interesting even to someone not interested in religious history.

Themes:
*19th-century debates regarding science, medicine, religion. Faith in scientific rationality.
*The roles of women and children.
*mysticism et al "non-orthodox faith"
*challenges to secularization at a moment when the church (perceived itself to be) under attack.

The traditional historiography of this apparition poses Paris as action and Lourdes as re-action, cunter-culture. Ruth Harris explores alternative ways of viewing the story. For instance, repositioning Bernadette's experience between a tradition of Pyrenean storytelling and 19th century religious innovations. Harris is also concerned with the physicality of Bernadette's life and particular experience: labor and suffering and earthiness.

Bernadette was extremely poor, asthmatic, didn't speak French, was a shepherdess. She saw a girl in white who smiled at her; by the 4th appearance Bernadette had not suggested that this was the Virgin. Only in later apparitions did the figure ask for penitence and prayers for the conversion of sinners. At the 9th apparition Bernadette scratched at the ground, tore cress, drank dirty water, her disshevelment contrasting with earlier serenity. After this she began to report more communications, such as the Virgin ordering the construction of a chapel and stating "I am the Immaculate Conception" (a title not previously used for the BVM). After this the grotto was boarded up.

There was conflict from the beginning between local authorities and believers. The police chief forbade Bernadette from visiting the Grotto; the parish priest, reluctantly, supported her because he believed her account. Locals spontaneously created a shrine, which the authorities removed before barricading the location. This is an issue of competing visions of Catholicism as well as authoritarian desire for control. It was the era of pyreneisme, an aspect of 19th century Romanticism that idealized the hard, bleak pastoral life and saw poverity as purity. On another hand, local religious tradition sacralized the landscape and wild holy spots; domestic animals had a liminal status and shepherds were thought to be more in contact with the supernatural world. Also there is Pyrenean resistance to Frenchification, and then the involvement of international interests after journalists publicized and interpreted the events.

What about Bernadette herself? After an ordeal of interrogation and questioning and examinations for both possession and mental illness, she was domesticated and silenced. She was kept in child-like local costumes for publicity of photos (there's a section in the commodification of traditional piety and indigenous experience) and the site itself was likewise domesticated and beautified. Bernadette said that she had been told 3 secrets by the apparition; she never revealed their content. Eventually she entered and convent. At the time of her canonization her body remained uncorrupted.

There are many other subjects interwoven: the feminization of religion and equation of women with backwardness, the theological debates of the era, the fin de siecle "search for self" and development of psychiatry including mesmerism and the the idea of the unconscious, the Bourbon restoration, the hygiene movement, dolourism, Weberian disenchantment,anticlericalism, antisemitism, mariology.

There is no scientific explanation for the healing effects of the Lourdes waters. The author, an atheist, mentions that she was cured while staying there for research purposes.

[Simon]

Fascinating and well-written. Harris is an agnostic Jew (interesting factoid: Franz Werfel, who wrote The Song of Bernadette was also Jewish), and is a Fellow of New College, Oxford. She flatly states that it is not possible to decide if Bernadette Soubirous actually saw the Virgin Mary at what became the pilgrimage center. However, she is drawn to the young girl and her experience, particularly admiring the way in which the 14 year-old, uneducated Bernadette dealt with the aftermath of her apparitions.

Harris takes the reader from the initial visions in 1858 to the eve of World War I. She examines the role of the Church hierarchy, Imperial and Republican France, peasant piety and Pyreneean traditions in the formation of the shrine. Harris does not gloss over the shameful tradition of anti-Semitism that permeated 19th and 20th century French Catholicism, along with legitimist politics. But she demonstrates that the uglier side of religion was subsumed at Lourdes into the experience of aiding the sick. People united across social classes to ferry the maladies from the trains, to feed them, to bathe them, to care for their physical and spiritual needs.

Harris also examines the physical effects of suffering upon self-definition. She is especially interesting here, as she tends to reject the late 19th century rational explanation of the cures as simply the power of suggestion. There is also a substantial discussion of the role that women played both within and without the development of the pilgrimage site. Moreover, Harris provides a much broader understanding as to the definition of "cure", as it was only in the 1880s that these became subject to medical "verification". She aptly points out that by allowing the existence of a Medical Examination Board, the Church surrendered part of her power to science.

