March 3, 2026
On March 1, my daughter treated me with tickets to see the musical, Bernadette. The performance took place at the Athenaeum Theatre in Chicago.
For me, it was an amazing spiritual experience, and one of the best musicals I have seen in my lifetime.
The musical is the heartwarming story of young Bernadette Soubirous, a lively, 14-year-old girl in 1850s France whom the Blessed Mother appeared to. We have better come to know this apparition as taking place specifically in Lourdes, France. Lourdes in now a place where millions have already gone to visit, and people continue to go there on pilgrimages while seeking spiritual and physical healing, with many being healed by drinking or bathing in the water found by the grotto where the Blessed Mother appeared.
The musical focuses on how Bernadette, the poorest and least-educated girl in town, bravely faced her skeptics with character, candor, honesty, and a good sense of humor.
I was moved to tears as the play portrayed this young child’s bravery while facing cruel criticism and severe brow beating by civil and church leaders, as well as by her own family. They demanded she recant what she saw, yet she never wavered from the mission given to her by the Blessed Mother, which was to have a chapel placed at the place of the apparitions and to have people pray there.
I asked myself if I would have such faith in facing such opposition. I am not sure I would.
St. Bernadette inspires me to do better. We have much to learn from God’s holy ones.
By: Deacon Tom Gryzbek
