A Jew sings Bernadette’s song

The experience of Lourdes fascinates and resonates with many. An example of this is Austrian-Bohemian novelist, playwright and poet Franz Werfel, known for his numerous works, including The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, where he recounts in a realistic and moving way one of the most significant episodes of the Armenian genocide.

Born in Prague in 1890, the son of a Jewish merchant, Werfel was a friend of Franz Kafka and Max Brod. He became one of the most assertive protagonists of the literary scene of Central Europe, which was destroyed by the coming of Nazi barbarism, in Vienna (Austria), where he lived. Like many people of Jewish origin, Werfel too was forced to flee Austria: as a refugee in southern France, he sought asylum in Lourdes. In his book The Song of Bernadette written in 1941, he tells the story of Bernadette Soubirous and the apparitions of Lourdes, thus motivating his choice: 

"Providence led me to Lourdes, whose prodigious history I had no idea about until then. We stayed hidden for several weeks in this small town in the Pyrenees. It was a period of anguish, but it was also an extremely important period for me, since I got to know the wonderful story of the very young Bernadette Soubirous and the facts of the healings in Lourdes. One day, in the midst of tribulations, I made a promise. If I came out of this desperate situation, before any other work, I would sing the praises of Bernadette to the best of my ability. This book is the fulfillment of that promise. "Bernadette" is a novel, but it is not a work of fiction... All the important events that make up the contents of the book happened in real life... I dared to sing Bernadette's song, I who am not Catholic but Jewish... because I swore to honor always and everywhere, through my writings, the divine secret and human holiness, even though our time, with ferocity and indifference, denies these supreme values of life."

The testimony of Franz Werfel is continually confirmed by the millions of pilgrims who come to the Grotto of Massabielle in Lourdes.

Archbishop Bruno Forte, of the Italian Diocese of Chieti-Vasto, theologian

Adapted from a talk given in 2017, Zenit