A town of southwest France at the foot of the Pyrenees. It is noted for its Roman Catholic shrine marking the site where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to Saint Bernadette in 1858. Population: 15,100.
Lourdes
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Lourdes (lʊrd, lʊrdz)  |
A town of southwest France at the foot of the Pyrenees. It is noted for its Roman Catholic shrine marking the site where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to Saint Bernadette in 1858. Population: 15,100.
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In 1858 Bernadette Soubirous, a 14-year-old peasant girl, saw a series of visions of the Virgin Mary near the village of Lourdes. The apparitions were almost immediately followed by miraculous cures, initially mostly associated with the water of the nearby spring. Lourdes rapidly became a place of pilgrimage, especially after the establishment of a rail-link in 1869. By the early 20th c. more than half-a-million pilgrims (mostly French, and mostly women) went to Lourdes each year. In the 1960s 2 million pilgrims a year came from all over the world. Of about 5, 000 cures reported by the end of 1959, 58 have been declared miraculous by the Church.
Lourdes is the title of the first of Zola's Les Trois Villes.
[Ralph Gibson]
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Lourdes |
Lourdes (lūrd), town (1990 pop. 16,581), Hautes-Pyrénées dept., SW France, at the foot of the Pyrénées. It is famous for its Roman Catholic shrine where Our Lady of Lourdes (Feast: Feb. 11) is believed to have repeatedly appeared (1858) to St. Bernadette. Millions of people make the pilgrimage to Lourdes each year, drawn by their faith in the miraculous cures attributed to the waters of the shrine.
Bibliography
See R. Harris, Lourdes (1999).
| Dialing Code: The telephone dialing code for: Lourdes, France |
The country code is: 33
The city code is: 562
| Occultism & Parapsychology Encyclopedia: Lourdes |
French watering resort famous for miracle cures. In 1858 the Virgin Mary reportedly appeared in a grotto to the peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous (1844-1879), later canonized as St. Bernadette in 1933. A marble tablet at Lourdes records the apparition:
Dates of the Eighteen apparitions and words of the Blessed Virgin in the year of grace 1858. In the hollow of the rock where her statue is now seen the Blessed Virgin appeared to Bernadette Soubirous Eighteen times: the 11th and the 14th of February; Each day, with two exceptions, from February 18th till March 25th, April 7th, July 16th. The Blessed Virgin said to the child on February 18th, "Will you do me the favour of coming here daily for a fortnight? I do not promise to make you happy In this world, but in the next; I want many people to come. The Virgin said to her during the fortnight: "You will pray for sinners; you will kiss the earth for sinners. Penitence! penitence! penitence! Go, and tell the priests to cause a chapel to be built; I want people to come thither in procession. Go and drink of the fountain and wash yourself in it. Go and eat of the grass which is there." On March 25th The Virgin said: "I Am the Immaculate Conception."
Bernadette alone saw the apparition, and there was no coinciding objective event that would make it veridical. There was, however, a later incident of a supernormal character in the life of Bernadette, for which evidence is available in the testimony of Dr. Dozous. His advocacy is largely responsible for the credence bestowed on Bernadette and the fame of Lourdes. His testimony was quoted in Dr. Boissarie's book Lourdes, which gives a summary of the miraculous cures, published in the Annales des Lourdes from 1868 until 1891. While praying in ecstasy, the girl held her interlaced fingers over the flame of a lighted taper. The point of the flame came out between the fingers without causing her any harm.
In the story of the apparition, there was no promise of miraculous cures. Bernadette was an invalid child subject to fits, and nobody would have paid attention to her visions but for the grotto in the rocks to which she was conducted by the white angel, and the water of which made her feel lighter and stronger. The quarryman Bourriette was the first to conceive the idea that the water of the spring in the grotto uncovered by Bernadette's bare hands might benefit his eyes, which had been injured by an explosion. He was healed, and the rumor soon spread that the Virgin Mary was effecting miraculous cures.
