"The important thing is not to do much, but to do well"

In Bernadette of Lourdes' little diary, we find notes such as this one addressed to the Virgin Mary: "O my Mother, take my heart and press it into the heart of my Jesus".

She also wrote in her notebook: "The important thing is not to do much, but to do well". All her actions bore witness to this. Thirty years before Therese of Lisieux, this practice of love in the most mundane occupations, while always recommended as part of the Christian life, was not the most widely recognized way of achieving sanctity, and Bernadette's behavior often baffled those who met her, sometimes even her superiors.

When one of them, annoyed by Bernadette's somewhat crude simplicity, lack of mysticism and un-devout mischievousness, refused to believe that the Mother of God could have chosen her and asked for a proof, Bernadette lifted a flap of her habit, revealing the wound on her knee caused by cutaneous tuberculosis, despite which she continued working, and replied: "This, perhaps". Her interlocutor was shocked.

The year 1879, the last of her earthly life, was to be very hard for her. The physical suffering was compounded by the night of faith. Like the Carmelite nun of Lisieux a few years later, Bernadette was to experience the torments of inner doubt. She triumphed over this ordeal of pure love with all the strength of her will, stretched out in blind faith, shutting herself in Mary's womb, resting no matter what on the heart of Jesus, and asking for his grace to remain faithful.

Marian Encyclopedia