Our Lady of Lourdes
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The shrine to Our Lady of Lourdes is located in the city of Lourdes, in France. It grew based on the apparitions of the Virgin Mary to Saint Bernadette in a cave.
Our Lady of Lourdes: the history
It was in the year 1858 that the Blessed Virgin appeared, near Lourdes, to a young woman named Saint Marie-Bernard Soubirous or Saint Bernadette.
This saint left a writing testimony about what happened in the apparitions of Lourdes. In that testimony, Saint Bernadette said:
“One day, I went with two girls to the banks of the Gave River to get wood. I heard a noise, turned to the meadow, but saw no movement in the trees.
I raised my head and looked at the cave. Then I saw a woman dressed in white; she had a white dress with a sky-blue belt around her waist and a gold rose on each foot, the color of the rosary she carried with her.
Only in the third time she appeared, the Lady spoke to me and asked if I wanted to go back there for a fortnight. For fifteen days, I returned and the Lady appeared to me every day, except for a Monday and a Friday.
She told me repeatedly to tell the priests to build a chapel there. She told me to go to the spring to wash and pray for the conversion of sinners.
Many and many times I asked her who she was, but she just smiled kindly at me. Finally, with arms and eyes raised to the sky, she told me that she was the Immaculate Conception”.
Mary, the intercessor, model of the Church, immaculate, conceived without sin, and, by virtue of the merits of Christ Jesus, Our Lady, in this apparition, asked for the essential for our happiness: conversion to the sinners.
She asked us to pray for their conversion with prayer, conversion, and penance.
This happened after 4 years of the proclamation of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception. God wanted and His Most Holy Providence demonstrated, in this way, the infallibility of the Church.
That the apparition of the Virgin Mary in Lourdes shines from the sky with the signs, the miracles that happened and continue to happen in that place.
The signs of Our Lady of Lourdes
- The rock – represents the embrace of God
- The light – is an expression of the pilgrims hope
- The water – is popular due to the miracles associated to it
- The crowds – keep going in pilgrimage to Lourdes; for over 160 years
- The sick people and the hospitaliers – about 80.000 sick and disabled people visit Lourdes every year.
Prayer to Our Lady of Lourdes
Oh ever immaculate Virgin,
Mother of Mercy, Health of the Sick,
Refuge of Sinners, Comfort of the Afflicted,
You know my wants, my troubles, my sufferings.
Look upon me with mercy.
When you appeared in the grotto of Lourdes,
You made it a privileged sanctuary where you dispense your favours,
And where many sufferers have obtained the cure of their infirmities, both spiritual and corporal.
I come, therefore, with unbounded confidence to implore your maternal intercession.
My loving Mother, obtain my request.
I will try to imitate your virtues so that I may one day share your company and bless you in eternity. Amen.
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