Bernadette Soubirous had childhood asthma and her physician prescribed snuff for it (her snuff box is on display at Lourdes, right). When she was sixteen, in school, she later remembered, “One Sister was shocked when I started everybody sneezing by passing snuff around while she droned away in French.” After she had entered the convent later in life, “She produced her snuff box at recreation one day, to the great scandal of a Sister. She cried out: ‘Oh, Sister Marie-Bernard, you will never be canonized.’ ‘Why not?’ asked the ‘snuffer.’ ‘Because you snuff. That bad habit almost disqualified St. Vincent de Paul.’ ‘And you, Sister Chantal,’ twinkled Sister Marie-Bernard in reply, ‘you are going to be canonized because you don’t indulge.’”
Posted on: Thu, 12 Sep 2013 06:27:57 +0000