Due to the newly acquired and unwanted fame, Bernadette moved in with the Sisters of Charity in order to keep away from the growing crowds that came to the site and in 1866, she joined the order. She received only relative peace; many people came to interview her and the nuns envied her. Their attitude only changed at the end of her life when it was discovered that tuberculosis, from which she would die, entered her bone and caused intense pain. Bernadette believed the pain was to be her suffering.
Following her death on April 16, 1879, Bernadette's body did not decompose. It has remained on display at the convent at Nevers. In 1933, the Roman Catholic Church canonized her.
A. T. Myers and F. W. H. Myers wrote an analysis of Lourdes from a psychic research perspective, which appeared in the Proceedings of the SPR in 1893. They concluded: "Many forms of psycho-therapeutics produce, by obscure but natural agencies, for which at present we have no better terms than suggestion and self-suggestion, effects to which no definite limit can yet be assigned. Thus far Lourdes offers the best list of cures; but this superiority is not more than can be explained by the greater number of patients treated there than elsewhere, and their greater confidence in the treatment. There is no real evidence, either that the apparition of the Virgin was itself more than a subjective hallucination, or that it has any more than a merely subjective connection with the cures."
The Roman Catholic Church was also cautious in assessing claimed cures at Lourdes, and a Medical Bureau was established and reorganized after World War II in 1947. It claimed cures must meet strict criteria.
In the first place, the sick are expected to bring with them a diagnosis from their own doctors and are given an examination upon arrival in Lourdes. If a cure is claimed, the patient must return to Lourdes a year later for examination, and if the cure appears permanent and inexplicable by normal explanations, the case is then put to a higher medical tribunal in Paris. Even then, it is submitted to members of an ecclesiastical tribunal before being pronounced miraculous, or, in some cases, a genuine cure but still non-miraculous.
In the past decades since the Roman Catholic Church granted its favorable opinion of Lourdes, the shrine has been a source of political contention. The Church was disestablished in France in 1905 and the following year the shrine property was nationalized by the government. Pilgrimages to the shrine continued, but only in 1940 was it returned fully to church control. In the meantime, the reported healings have been the subject of constant debate. In the twentieth century, the shrine has been the subject of many books, most recounting the story of Bernadette and the miraculous occurrences that began with the apparitions and the first healings. Others focus more on the healings and have attempted to place the shrine into the larger context of spiritual and paranormal healings worldwide.
Lourdes is now one of the most famous pilgrim sites, and the whole area is well organized for great annual pilgrimages. In 1876 a huge basilica was constructed above the rock, and in the cave where Bernadette had her vision a marble statue of the Virgin was placed. The grotto is festooned with crutches from disabled pilgrims who did not need assistance after their visits.
Of course not all pilgrims who visit the shrine come in expectation of a cure. Thousands come as an act of piety.
Sources:
Delaney, John J. A Woman Clothed with the Sun: Eight Great Appearances of Our Lady in Modern Times. Garden City, N.Y.: Hanover House, 1959.
Estrade, J. B. The Appearances of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Grotto of Lourdes: Personal Souvenirs of an Eyewitness. London: Art & Book Co., 1912.
Keselman, Thomas A. Miracles and Prophecies in Nineteenth-Century France. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1983.
Marchand, A. The Facts of Lourdes and the Medical Bureau. London: Burns Oates & Wasbourne, 1924.
Markham, Patrick. Lourdes: A Modern Pilgrimage. Garden City, N.Y.: Image Books, 1982.
Myer, A. T., and F. W. H. Myers. "Mind-Cure, Faith-Cure, and the Miracles of Lourdes." Proceedings of the Society for Psychic Research 9, no. 24 (1893).
Neame, Alan. The Happening at Lourdes. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1968.
Trochu, Francis. Saint Bernadette Soubirous, 1844-1879. London: Longmans, 1957.
