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Year 8

St Bernadette of Lourdes

I can explain what St Bernadette learned through her visions and reflect on whether she had knowledge of God.

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Year 8

St Bernadette of Lourdes

I can explain what St Bernadette learned through her visions and reflect on whether she had knowledge of God.

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Lesson details

Key learning points

  1. Bernadette experienced visions of the Virgin Mary, who asked for a chapel to be built by a nearby muddy cave.
  2. Mary told her to drink the muddy water of the spring and the next day it flowed with clear water.
  3. Her body is said by the Catholic Church to remain internally incorrupt and she was named a saint.
  4. Lourdes is a place of pilgrimage for Christians, with the water said to have healing properties.
  5. Some philosophers would argue that Bernadette gained knowledge of God although others would disagree.

Keywords

  • Knowledge - understanding or information believed to be true and supported by reasons

  • Lourdes - a French town where St Bernadette’s visions of Mary occurred, now a pilgrimage site

  • St Bernadette - a girl who reported visions of Mary in 1858, inspiring the Lourdes pilgrimage

  • The Virgin Mary - the mother of Jesus, particularly honoured in Catholicism as pure and a helper in prayer

  • Vision - a religious experience where a person sees or feels a divine or spiritual presence

Common misconception

St Bernadette's visions were believed by everyone at the time.

Many, including her family and Church authorities, questioned her mental state, and her visions were only accepted by the Church as genuine following investigation.

Task B could be completed as an extended writing task with students writing paragraphs using their learning on St Bernadette to answer the question 'Do religious experiences prove God exists?'. It could also form the basis of an oracy task with students role-playing or debating the question.
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This content is © Oak National Academy Limited (2025), licensed on
Open Government Licence version 3.0
except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).

Lesson video

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Starter quiz

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6 Questions

Q1.
Which philosopher researched religious experiences and recorded his findings in 'The Varieties of Religious Experience'?
Richard Swinburne
Correct answer: William James
Michael Persinger
Ian McCormack
Q2.
A philosopher who thinks about alternative explanations for religious experience is using the tool of .
Correct Answer: scepticism, Scepticism
Q3.
What is the name of the neuroscientist who performed the God helmet experiment?
Correct Answer: Persinger, Michael Persinger, persinger, michael persinger
Q4.
How can Persinger's God helmet experiment be used to support a sceptical approach to religious experience as a philosophical argument for God's existence?
Correct answer: it offers an alternative explanation, suggesting the cause is brain activity
it suggests that they result solely from belief systems, not brain function
it claims they are always triggered by external stimuli like rituals
it suggests religious experiences are unreliable and may be caused by delusion
Q5.
Which of the following statements is an example of Swinburne's principle of credulity?
Correct answer: We should trust someone's experience unless there is evidence to the contrary.
Religious experiences should be questioned; they may be caused by mental events.
A person's belief in a supernatural event must be verified scientifically.
We should assume that people's experiences are false unless proven otherwise.
Q6.
According to Swinburne's principle of testimony, when might we accept someone's account of a religious experience?
when the account aligns with scientific evidence and can be verified
Correct answer: if the person is honest and reliable, and there is no reason to doubt them
when the experience is consistent with other religious experiences
when the account is part of an accepted religious tradition

Exit quiz

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6 Questions

Q1.
Bernadette saw a total of visions of the Virgin Mary.
Correct Answer: 18, eighteen
Q2.
What did Bernadette describe the Virgin Mary as holding during one of her visions?
Correct answer: a rosary
a dove
a lily
a crown
Q3.
Put these events in the order they happened.
1 - Bernadette sees her first vision of the Virgin Mary at the grotto (cave).
2 - The Virgin Mary reveals herself as the Immaculate Conception.
3 - People begin gathering at the grotto (cave) to pray.
4 - Bernadette discovers the spring of water at the grotto (cave).
5 - The first miraculous healing is recorded at Lourdes.
Q4.
Why do many pilgrims visit Lourdes today?
to attend a mass led by the Pope
to see Bernadette’s incorrupt body
Correct answer: to bathe in its healing waters
to perform daily rosary walks
Q5.
How did people respond to St Bernadette's visions at the time?
everyone immediately believed her and supported her claims
Correct answer: she was doubted by many, including local priests
she was ignored entirely, and no one investigated her visions
the Pope declared her visions authentic the same year they occurred
Q6.
How did Plato define knowledge?
as believing in something because it's a personal opinion, even if it's not true
Correct answer: as having a belief that is true and supported by evidence or reasoning
as believing in something without needing any evidence
as having a belief that is proven false but still personally important

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