Our Lady Of Lourdes
Country : France
Year : 1858
In 1858, there lived in the village of Lourdes, a little peasant girl, Bernadette Soubirous, 14 years old, uneducated, simple, poor, good. On February 11, she was sent with two more girls to collect wood. They walked to the Rock of Massabielle, where the two companions crossed a mountain stream; while Bernadette was removing her shoes to follow them she became conscious of a ravishing beautiful Lady, standing in the hollow of the rock, looking at her. Bernadette fell involuntarily upon her knees, gazing enraptured at the lovely Lady, who smiled lovingly at Bernadette and then disappeared.
The mysterious Lady from heaven appeared in all, eighteen times to the little girl and among other things told her to drink the water from a mysterious fountain which had been up until then unknown. Bernadette scratched in the sand at the spot indicated, and water began to trickle through the earth; after a few days there gushed forth every day 27,000 gallons of pure, clear spring water, and this flows still. Bernadette was asked by the Lady who always showed her a sweet heavenly courtesy, to request the priest to have a church built on the spot, that processions should be made to the grotto, that people should drink of the water. The main emphasis of her message was that the Faithful should visit the grotto in order to do penance for their sins and for those of the whole world. In answer to Bernadette’s inquiry, “Who are you?” the Lady answered, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”
Four years after, the Bishop declared upon an exhaustive and scrupulous investigation, to the Faithful, that they are “justified in believing the reality of the apparitions.” In 1873, a basilica was built on top of the rock and in 1883 another church was built below and in front of the rock. From 1867, when records began to be kept, until 1908, about 5,000,000 pilgrims had visited the grotto; now about 1,000,000 people visit Lourdes every year. Although Our Lady never at any time promised that pilgrims who visited would be healed of their physical ills, remarkable cures began at once and have continued ever since. Many of them are of such a character that they can be ascribed only to supernatural power.
Bernadette died in 1879 at the age of 35, and was later canonized. The body of the blessed Saint can still be seen in its glass coffin, intact and incorrupt, looking as its photographs show, like a young woman asleep. The chair at which she prayed; the altar where she received her First Holy Communion; the bed in which she slept; the room in which she lived—all can be seen at Lourdes.
Lourdes is the greatest shrine in the world. Here one may obtain refreshment, courage, energy and inspiration to continue the age-old struggle of the great Catholic Faith against the forces of darkness and disintegration. This great shrine, all its magnificent ceremonies, its physical healings, its spiritual miracles, and the streams of grace that are poured into the world through these things, were made possible through the faithfulness and the sanctity of a little peasant girl.