West, Donald J. Eleven Lourdes Miracles. New York: Helix Press, 1957.
| Wikipedia: Lourdes |
Coordinates: 43°06′N 0°03′W / 43.1°N 0.05°W
|
Commune of Lourdes |
|
| Location | |
  Lourdes
|
|
| Administration | |
|---|---|
| Country | France |
| Region | Midi-Pyrénées |
| Department | Hautes-Pyrénées |
| Arrondissement | Argelès-Gazost |
| Canton | Chief town of 2 cantons |
| Intercommunality | Pays de Lourdes |
| Mayor | Jean-Pierre Artiganave (2001–2008) |
| Statistics | |
| Elevation | 343–960 m (1,130–3,150 ft) |
| Land area1 | 36.94 km2 (14.26 sq mi) |
| Population2 | 15,203 (1999) |
| - Density | 412 /km2 (1,070 /sq mi) |
| Miscellaneous | |
| INSEE/Postal code | 65286/ 65100 |
| 1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries. | |
| 2 Population sans doubles comptes: residents of multiple communes (e.g., students and military personnel) only counted once. | |
Lourdes (Occitan: Lorda) is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in the Midi-Pyrénées region in south-western France.
Lourdes is a small market town lying in the foothills of the Pyrenees, famous for the Marian apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes that are reported to have occurred in 1858 to Bernadette Soubirous. At that time, the most prominent feature of the town was the fortified castle that rises up from a rocky escarpment at its centre.
Contents |
Pilgrimages
Following the reports that Our Lady of Lourdes had appeared to Bernadette Soubirous on several occasions, Lourdes has developed into a major place of Christian pilgrimage and of alleged miraculous healings. The 150th Jubilee of the first apparition took place on 11 February 2008 with a outdoor mass attended by approx 45,000 pilgrims.
Today Lourdes has a population of around 15,000 but is able to take in some 5,000,000 pilgrims and tourists every season. With about 270 hotels, Lourdes has the second greatest number of hotels in France after Paris.[citation needed]
It is the joint seat of the diocese of Tarbes-et-Lourdes and is the largest pilgrimage site in France, the second site being the Basilica of St. Thérèse (Lisieux), in Normandie.
Geography
Lourdes is located in the area of the prime meridian in France. It is overlooked from the south by the Pyrenean peaks of Aneto, Montaigu, and Vignemale (3,298 m), while around the town there are three summits reaching up to 1,000 m which are known as the Béout, the Petit Jer (with its three crosses) and the Grand Jer (with its single cross) which overlook the town. The Grand Jer is accessible via the funicular railway of the Pic du Jer. The Béout was once accessible by cable car, although this has fallen into disrepair. A pavilion is still visible on the summit.
Lourdes lies at an altitude of 420 m (1,375 ft) and in a central position through which runs the fast-flowing river Gave de Pau from the south coming from its source at Gavarnie, into which flow several smaller rivers from Barèges and Cauterets. The Gave then branches off to the west towards the Béarn, running past the banks of the Grotto and on downstream to Pau and then Biarritz.
On land bordered by a loop of the Gave de Pau is an outcrop of rock called Massabielle, (from masse vieille: "old mass"). On the northern aspect of this rock, near the riverbank, is a naturally occurring, irregularly shaped shallow cave or grotto, in which the apparitions of 1858 took place.[1]
Past
During the 8th century, Lourdes and its fortress became the focus of skirmishes between Mirat, the local leader, and Charlemagne, King of the Franks. Charlemagne had been laying siege to Mirat in the fortress for some time, but the Moor had so far refused to surrender. According to legend, an eagle unexpectedly appeared and dropped an enormous trout at the feet of Mirat. It was seen as such a bad omen that Mirat was persuaded to surrender to the Queen of the sky by the local bishop. He visited the Black Virgin of Puy to offer gifts, so he could make sure this was the best course of action and, astounded by its exceptional beauty, he decided to surrender the fort and convert to Christianity. On the day of his baptism, Mirat took on the name of Lorus, which was given to the town, now known as Lourdes.
After being the residency of the Bigorre counts, Lourdes was given to England by the Brétigny Treaty which bought a temporary peace to France during the course of the Hundred Years War with the result that the French lost the town to the English, from 1360. In 1405, Charles VI laid siege to the castle during the course of the Hundred Years War and eventually captured the town from the English following the 18-month siege. Later, during the late 16th century, France was ravaged with the Wars of Religion between the Roman Catholics and the Huguenots. In 1569, Count Gabriel de Montgomery attacked the nearby town of Tarbes when Queen Jeanne d’Albret of Navarre established Protestantism there. The town was overrun, in 1592, by forces of the Catholic League and the Catholic faith was re-established in the area. In 1607, Lourdes finally became part of the Kingdom of France.
