The Marian sanctuary at Lourdes has recognised the sudden healing of a French Franciscan nun as the 70th confirmed miracle after she overcame decades of disability following a pilgrimage there.

Sister Bernadette Moriau, 78, developed nerve damage at the base of her spine in the late 1960s, underwent four operations but gradually became an invalid by 1988. She had to take regular doses of morphine and wear a leg brace to restrain a deforming foot. A doctor suggested a pilgrimage to Lourdes in 2008 and she went without great expectations. “I prayed for the sick, but I didn’t ask for healing — it never occurred to me,” she said in a video distributed by her diocese of Beauvais, north of Paris.

Back at her convent a few days later, she felt called by a voice to get up and walk unaided, which she did. She said her surprised doctors found no trace of her ailment afterwards.

Before her case went to the International Medical Committee of Lourdes, she underwent batteries of tests and examinations, which were studied by committees of the Lourdes Medical Bureau in 2009, 2013 and 2016. 2017 was a bumper year for the Shrine of Fátima with 9.4 million pilgrims visiting, many of them present at the celebrations for the Centenary of the Apparitions presided over by Pope Frances.