The Miracle is not the first best seller about Lourdes. Franz Werfel's The Song of Bernadette (1942) is a reverent retelling of the girl's story. Werfel's Bernadette is more than a Catholic saint. She is a true mystic whose visions magnify the presence of the divine in the world; her dedication and self-sacrifice is the highest nobility humanity is capable of.

Werfel is more interested in the spiritual values of a special individual and less concerned with the miracles of healing attributed to the shrine.