Our Lady of Lourdes: The Apparitions to Bernadette Soubirous

# Our Lady of Lourdes: The Apparitions to Bernadette Soubirous

## Introduction

**Our Lady of Lourdes**, appeared to Bernadette Soubirous (1844–1879), a young peasant girl from a very poor family, in the cave of Massabielle, near the river Gave, in **Lourdes** (southern France), from February 11 to July 16, 1858, in a total of 18 apparitions. The Bishop of Tarbes recognized the authenticity of these apparitions in 1862, and they became one of the world’s major pilgrimage sites, attracting over four million pilgrims annually. For a comprehensive article: **Our Lady of Lourdes**.

## The Story of the Apparitions

On February 11, 1858, 14-year-old Bernadette, from a miserable family in the “cachet” (former prison) of Lourdes, was gathering firewood with her sister and a friend near the cave of Massabielle. She heard a “whisper like a strong wind” and saw a “marvelous maiden” dressed in white, wearing a blue sash, golden-colored sandals, and a yellow rosary. In the weeks that followed, the Virgin asked Bernadette to return for 15 days. During these apparitions, she gave Bernadette specific messages and instructions: she indicated a spring (which Bernadette discovered by digging in the earth), requested the construction of a chapel, and ordered processions. On March 25, the feast of **Annunciation**, Bernadette, persistent in her questioning, received the answer in the Gascon dialect: “Que soy era Immaculada Concepción” (“I am the **Immaculate Conception**”). The statement reached Priest Peyramale, who initially did not understand: “The Virgin is not her conception.” The last apparition occurred on July 16, 1858.

## The Message of Lourdes

The message of Lourdes is encapsulated in four words:
– **Poverty**: Not explicitly proclaimed, but strongly implied by the choice of Bernadette, the daughter of the poorest people in Lourdes. “The weakest in the world” (1 Corinthians 1:27) was chosen as the messenger.
– **Prayer**: This is the very essence of the Virgin’s message from the beginning of the apparitions. The request to build a chapel and organize processions symbolizes “the Church on the move” and the Eucharist.
– **Penance**: That is, conversion (metanoia): the Virgin repeatedly asked for “penitence!” and invited people to pray for the conversion of sinners.
– **Grace**: The final word of the message reveals Mary’s identity. By identifying herself as “Immaculate Conception,” Maria shows that everything is grace, all proceeds from God’s gratuitous gift, as sung in the **Magnificat**. Lourdes updates the preconditions of the Gospel: John the Baptist’s baptism of penance, conversion, prayer, and the beatitude of the poor.

## The Witness: Saint Bernadette

The confessor of Bernadette stated: “The best proof of the apparitions is Bernadette herself.” Illiterate, frail in health, and from a humble family, she faced the commissioner, the court, the gendarmes, and several inquiry commissions without ever contradicting herself. In 1866, she entered the congregation of the Sisters of Charity of Nevers, where she lived out her final years in a “triple night”: the night of physical suffering (tuberculosis, asthma, bone decay), the night of senses (the distance from the apparitions left her with the temptation that she had been mistaken), and the night of faith (the feeling of not having responded to grace). Bernadette lived interiorly the message she had received. She died on April 16, 1879, and was canonized by Pius XI in 1933. She herself said before her death: “He did not promise me happiness in this world, but in the next.”

The Sanctuary and Pastoral

The Sanctuary of Lourdes is, after Rome, the largest international pilgrimage center in the world. Its pastoral guides all Marian devotion in a Christ-centered way: as the sanctuary tradition states, “the presence of Mary is discreet and entirely oriented to Christ.” The Virgin asked for a chapel, but basilicas were built instead. The Eucharist is the center of every pilgrimage. Lourdes is particularly known as a place of pilgrimage for the sick, and its medical records document numerous inexplicable cures recognized as miracles. The liturgical memory of Our Lady of Lourdes is celebrated on February 11. Pius X established the feast in 1908.

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Church Magisterium

> “The sign of the apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Lourdes was that she herself called herself ‘Immaculate Conception,’ confirming the dogma defined by Pius IX.”
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> – Pius XII, Encyclical *Le Pèlerinage de Lourdes* (July 2, 1957)

View the list of Marian apparitions recognized by the Church.

Learn about what the Church teaches on Mary as Mediator of all graces.