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Situated in the southwest foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains, the French town of Lourdes remains today one of the most heavily visited Marian cities of the Catholic world. During the annual pilgrimage season, which begins at Easter and continues through October, the town receives between four and five million travelers, making Lourdes the second-most visited city in France, after Paris.
Among the historical landmarks for which Lourdes is known, those of which include the former fortress of Lourdes - now a provincial museum, and the world's largest underground church, the Basilica of St. Pius X - the town is most famous for the holy apparitions that occurred there more than two centuries ago. It was in Lourdes, on February 11, 1858, that the Blessed Virgin Mary first appeared to Bernadette Soubirous, the 14-year-old, health-stricken, daughter of a poor milling family, in the Grotto of Massabielle.
Joined by her younger sister, Toinette, and their friend, Jeanne, Bernadette went in search of firewood along the banks of the Gave de Pau River. As the girls crossed the river, Bernadette held back, for fear the icy water would aggravate her already declining health. It was there before a grotto that Bernadette saw a young and beautiful lady dressed in white. Startled an confused, Bernadette brought forth her rosary, knelt, and prayed before the mysterious vision. Not long after, Jeanne and Toinette returned to find Bernadette still kneeling before the grotto. When Bernadette asked if they had seen a lady before her, the two of them said they saw nothing.
Altogether, 18 apparitions followed until the last on July 16, 1858. The most significant of these where the 9th, which occurred on February 25th, and yielded the Miraculous Spring; the 16th, which occurred on March 25th, where the Blessed Virgin revealed her name in the Gascon dialect, confirming: “I am the Immaculate Conception”; and the 17th, which occurred on April 7th, where Bernadette endured what would come to be known as The Miracle of the Candle.
Although local church authorities and village heads criticized Bernadette, openly questioning the apparitions and even threatening her and her family, the miracles were authenticated by Rome following an extensive four-year investigation. A sanctuary was erected over the grotto where the visions took place, and the first organized procession was held in 1864. Today, the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes has since been restored to emulate the conditions of the time of Bernadette. A statue of the Blessed Virgin stands in the niche of the grotto where the vision first appeared, and is inscribed at the foot with the sacred words of the 16th Apparition.
The humble Bernadette shunned all the publicity and returned to a life of obscurity. In 1866, after spending six years at the local hospice, she joined the Sisters of Notre Dame in Nevers, France. She died in 1879, at the age of 35, after a life of illness. She was beatified in 1925 and declared a saint in 1933, not because she faced these miraculous visions, but “because of her commitment in simplicity, integrity and trust.” The Grotto of Massabielle where Bernadette experienced the Apparitions of 1858 remains one of the most popular Marian shrines in Christendom, making Lourdes one of the greatest pilgrimage destinations of our contemporary age.
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