The history of the Madonna of Lourdes

Every year Lourdes It is an incessant destination of about 5 million sick people who invoke protection and comfort. The cave in the midst of the French Pyrenees evokes the most famous Marian apparitions in history, officially recognized by the Church. They took place in 1858 and had as its protagonist a fourteen -year -old girl, Bernadette Soubirous.
The Virgin appeared to her for eighteen times in a cave, along the Gave river. He spoke to her in the local dialect, he indicated the point where digging with his hands to find what will prove to be a source of water, at the contact with which many miracles would arise. It all started Thursday, 11 February 1858, When Bernadette went to gather dry wood in the river of the Gave river, together with a sister and their friend. A noise that came from the bush that was in the cave attracted the girl to whom the Virgin appeared, presenting himself as an immaculate conception and thus confirming the dogma of the immaculate conception of Mary promulgated by Pope Pius IX on 8 December 1854four years earlier.

For this reason, on 11 February the Church celebrates the memory of the Madonna of Lourdes to which St. John Paul II wanted to associate the World patient day. Lourdes’ apparitions were officially recognized by the bishop of Tarbes on February 18, 1862. Soon a large church was erected as well as the Virgin had requested. Lourdes immediately became the most famous of the Marian places. A special office (Le Bureau Médical) was commissioned to scientifically examine the healings that began to occur immediately. There have been about seventy miracles so far, but in fact there are many more. The conversions are even more numerous.

The story of the first apparitions

That morning of 11 February 1858 it was a fat Thursday and Lourdes was so cold. In the Soubirous house there was no more burning wood. Bernadette, who was then 14 years old, had gone with her sister Tointe and a partner looking for dry branches around the country. VErso southern the three girls came close to the cliff of Massabielle, which formed, along the Gave river, a small cave.

Here there was “the suits Aux Cochons”, the shelter for pigs, a corner under the rock where the water always deposited wood and debris. In order to go and collect them, however, it was necessary to cross a water channel, which came from a mill and threw himself into the river. Tointe and the friend fit the hooves, without socks. They took them off, to enter cold water. Bernadette instead, being very delicate and suffering from asthma, brought socks. He prayed to the friend of taking her on the shoulders, but that refused, going down to the river with Tainte. Staying alone, Bernadette thought she was also removing the hooves and socks, but while she was about to make this he heard a great noise: he raised his eyes and saw that the oak clinging to the boulder of stone was shaking violently, as far as there was no one in the ‘air not even a breath of wind. Then the cave was full of a gold cloud, and a splendid lady appeared on the rock.

The lady had the appearance of a young man of sixteen or seventeen. Dressed in white, with a blue band that descended along the dress, he carried a white veil on his head that let him glimpse as soon as his hair falls back to the height of the band. From his arm he hanged a large rosary with white grains, tied by a gold chain, while two roses shone on his bare feet, also of a shiny gold. Instinctively, Bernadette kicked off, bringing out the crown of the Rosary. The lady let her do it, joining her prayer with the silent flow among her fingers of the grains of the Rosary. At the end of each post, he played aloud together with Bernadette the Gloria Patri. When the little seer ended the Rosary, the beautiful lady suddenly disappeared, retiring to the niche, as it had come.

Three days later, the February 14thBernadette – who immediately told her sister and her friend what happened to her, referring to the thing also at home – feels called internally towards the Grotto di Massabielle, this time equipped with a bottle of blessed water that promptly throws on the S. Virgin during the new apparition, because, so it was told, you never know about these things and it could also be the devil to make a left -handed shot … The Virgin smiles at the gesture of Bernadette and says nothing.

The February 18, Finally, the lady speaks. “I don’t promise you to make you happy in this world – he says – but in the other. Do you want to court me to come here for fifteen days? “. The lady, therefore, confides in Bernadette three secrets that the young woman must keep for herself and never reveal to anyone.