What miracle happened to Saint Bernadette when she had cholera?

Answer 1

Not long after having suffered with cholera she started having apparitions of a beautiful young lady not far from Lourdes. Bernadette never claimed it to be Mary, consistently using the word aquero ("That") even when villagers tried to get her to say it was the Virgin Mary. At the request of local clegy, Bernadette was told to ask the apparition to identify herself. The request went unanswered until the 17th apparition when the vision replied, "I am the Immaculate Conception." This was the turning point for the clerical detractors of the apparitions as the dogma had only recently been proclaimed and Bernadette could have had no knowledge of it.

Answer 2

It is not a miracle that Saint Bernadette contracted cholera, as an epidemic was sweeping through Lourdes at the time. Nor was it a miracle that she survived, since many others also managed to survive. The fact that she seems to have developed severe Asthma out of the illness militates against any miraculous involvement in her recovery.

It was Bernadette (Soubirous) who later reported seeing a "small young lady" who came to be identified as Mary, mother of Jesus. Accordinq to Sandra Zindars-Swartz, the typical pattern is for children to report strange sightings and the adults to tell them what they had seen. As word of the vision spreads, the identity of the apparition bccornes established as fact. The children themselves also retrospectively 'realise' the true identity of the figure in their visions. This was the case with Bernadette Soubirous.