Bernadette herself removed rather quickly from the Lourdes phenomenon, as she left her home village in 1865, never to return. Prior to the entrance into a convent at Nevers, Bernadette had been separated from her village for long stretches of time, limited in the contact allowed with her family. She died young after an uneventful afterlife as a nun, perfectly willing to speak about the apparitions if asked, but never bringing them up herself. It was in the interests of the Church to focus the pilgrims upon the Virgin herself, rather than the visionary, and Bernadette --- contrary to the behaviors of others in similar positions that Harris describes --- seems to have been more than content with that outcome. Harris also contrasts the figure of Bernadette --- poor, ignorant, not French (she --- and her vision --- spoke using a patois peculiar to the region) -- with the bourgeois Therese Martin, i.e. St. Therese of Lisieux. I did wonder why the figure of Joan of Arc, also an uneducated French shepherdess, never really came up in the book. These three girls are the great saints of France.

Harris ends her book, though, with this sentence: "For, despite the attempts by some to romanticize, by others to politicize and by more still to medicalize, throughout the history of Lourdes there has always remained one fixed point: the essential image of a young, poverty-stricken and sickly girl kneeling in ecstasy in a muddy grotto."

[Orion · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ms. Harris tells the story of the wonderous events in the small town of Lourdes, and relates them to the history of France in the second half of the 19th Century. Her approach is to tell the story of the events through the lives of the people involved. To do so she quotes from letters and diaries as well as official records. In order to write in such depth, she must have read everything ever written during this period about Lourdes. Between the Notes and the Bibliography at the end of the book is a three page Dramatis Personae listing all the major people associated with the shrine. Not just for Catholics, the book devotes many pages to the role of women in 19th Century France and will be of great interest to anyone wanting to know about women's rights in France. It is also a "must read" for people interested in French social history. She also looks into the relationaship of anti-Semitism to the Catholic piety of the time. People are never presented two-dimensionally to represent the ideals or concepts they championed. Ms. Harris treats the people she writes about with respect and intelligence. As for Bernadette's vision and the miracles, she tells what is known (and she knows a lot!) and the reactions they caused without taking a stand one way or the other herself. Truly a great work of historical writing.

[Haley Groth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating!!!!!!!! And sooo well-written

[Iñaki Tofiño · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting approach to the phenomenon of divine apparitions, which covers their religious side but also their social and cultural aspects.

[Czarny Pies · Rating 5 out of 5]

Salut les Francais! Vous devez absolument lire ce livre qui demontre clairement que les historiens anglophones comprenent mieux l'histoire de la France que les historiens francais. Le cote positive du medaille, c'est que les anglais semblent mieux aimer la France que vos propres erudits.

Mme. Harris est une juive mecreente qui approuve entierement le phenomene Lourdes. Elle pose la question: A quoi sert une religion qui ne s'occupent pas des malades? Elle est pleine de louanges pour St. Bernadette et pour les gens de Lourdes qui generation apres generation donne un acceuil tres chaleureux aux pelerins.

Dans Lourdes Mme. Harris decrit le contexte social et historique de l'apparition de la vierge au Grotte celebre. Elle raconte la lutte a l'interieure de l'Eglise pour le controle du lieu. Finallement, elle fait un analyse brilliante du debat auquel Zola, Veuillot, Huysmans et d'autres grands ecrivains de l'eqoque ont participe.

Ce livre est fortement recommande.

[Roland Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Harris also puts Lourdes in the context of French political history, and notes how pilgrimages increased after France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71. Now people came to the shrine not just to pray for themselves, but for their nation as a whole. The number of sick people making the pilgrimage increased once the trains began traveling to Lourdes. The easier it was to make the journey, the more often people who were suffering physical pain decided to go.

See my full review here: http://wordsbecamebooks.com/2014/11/1...

[Terry Cudbird · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ruth Harris started off as a sceptic about the miracles of Lourdes but she brings out the constancy of Bernadette's witness in the face of enormous pressure. Harris describes the political and social context and brings out some disturbing links between Catholicism and anti-semitism.Well-written and very informative.

[Laurie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not give up on this though I was tempted now and then. The narrative puts the happenings at Lourdes into the religious and political context of 19th century France and maybe that cast the net a bit wider than I had expected. Sturdy and thorough, yet it never crossed the threshold into an enjoyable read for me.

[Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay, so I had to read this for grad school--but I was really moved by it. Recommended for the formerly Catholic or those bemused by religious fervor in modern society...

[Jeremy Deedes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marina Warner references Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age numerous times in Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary. One gets the impression that Warner and Harris have discussed Our Lady and Lourdes in considerable depth together. Although each book takes a very different approach to the phenomenon of the Virgin Mary, they complement each other and are both valuable resources for Lourdes pilgrims.

