“Lourdes turns the world’s criteria upside down. It is a place with no doors. Everyone can enter. But those in the front row will always be the sick, people with disabilities, the poor, the marginalized and lonely, the little ones according to the world’s criteria.” In a few words, Monsignor Jacques Perrier, emeritus bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes, aptly portrays the Marian shrine where millions of pilgrims go every year to receive the caress of the Heavenly Mother, the comfort of her motherly embrace.
The first apparitions
It is February 11, 1858, when the supernatural enters Bernadette Soubirous’s everyday life, radically changing her life and later that of millions of people. It is a drizzly morning in Lourdes, and it is very cold. Bernadette decides to go collect firewood with her sister Toinette and her friend Jeanne. The three girls, walking along the riverbank, arrive in front of a grotto separated from them by a small channel. Toinette and Jeanne cross it without hesitation; Bernadette, however, cannot get her feet wet in the icy water. Suddenly, a sound like a gust of wind attracts her attention. She immediately looks toward the poplar trees in the meadow, but they are not moving. There is a second “gust of wind,” and this time Bernadette looks straight ahead: above the grotto, on the right, there is a kind of niche, a recess. At its base, a wild rosebush is moving.
Suddenly, the dark grotto lights up and amid so much gentle light, a smile awaits her. Bernadette sees an extremely white figure, looking like a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old girl, who beckons her to come closer. She is dressed in white, with a blue sash falling along the dress. A white veil covers her head, and her hair is barely visible. She carries a large rosary on her arm, with white beads linked by a gold chain. Two roses, also made of gold, gleam on her bare feet. Bernadette kneels, puts her hand in her pocket, and takes out the rosary she always carries with her. The Lady joins Bernadette in prayer. When the Rosary ends, the Beautiful Lady disappears. On February 14, Bernadette feels called to go to the Grotto. She brings holy water with her and sprinkles it on the Virgin during the new apparition. She had been advised to do this, fearing that what Bernadette had seen did not come from God. The Virgin smiles and remains silent. She will speak on February 18: “I do not promise to make you happy in this world,” she says to Bernadette, “but in the next. Will you do me the favor of coming here for fifteen days?” The Virgin then confides three secrets to Bernadette that the girl must keep to herself and never reveal to anyone.
The message of Lourdes
The messages revealed by the Lady dressed in white to Bernadette can be summarized as follows: prayer, penance, conversion, Immaculate Conception. The message of Lourdes to the world can, however, be fully understood only by reading the entire story and looking at Bernadette’s whole life.
Her example conveys a profound peace, precisely the peace that can be felt in Lourdes and that anyone who goes there can testify to. This is the greatest healing that pilgrims to Lourdes take home with them: healing of the heart.
The Sanctuary of Lourdes
Since the apparitions of 1858, millions of people have been drawn to the peace emanating from the sanctuary of Lourdes; pilgrims touch and experience the grace of this place. They go to Lourdes to humbly pray to the Virgin Mary, who introduced herself to Bernadette Soubirous with these words: “I am the Immaculate Conception.”
Going to Lourdes means seeing and discovering a place visited eighteen times in 1858 by the Heavenly Mother. It means breathing in the faith of the countless pilgrims who are drawn by the Virgin’s call to “come here in procession.” Many sick people seek a little comfort at the foot of the Grotto. The charity of all the volunteers and hospitaliers, who offer a valuable service to the sick and to all pilgrims, is palpable in the air. Their eyes, full of light, are the greatest testimony to the faith and joy that the Virgin Mary shares with everyone.
