St. Bernadette Soubirous
Suffering with illness throughout her childhood, this young French woman had learning challenges. At 14, the time the
Blessed Virgin appeared to her, she had not yet made her First Holy Communion as she couldn't retain her Catechism. The fact she reported that Mary had said to her "I am the Immaculate Conception" was the reason her local priest believed her stories of the apparitions. Bernadette joined a convent as a postulant and spent the rest of her short life in service to God.