Harris's book is a study of Lourdes - described by Warner as the most phenomenal sacred site of modern Christendom - from its beginnings as a holy shrine to the end of the First World War. Harris is a secular, non-Catholic scholar, giving her objectivity and authority in her description and history of Lourdes. She is incisive in her analysis of the interplay between the secular and sacred worlds, and her descriptions of the conflicts between and within the secular authorities, the church authorities, the Lourdais and the revolutionaries are penetrating and deeply researched.

This deep and troubled history may have inspired Harris to write Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age to 'understand without judgment'. It certainly makes the book exceptionally readable and shines magnificent historical lights on Lourdes today.

A story of struggle

The first part of Harris's book is dedicated to Lourdes's emergence and the struggles and tensions that arose out of Bernadette's apparitions. As it is today, Lourdes seems to have put much of this behind it. However, these stories and histories were formative in the birth of Lourdes and its later establishment as a place of pilgrimage and healing. Despite everything (and there was a lot), Lourdes emerged from a difficult period in French history. Harris tells of these struggles through the eyes of the cast of thousands who became involved in Lourdes. This is not a detached, impersonal history. It is more the story of the story that brought Lourdes into being.

Harris discusses Lourdes's power and influence on many occasions, not least in her chapter on 'The Battle of the Books' and the fight between secular positivists and pious believers. At the turn of the century, the struggle to be the authoritative author of Lourdes's history drew the Pope and the President, as well as apologists and detractors from across France. If the pen is mightier than the sword, this chapter shows how determined the different factions were to use Bernadette's visions for their ends.

Lourdes emerged in France during the French defeat by Prussia, the 1870-71 Civil War and the campaign to restore the Catholic Bourbon monarchy to France. Harris demonstrates how the story of Lourdes is inextricably bound up in the politics of France and the ideological battle between the Republicans defending positivism and the scientific method and the monarchists defending the faith and the supernatural.

A place of pilgrimage and healing

In the book's second half, Harris describes with compassion and insight the rise of Lourdes as a place of pilgrimage and healing. We learn from history about the emergence of so much that is familiar to us in Lourdes today: the Hospitalité, the rituals of the piscine and processions, the Medical Bureau and the Accueils, the voitures, the forgons, the brancardiers (the stretcher-bearers to the poor) and even the close relationship between Lourdes and the French railways.

Harris covers the miracles in-depth and sets them in the context of arguments over whether they are explained by faith and the supernatural or by science and medicine. In particular, she deals at length with auto-suggestion and crowd psychology. She also covers the story of Emile Zola's novel The Three Cities Trilogy: Lourdes, Volume 2. Harris highlights the many parts of the book that Zola derived from and deliberately misconstrued to support his arguments for positivism over faith.

Although sceptical of some cures, especially the early and poorly documented cases, Harris points to other cures 'in which the Virgin's grace seemed limitless.' She provides, for example, the case of Pierre de Rudder, a Belgian labourer and 'swinger' with a three-inch gap in his leg due to an accident. After setbacks and trials, de Rudder makes it to Lourdes (a true pilgrimage). Unable to circumambulate the Grotto three times as planned for his penance, he pleads with Notre Dame de Lourdes to work again. At this point, he rises, walks to the statue of the Virgin and kneels to give thanks. This case is essential for many reasons, not least because it is exceptionally well documented, both pre-and post-cure, and the disability is purely physical, denying the sceptics the opportunity to argue hysteria is cured by auto-suggestion.

Like Warner, Harris writes in depth about the impact of the Marian culture on women. Whilst Warner argues that the Virgin's perfection sets an unattainable standard for women, which leaves them vulnerable when not achieved, Harris argues that the Virgin's instruction to Bernadette to exhort the faithful to process and bathe, the origin of the Lourdes pilgrimage movement, released women from the shackles of both Church and State. The pilgrimage movement gave women new and important roles as organisers, carers, and fundraisers, carrying out the vast amount of work needed to arrange the National Pilgrimage. As the movement grew, many other pilgrimages emerged.

The miracle of Lourdes

Harris's book is deeply researched and well written, even if it is a little difficult at times to keep track of the cast of thousands involved in the Lourdes story. It certainly explains why Warner can describe Lourdes as 'the most phenomenal sacred site of modern Christendom'. Does the book provide the 'understanding without judgment' that Harris seeks? I think the answer is in the affirmative. Unlike Warner's book, which contains judgements that could grate with some, Harris truly seeks understanding without judgment. In order to do so, she explores the historical, cultural, scientific and religious elements of the Lourdes story in gratifying depth.