The castle became a jail under Louis XV but, in 1789, the General Estates Assembly ordered the liberation of prisoners. Following the rise of Napoleon in 1803, he again made the Castle an Estate jail. Towards the end of the Peninsular War between France, Spain, Portugal, and Britain in 1814, British and Allied forces, under the Duke of Wellington, entered France and took control of the region and followed Marshall Soult’s army, defeating the French near the adjoining town of Tarbes before the final battle took place outside Toulouse on 10 April 1814 which brought the war to an end.
Up until 1858, Lourdes was a quiet, modest, county-town with a population of only some 4,000 inhabitants. The castle was occupied by an infantry garrison. The town was a place people passed through on their way to the waters at Barèges, Cauterets, Luz-Saint-Sauveur and Bagnères-de-Bigorre, and for the first mountaineers on their way to Gavarnie, when the events which were to change its history took place.
On 11 February 1858, a 14-year-old local girl, Bernadette Soubirous, claimed a beautiful lady appeared to her in the remote Grotto of Massabielle. The lady later identified herself as "the Immaculate Conception" and the faithful believe her to be the Blessed Virgin Mary. The lady appeared 18 times, and by 1859 thousands of pilgrims were visiting Lourdes. A statue of Our Lady of Lourdes was erected at the site in 1864. See Our Lady of Lourdes for more details on the apparitions.
Since the apparitions, Lourdes has become one of the world's leading Catholic Marian shrines and the number of visitors grows each year. It has such an important place within the Roman Catholic church, that Pope John Paul II visited the shrine twice on 15 August 1983 and 14–15 August 2004. In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI authorized special indulgences to mark the 150th anniversary of Our Lady of Lourdes.[2]
Sanctuary of Lourdes
Main article: Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes
Yearly from March to October the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes is a place of mass pilgrimage from Europe and other parts of the world. The spring water from the grotto is believed by some to possess healing properties, however there have been skeptics of the miracles from the first reports.
An estimated 200 million people have visited the shrine since 1860,[3] and the Roman Catholic Church has officially recognised 67 miraculous healings which are stringently examined for authenticity and authentic miracle healing with no physical or psychological basis other than the healing power of the water.[4] Especially impressive are candlelight and sacrament processions. Tours from all over the world are organized to visit the Sanctuary. Connected with this pilgrimage is often the consumption of or bathing in the Lourdes water which wells out of the Grotto.
At the time of the apparitions the grotto was on common land which was used by the villagers variously for pasturing animals, collecting firewood and as a garbage dump, and it possessed a reputation for being an unpleasant place.[5]
Ukrainian Church
The five-domed St. Mary's Ukrainian Catholic Church in Lourdes was designed by Myroslav Nimciv, while its Byzantine interior polychrome decorations were executed by famed artist Jerzy Nowosielski. The church is about a 10-minute walk from the basilica and the grotto, on a street named in honor of Ukraine, situated on a narrow piece of property close to the railroad station. Visible from the basilica, the height of the building makes up for its breadth.[6]
The Ukrainian Catholic church is located on 8 Rue de l'Ukraine, 65100 Lourdes, France.
International relations
Main article: List of twin towns and sister cities in France
Twin towns - Sister cities
Sport
Although the town is most famous for its shrines it is also notable for its Rugby union team, FC Lourdes, which during the mid-twentieth century was one of the most successful teams in France, winning the national championship 8 times from 1948 to 1968. Their most famous player is Jean Prat who represented his country 51 times.
There is also an amateur association football team called Football Club Lourdais XI.
In popular culture
- The movie Song of Bernadette, based on a novel by Franz Werfel which tells the occurrences at Lourdes, won 4 Academy Awards in 1944.
- Comedian George Carlin frequently made references to Lourdes in some Catholic-related skits.
- Entertainer Madonna named her firstborn daughter Lourdes in 1996.
- The character Cochepaille from Les Misérables is from Lourdes.
