Lourdes is a small town in the extreme south of France. It was an obscure village until the
Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to the fourteen year old Bernadette Soubirous eighteen times
between February 11th and July 16th , 1858. Since then it has become one of the world's most
popular Marian shrines welcoming annually approximately five million pilgrims.
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About mid-day on Thursday 11th February 1858 three small girls went to gather wood on the banks
of the river Gave which flows near the town. One of them Bernadette, a delicate child of fourteen
years but who looked much younger and who could neither read nor write, was left behind by her
companions. While she was alone she saw the figure of a beautiful young lady clothed in white with
a rosary in her hand standing in a nearby grotto. The figure made the sign of the cross and Bernadette
doing the same began to the say the rosary. When she had finished, the apparition smilingly saluted
her and disappeared. That was the first of a series of similar apparitions.
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When the lady appeared on the 25th February she told Bernadette to drink and wash at the spring
which came from the ground at a spot where Bernadette dug with her hands. The spring had been
known to be there previously. This spring exists even today and attracts countless pilgrims every
year to Lourdes.
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Many persons report being cured from their mental and physical infirmities at this spring. On
February 27th and again on March 2nd, the lady instructed Bernadette to have a chapel built at
the site of the scene of the apparitions and to have people come there in procession.
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It was not until 25th March that the lady revealed her identity. This she did by saying to Bernadette :
" I am the Immaculate Conception".
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Only four years previously Pope Pius IX had taught as an article of the Catholic Faith that Mary
the Mother of God had been immaculately conceived, and was the only one ever to have received this
privilege. The final apparition took place on the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (July 16th).
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Lourdes is famous for the cures reportedly experienced there. The first was reported in
1858, the year of the apparitions. Since then the cures, reported at Lourdes are examined with
great scientific exactitude by panels of doctors who are not all necessarily Catholic.
The Catholic Church allows a considerable amount of time to elapse before declaring any cure
miraculous
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Of the 5000 cures reported by the end of 1959,only 1200 have been recognized by doctors as beyond
scientific explanations, but the Church has declared as few as 58 of them only as miraculous. As
many cures take place during the processions and the individual blessings of the sick as at the
baths and during private prayers at the grotto itself. It is believed that many others are not
reported at all. Besides the building of a chapel, processions and the many cures there is yet
another thing to be noted about Lourdes. It is the message which Mary gave Bernadette to be passed
on to the rest of the world. It is something which all of us can practice without the expense or
sacrifice of traveling to Lourdes. It can be done anywhere and without fuss. " Repentance! Pray to
God for the conversion of sinners", says Mary.
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