As I finish the book, however, I cannot help but feel that Lourdes itself is the miracle. The shrine has survived so much in its 162-year history that it is a miracle that it remains in all its glory. As pilgrims, we get a potted history of Lourdes, which denies us the knowledge of how difficult the birth and survival of this extraordinary place of pilgrimage, peace, and healing were. Even today, the shrine is not free from tensions, albeit minor compared to what it has been through in the past. Whilst many of us rely on faith alone as our motivation for our regular journeys to Lourdes, the story that Harris tells of Lourdes will do much to deepen our faith and understanding of why we are drawn back time and time again to this miracle.

[Pedro · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is rich in information and effectively delves into the cultural, historical, and political context of the era. However, the author seems preoccupied with a magical and enchanted view of the world, consistently emphasizing a semi-pagan spirituality in 19th-century France. This interpretation, while intriguing, is highly debatable and overlooks the reality of popular and devotional Christianity, that resonates more with the imaginative fairy tales conceived by Tolkien than with any form of ideologically driven paganism.

Moreover, the author appears to misunderstand the Christian ethos. For example, when discussing the hagiographic and manipulated image of Bernadette as a humble shepherdess in an idyllic rural setting, in contrast to the reality of Bernadette as a poor and suffering individual, the author misses the fact that by depicting the latter—the true Bernadette—she effectively captures the real image of Christ as seen by the faithful.

The author needs to develop a narrative that explains why the apparition resonated so deeply with the faithful and was recognized as genuine by the Church—a Church that had no obligation to accept it, especially given the numerous other apparitions it has rejected. The author fails to recognize the clergy's resistance as a sign of the Church's seriousness, leading her to construct a line of reasoning that seems fundamentally flawed.

Additionally, the author completely overlooks the significance of the statement, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” She insists - againg - on supossed manipulation, ignoring the development of tradition, including the Portuguese and Spanish devotions to Our Lady of the Conception—where the Virgin does not appear in a “maternal” guise. This tradition includes the rise of religious orders dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, such as the Conceptionists in the 15th century, culminating in the proclamation of the dogma. Such a statement is impactful to the ears of clergy well-versed in theology, and any attempt to reduce or simplify it is a futile effort to diminish its profound reality.

Without a perspective of faith, any attempt to understand Lourdes, Bernadette, and the development of the Sanctuary becomes a puzzling enigma, as there is no cohesive narrative to explain its significance.

[Zachary Vanderslice · Rating 5 out of 5]

From my discussion post:

Ruth Harris’s Lourdes is a remarkably powerful history of the Lourdes apparitions and pilgrimage and their relationship to Catholicism and the culture of post-revolution France. Harris is deft in her portrayal of numerous different interpretations of the ensuing events. Her particular power comes from her ability to treat each actor's perspective as both legitimate and meaningful. Bernadette, a girl who often loses her agency of other histories of the apparitions, is a fully realized character with both emotional depth and capacity. She is shown to have her own interpretation of the events that remained unswayed by the pressures of many around her. Yet as Ben noted, her figure within the narrative seems to dissipate in the book's second half. While Ben is absolutely correct to draw attention to this shift in the narrative, I think that the change is more extensive than just Bernadette. As the pilgrimage grew the town of Lourdes grew, becoming an increasingly urban town centered around the pilgrimage. Bernadette’s exit from the story thus parallels the transformation, and end, of rural Lourdes. As Harris notes “those who had witnessed the apparitions were still important personages in the community, but, with their deaths, new, largely clerical organizations would take the lead” (175). The book to becomes increasingly focused not on the town and its inhabitants but on the national discourse surrounding the pilgrimage. What seems apparent to me is that in the transformation of Lourdes into a national site—the globalization of the place—there was inevitable homogenization of the individuals of Lourdes, Bernadette included. For Harris, it appears that this homogenization, this loss, may be part and parcel of the experience of Lourdes's emergence into modernity.

[Hildie Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly balanced and a nice and informative read. There are lots of pictures, too, which is wonderful in a non-fiction book, to better get an understanding of the people and places mentioned. It's also a fair read for a Catholic as the author doesn't discount the possibilities of faith. In fact, it's a large part of her story and, of course, the story of St. Bernadette and Our Lady of Lourdes. I would recommend this book for anyone looking for a more in-depth read on France in this time period, Catholicism and faith in general, geography, and sociology. This is a nicely written and full read.

[A.J. Jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this book twenty years ago and I recently read it again, because I remembered it having been a very good book. I must say I got more out of the book the second time, because I now know more about 19th century European and Catholic history. This is a very well researched and very well written book. Highly recommended to anyone interested in science, religion, Marian apparitions, and 19th century France.