- Woody Allen in the movie "Annie Hall" tells Annie he has been seeing an analyst for 15 years. She exclaims, "15 years?!" To which he replies, "I'm going to give him one more year, and then I'm going to Lourdes."
Émile Zola (1840–1902) wrote the novel Lourdes that deals with faith and healing, particularly of Marie de Guersaint. It is a major work of literature dealing with the sickness, despair, faith and hope.
Catherine Simon Wrote a book, Where Echoes Meet, capturing the stories of nine pilgrims and their experiences in Lourdes, including that of Jean-Pierre Bély, the last confirmed pilgrim to be healed in Lourdes.
Mireille Mathieu, the famous French singer, in referring to the deficiencies in any human being, has stated that when she goes to Lourdes and sees sick or invalid people around, she considers it a sin to complain.
In Jean-Dominique Bauby's autobiographical account of his life in the book The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and also the film version of the same name, he depicts a trip he took to Lourdes in the 1970s with a girlfriend.
Transport
Lourdes is served by Tarbes-Lourdes-Pyrénées Airport
Education
Lourdes has two main schools, one public and one private. The private school, the "lycee Peyramale St Joseph" was founded just two years before the apparitions by two monks; it is named after the curee peyramale, who was present during the apparitions. It celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2007. The public school, the "Lycee de Sarsan," is a newer, less reputed establishment. It is in constant rivalry with the lycee Peyramale.
See also
- Château fort de Lourdes
- Communes of the Hautes-Pyrénées department
- Lourdes effect
- Shrines to the Virgin Mary
References
- ^ Ruth Harris, Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age, Penguin Books, 1999, p. 52.
- ^ "Pope approves Lourdes indulgences". BBC News. 6 December 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7131088.stm. Retrieved 6 December 2007.
- ^ "The Basilica of Lourdes, France". Sacredsites.com. http://www.sacredsites.com/europe/france/lourdes.html. Retrieved 5 May 2009.
- ^ "Lourdes france, le site officiel des Sanctuaires vous accueille". Lourdes-france.org. 21 October 2003. http://www.lourdes-france.org/index.php?goto_centre=ru&contexte=en&id=687#. Retrieved 5 May 2009.
- ^ Ruth Harris, Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age, Penguin Books, 1999, p. 53.
- ^ Chrystia Shashkewych-Oryshkevych (May 7, 2006). "Travelogue: A journey to the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Lourdes". The Ukrainian Weekly LXXIV (19). http://www.ukrweekly.com/old/archive/2006/190643.shtml.
- ^ a b c d e "Association of Towns awarded The Europe Prize". www.czestochowa.um.gov.pl. http://www.czestochowa.um.gov.pl/europeprize/altotting.htm. Retrieved 10 October 2009.
External links
- The Official Website of the Lourdes Sanctuaries
- Lourdes 2008, Official site for the 150th anniversary of the apparitions
- Lourdes, by Robert Hugh Benson, 1914, from Project Gutenberg
- Catholic Association UK, details more information on Lourdes.
- Lourdes Sanctuary 360 panoramas (French)
"Notre-Dame de Lourdes". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Notre-Dame_de_Lourdes.
- [1] Museum of Lourdes/Le-Petit-Lourdes Museum (in French)
- Il sito dei volontari di Lourdes, Aperto a tutti coloro che offrono il loro servizio gratuitamente presso il Santuario Notre Dame de Lourdes (in Italiano)
- Il Blog per le notizie Usiamo per i nostri Feed RSS la tecnologia wordpress. (in Italiano)
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Mentioned in
- Messenger of the Blessed Virgin (1930 Drama Film)
- Bernadette of Lourdes, Saint (French peasant girl)
- Taitano (family name)
- Lo Mejor De Noches Tapatias I (Music Film)
- Coito (family name)
- Estremera (family name)
- Farinha (family name)
- Heinsen (family name)
- Palomarez (family name)
- Spiritual Wonders of Europe: Lourdes, France and Fatima, Portugal (1997 Spirituality & Philosophy Film)
- Gavarnie (waterfall)
- Euclid (city, Ohio)
- Agostini (family name)
- Bango (family name)
