Sister Bernadette Moriau was born on 23 September 1939 in northern France. At the age of 19, she entered the convent of Nantes of the Congregation of the Franciscan Oblate Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She received her nursing degree in 1965. In 1966, when she was 27 years old, she started suffering from lumbar sciatic nerve pain. She underwent surgery four times with no real clinical improvement. In 1975, she had to stop practising her nursing profession. In 1987, some neurologic symptoms appeared that very much reduced her ability to walk. Medical treatments seemed useless. A medullary neurostimulation implant was inserted in 1992 and she started treatment with morphine for the pain in 1994. Sphincterian disorders started in 1998. From 1999 the lumbar-cervical plastic mould brace that she used, was worn permanently. Equinus developed in her left foot in 2005 and necessitated the use of a foot orthosis.
In July of 2008, she went on Pilgrimage to Lourdes with her diocese and received the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.
She returned home in the same condition as before her departure, if not even worse because of the journey. On 11July, at the same time at which in Lourdes the Eucharistic Procession was taking place, she was in the Chapel of her Community, for one hour of Adoration. At about 5:45 pm, she relived the strong emotion she had experienced in the St Pius X Basilica during the Blessing of the Sick with the Blessed Sacrament. At that moment, she felt an unusual sensation of relaxation and warmth through her body. It felt as if an interior voice asked her to remove all of her devices, brace and foot orthosis. She realised at that moment that her foot was back to its normal position and that she could move it. The sphincterian disorders disappeared and, on that same day, she stopped taking her morphine and the neurostimulator. The next morning, accompanied by her sister, she walked about 5kilometres in the nearby forest.
New medical tests and additional medical consultations, along with three collegial meetings in Lourdes in 2009, 2013 and 2016, made it possible for the Bureau des Constatations Médicales to decide collegially on 7 July 2016, on the nature of the unexpected, instantaneous, complete, lasting and unexplained character of the cure. At the annual meeting in Lourdes, on 18 November 2016, CMIL (Lourdes International Medical Committee), confirmed that the cure was “unexplained according to current medical knowledge”.
On 11 February 2018, Msgr Jacques Benoit-Gonnin, Bishop of Beauvais, Noyon and Senlis, declared the unexplained cure of Sister Bernadette Moriau as miraculous.
This is the 70th cure of Lourdes recognised as miraculous by the Bishop of the diocese where the cured person lives.
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