The Beauty of Lourdes
Today (11 Feb) marks the first apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1858 to a 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous. Between 11 February and 16 July of that year, Our Lady appeared eighteen times, and showed herself to St. Bernadette in the Rock of Massabielle, then a wasteland by the river Gave, at Lourdes. On 25 March, she said in the local patois to the little shepherdess: "I am the Immaculate Conception." Since then Lourdes has become a place of pilgrimage and people come from all over the world to the Grotto to pray, to bathe and drink the waters from a spring discovered by St Bernadette, and to receive healing of body or soul from God.
The Beauty of Lourdes
Today (11 Feb) marks the first apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1858 to a 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous. Between 11 February and 16 July of that year, Our Lady appeared eighteen times, and showed herself to St. Bernadette in the Rock of Massabielle, then a wasteland by the river Gave, at Lourdes. On 25 March, she said in the local patois to the little shepherdess: "I am the Immaculate Conception." Since then Lourdes has become a place of pilgrimage and people come from all over the world to the Grotto to pray, to bathe and drink the waters from a spring discovered by St Bernadette, and to receive healing of body or soul from God.