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One of the most affecting parts in The Song of Bernadette comes at its conclusion.

Mistress Vauzou (Gladys Cooper) has doubted the worth and the grace of Bernadette (Jennifer Jones) up until this point. Insofar, she has claimed divine visions of the Immaculate Conception, and despite a cadre of believers, the Church and the State remain steadfast that she's a sick girl looking for attention.

By the time Vauzou presses Bernadette, she has already dedicated herself to monastic schooling, and not once taken personal profit from her claims. So it feels especially vindictive, then, to have Vauzou press Bernadette's visions so hard. As if her claim to divinity and its many prophecies is hers and hers alone - a just reward for her tireless service. Bernadette even agrees with the Mistress that she is unworthy.

It's around this point Vauzou is shown a large tumor under Bernadette's skirt. She has tuberculosis of the bone, and has likely lived much of her short live in unspeakable pain. Pain that she has never uttered so much as a hint towards. Pain that Bernadette accepted as a natural part of living, and thus acclimated to because nobody thought to ask.

This meditation on faith rises above some of the more dated scriptural elements endemic to where mainstream American belief was. By the teachings of Christ himself, chronic pain is a holy burden in life. The injustices and politicking done in the name of quieting disability does not make disability disappear, and in fact, only worsens the material conditions of those who struggle with mobility, respiratory function, what have you.

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied." (Matthew 5:6.) These words are not platitude nor prophecy. In The Song of Bernadette, we see that they are practice and dogma as they apply to the disabled and the ill. That the governing apparatuses and false churches will always doubt the sick, the dying, the destitute until a vestal example arises from the rabble and rationalizes within familiar terms. It's reflected in the way the authority figures in this film react in disgust and dismay at sick people - 'even lepers!' - as a spring Bernadette has found gives them relief.

But those who literally hunger and thirst for a righteousness here are rewarded. Not with riches, but with relief and with sanctuary. Family, community - things that truly matter. In this vision of Mary, the Immaculate Conception appears to a disabled girl and forces her against the State and the Church to show their naked injustices. Forces everyone to see an entire class of people rise up from their marginalization and seek help from a God they've been told abandoned them.

By The Song of Bernadette's praxis, God abandons no one. In fact, he often appears to those whose stories are at first doubted or shown skepticism. As recounted in Luke 24:22-24, think of Jesus' resurrection at the tomb. This was not a grand spectacle witnessed by all, but a solemn and intimate miracle witnessed by "some women from our group" - one of whom we now presume to be Mary Magdalene. Her own prophecies and beliefs were cast out at first, as well. But time has born out to show their truth.

Thus, out of Bernadette's steadfast conviction and faith comes true righteousness. A people and their advocates rising up against a body that denies their existence and their dignity to say, "our lives have worth!" This is the ultimate beauty of Henry King's film, to me, even amid its revelatory editing and otherworldly music. That it frames faith and sin not as immutable truths, but as concepts wielded by certain groups to fit certain narratives. Yet it sometimes takes believers and followers outside of rigid traditionalism to center the true teachings of the Messiah.