Today marks 163 years since a young peasant girl, removing her stockings while preparing to wade into a stream in Lourdes, France, was visited for the first of several times by the Blessed Virgin Mary. I have long been fascinated by the story of St. Bernadette, one of the two young French maidens who have figured so large in my spiritual life, the other being Saint Joan of Arc, for whom I have a special and intense devotion. When I was a little boy, I watched the old black & white movie, The Song of Bernadette, on television with my mother. I was quite bored with the movie, except for…