TODAY, April 16th  (the Saturday in Passiontide/eve of Palm Sunday as well as the 84th birthday of our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI), is  observed, outside of France, the feast of St. Bernadette Soubirous – or Sister Marie-Bernard, as she was known within her religious congregation, who, on April 16, 1879, died in the Sainte Croix Infirmary of the Convent of Saint-Gildard, Nevers, France at the age of thirty-five years. 

It is also the feast of St. Benedict Joseph Labre, who died on this day in the year 1783, also at the age of thirty-five.  St. Benedict Joseph Labre, a mendicant pilgrim who slept in churches and in the Coloseum, was greatly devoted to the Most Blessed Sacrament (and is considered one of the Saints of the Forty Hours Devotion).

Below are photos of the Priest of Salem’s statue and holy relic of St. Bernadette (ex capillis: obtained in the 1998 from St. Bernadette’s Convent in Nevers) as venerated today at the Salem parish rectory (a.k.a. the Shalom Chalet).  The last photo shows Antonio Cavalucci’s famous painting of St. Benedict Joseph Labre: