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February 11th is the celebrated feast day of the beautiful, Our Lady of Lourdes, one of the most famous apparitions sites of the Blessed Virgin Mary in all the world. It happened in 1858 near Lourdes, France, in a grotto known as Massabielle.
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Our
Lady of Lourdes
Bernadette Soubirous (age 14), her sister, Marie Toinette,
and neighbor, Jeanne Abadie, had gone to a nearby river to gather firewood for
the family’s next meal. They were peasant girls living in a time of turmoil
within France. When they reached the river, Bernadette (who suffered
from poor health most of her life), stayed behind to look for wood near the
grotto, while the other two girls crossed the river and gathered firewood on
the other side. A rosebush and the grotto, itself, soon took all of
Bernadette’s attention… She saw a golden-colored cloud, and soon after a Lady,
young and beautiful who came and placed herself at the grotto opening above
the rosebush. The Lady was dressed in an lovely, long ivory dress,
gathered around her waist by a deep blue sash. Pearl rosary beads hung
from her soft-looking hands that were folded and pointed in prayer.
Framing her kind, devout face was a long ivory mantle trimmed in gold.
It flowed to her feet, and on them rested two golden roses. Mary smiled
at Bernadette and motioned for her to advance. Bernadette lost any fear
she may have had and fell to her knees to pray the Rosary. Afterward,
the Lady slowly withdrew to the interior of the grotto and disappeared.
Nothing was spoken between the two of them on this day, February 11, 1858.
Our Lady visited Bernadette at the grotto eighteen times
during the following six-month period without ever telling Bernadette who She
was, until the last apparition. During the apparitions, Mary instructed
Bernadette to dig a hole in the ground and drink and bathe in it. The
hole later turned into a spring of water that Mary promised would be a healing
spring for all who came to use its waters. Mary also asked Bernadette to
tell the local pastor, Cure Peyramale, to have a chapel built in honor of her
appearances there. The Cure accused Bernadette of lying about the
apparitions and told her to find out from the Lady just who she was and
demanded from her that she perform a miracle by making the rosebush in the
grotto bloom. On March 25th, the Feast of the Annunciation,
Mary answered the Cure’s request when she told Bernadette, who had only
received a meager religious education, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”
Mary, with
these words, confirmed what the Pope had declared as official Catholic Church
doctrine just four years earlier – a highly unlikely fact to be known by an
uneducated 14 yr. old living in rural France.
The apparitions were declared authentic in 1862 and
Lourdes rapidly became one of the world’s major pilgrimage sites. A
chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes was erected in 1866.
Thousands have been cured from a variety of illnesses, both physical and
spiritual; and a clinic to support the millions of pilgrims who come to
Lourdes operates to this day. Bernadette returned to a life of
obscurity. She joined the Sisters of Notre Dame in Nevers, France in
1864 and died there in 1879 after a long and painful illness. She was
only 35 years old. Her body was placed in the Sisters’ chapel, but it
has never decomposed. Sr. Mary Bernarde was declared a saint (St.
Bernadette) on December 8, 1933.