11/2OUR LADY OF LOURDES

Day 275: February 11

Our Lady of Lourdes, France



In 1858, there lived in the village of Lourdes, a small peasant woman, Bernadette Soubirous, 14 years old, ignorant, simple, poor and good. On February 11, she was sent with two other girls to collect wood. They went to the Rock of Massabielle, where the two companions crossed a mountain stream; while Bernadette was taking off her shoes to follow them, she realized a beautiful, enchanting Lady, standing in the hollow of the rock, looking at her. Bernadette fell involuntarily on her knees, looking enchanted at the beautiful Lady, who smiled lovingly at Bernadette and then disappeared.

The mysterious Lady of Heaven appeared in all, eighteen times to the little girl and among other things told her to drink water from a mysterious fountain that had not yet been discovered. Bernadette scratched the sand at a point indicated, and the water began to flow through the earth; After a few days, 27,000 gallons of pure, clear spring water was pouring out every day, and this water still flows.

Our Lady of Lourdes asked Bernadette, who always showed her a sweet heavenly courtesy, to ask the priest to have a church built on the spot, that processions be made to the grotto, that people drink water. The main emphasis of her message was that the faithful were to visit the grotto to do penance for their sins and those of the whole world.

In response to Bernadette's inquiry, "Who are you?" The Lady replied, "I am the Immaculate Conception."

Four years later, the Bishop declared to the faithful an exhaustive and scrupulous investigation, that they are "justified in believing the reality of the apparitions."

In 1873 a basilica was built on the rock and in 1883 another church was built under and in front of the rock. From 1867, when records began to be preserved, until 1908, about 5,000,000 pilgrims visited the cave; now about 1,000,000 people visit Lourdes every year. Although Our Lady never promised at any time that pilgrims visiting the cave would be healed of their physical ailments, extraordinary cures began immediately and have continued ever since. Many of them have such a character that they can only be attributed to heavenly 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 her glass coffin, intact and incorrupt, as her photographs show, as a sleeping young woman. The chair at which she prayed, the altar where she received her First Communion, the bed in which she slept, the room in which she lived – everything can be seen in Lourdes.

Lourdes is one of the largest Marian shrines in the world. Here, by praying to Our Lady of Lourdes, one can gain refreshment, courage, energy and inspiration to continue the ancient struggle of the great Catholic faith against the forces of darkness and evil. This great sanctuary, all its miracles and the currents of grace that are poured into the world through Our Lady of Lourdes, were made possible through the fidelity and holiness of a small peasant woman.


St Justin Russolillo Writes...

"The Lord is with you! All the rivers of grace merge in the grace of your Humility and Purity, worthy of God. They cause in you an overflow of spiritual life, a miraculous flood, the immediate inclination toward its supreme fruit."

(Justin Russolillo, Spirit of Prayer, trans. Louis Caputo, Vocationist Fathers, Newark, 1996, p. 157)

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