Healing of Sister Marie-Mélanie Meyer

Complete recovery following pilgrimage to Bernadette's tomb at Nevers. Unable to take nourishment for years; physicians found no natural explanation for the cure.

Sister Marie-Mélanie Meyer served as infirmarian at the Sacred Heart Convent in Moulins, in central France, as a member of the Sisters of Providence of Ribeauvillé. In 1910, when she was thirty years old, she began experiencing acute abdominal pain and persistent vomiting. The physicians diagnosed a gastric ulcer. Over the following months and years her condition deteriorated progressively: she became unable to keep down any nourishment, was reduced to extreme physical weakness, and was considered gravely ill.

At some point in the years following — the precise date is not recorded in publicly available documents — Sister Meyer made a pilgrimage to the Convent of Saint-Gildard in Nevers, where Bernadette Soubirous had lived out her religious life and where her body lay in its tomb. She prayed there, invoking Bernadette's intercession for her recovery. Following the visit she experienced a complete restoration of health. The gastric ulcer that had disabled her for years resolved entirely; she was able to eat and resume her duties. Examining physicians found no natural explanation.

The Congregation of Rites examined ten proposed miracles submitted for Bernadette's beatification cause and selected two for formal certification. Sister Meyer's healing was one, alongside the cure of Henri Boisselet from tubercular peritonitis — Boisselet had recovered instantaneously on December 8 following a novena in Bernadette's name. Both miracles were formally certified on May 2, 1925.

On June 14, 1925, Pope Pius XI beatified Bernadette Soubirous in Rome. The recognition of Sister Meyer's cure stood as testimony that the young woman from Lourdes who had never herself been healed by the spring she uncovered was nonetheless a powerful intercessor before God.