[Sydney LaRue · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very interesting read for someone (like myself) who grew up Catholic and is now simultaneously interested in Catholic history and French history. Harris does a really great job presenting information in a non-biased way and presenting all sides of the story.

[Collette BP · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting socio-political-historical account to the famous Marian Shrine.

[Joey Mopsink · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a good book and I like it !!

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a splendid book and one that anyone who believes, or doesn't believe, in the 'miraculous' apparitions at Lourdes or the 'miracles' that have taken place there, should read - not because Harris answers the question as to the reality of of apparitions or the miracles - in fact she doesn't even attempt to and says honestly that you can not answer those questions. What she does, as a historian, is look at Lourdes as a historical event/fact. In this she is following in the footsteps of William Christian in 'Visionaries' (about an apparition of Mary 1931 in Spain - but he also written many other books on other apparitions and or events such as moving statues, etc.) and David Blackbourn in 'Marpingen' (about an apparition of Mary in Germany in 1876) and the result is fascinating and makes you wonder why such an approach had not been taken before - because the reality is that until recently historians steered well clear of these Marian apparitions so the field was entirely dominated by, usually, Catholic apologetics - satisfying, perhaps, for the faithful but unable to answer, of often even ask, the questions that non believers had.

By placing Lourdes within a historical context so much of what happened and so much about the shrine's history is explicable by, but also illuminated, by the history of the period - I am not going to go into it, many of the other reviews on goodreads give very fine summations. This is a boo0k that any student of French history in the 19th century should read, anyone interested in the history of the development of intellectual thought, or the Catholic Church, in so many ways so many people can profit from this book. But above all anyone who wants to know about Lourdes should read this.

As a coda to my review I wanted to comment, perhaps more honestly to warn, about the care needed when using Wikipedia -not so much about inaccuracy - we all know that it can be inaccurate - but about omissions - which in their way are as important but often more troubling than wrong facts. In the course of reading Harris's book on Lourdes, or her book on Dreyfus - or if you read any history about 19th century France and the clashes between anti-clericals and the Third Republic - you will come across the Assumptionists religious order and Father D'Alzon who created the order and who had a central role in developing and propagating the 'mission' of Lourdes. But D'Alzon and the Assumptionists were right wing, anti-Republic and anti-Semitic to an almost unbelievable degree all the way through to the 1920s - and even beyond. They were associated with Fascist right wing anti-Semitic movements right through Vichy and beyond. This is significant because both in the 19th and 20th centuries the Assumptionists owned and ran several very powerful newspapers. They were at the forefront of the Dreyfus affair and never accepted that he could be innocent because he was a Jew. If you look on Wikipedia you will find no mention of any of this on the Assumptionist or D'Alzon listings - only that they campaigned against Dreyfus as a 'traitor' (which awfully is close to condoning them because nothing is said to make clear he was not a traitor, the uninformed could be left to imagine that maybe he was a traitor. But in addition this avoidance of truth is like describing the anti-semitism of the Nazis as being inspired by concerns 'Jewish Finance'). D'Alzon's site simply highlights various 'official' aspects of his career and highlights his defense/promotion of the dogma of papal infallibility without in anyway providing any information on how he saw this dogma as part of his conservative view of what society should be (Harris in Lourdes fills in much detail). Since D'Alzon was such an intense right wing theorist it is not surprising that it had to wait for John Paul II's senile old age before he was placed on the road to sainthood by being made 'Venerable'. I apologise for taking up so much space with these comments but I felt they were important.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

An even-handed depiction of how the miracle of St. Bernadette at Lourdes was both a product of its time and place, but also how it shaped the Assumptionist movement in France. Harris does not shy away from the miracle's place in French politics, including illuminating political cartoons and details of the role of mass-media in the creation of one of the world's most popular healing sites. She also addresses issues of gender concerning the miracle itself, Catholic beliefs, and the movement that followed. She describes how the miracle and those who used it for political gain interacted with the rationalists of the time and avoids oversimplifying the pilgrimage. One thing I wished she'd addressed more thoroughly would be the concerns over the hygiene at the baths of Lourdes. She also never delves into what happened to those who were not blessed with a cure by the Lourdes water, and whether these disappointments had any effect on the reputation of the pilgrimage site.

[AskHistorians]

Taking the Lourdes site and the original visions supposedly seen there in 1855, Harris uses this as a microcosm to tell us a lot about emerging civic and patriotic identities in France, raises questions of science versus religion in the age of modernisation, and the question of faith and belief. It is a beautifully written book, and goes far beyond what the title suggests.

[Atticus Lanigan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't say I finished because I read it in parts. But, it is wonderful and interesting.