Why did the Virgin Mary appear at Lourdes and not Paris?

Answer 1

AnswerThroughout the past 2,000 years of history, Our Blessed Lady has appeared numerous times, with the same message every time: that people need to repent of their sins, believe in her Son, pray, and reform their lives. When Our Blessed Lady does appear, it is used to an innocent who has, as yet, been untouched by the "world, the flesh, and the Devil." Lourdes was one of these incidents. At Lourdes, Our Blessed Lady appeared to Marie-Bernarde Soubirous, a young French girl, who later became a religious sister. One of the outstanding differences with her appearance at Lourdes were the spring, which was not there before, and the healing miracles which have occurred there right from the beginning.Because of these miracles, people continue to pilgrimage to Lourdes and pray for the Virgin�s intercession.There have been uncounted miracles at Lourdes over the years. For the most part these are miracles which cannot be seen - spiritual and mental healings. However, the most amazing part, since the very beginning, has been the physical healings, of which there have been literally thousands. Because of skeptics and others who are wont to disparage this, the Church has been very cautious about proclaiming real miracles, and the unbelievable strictness of the requirements for a "complete physical healing miracle" mean that very few are actually accounted miracles on the Church's official lists: for the miracle to be recorded by the Church, it must be completely unexpected, the patient must be taking no medications or other treatments which might have effected the cure; the cure must be total and lasting, and totally unexplainable. Of the nearly 7,000 recorded miracles, only 67 have been validated as meeting all of the Vatican's stringent requirements. (See the third link at the bottom) But if you talk to any serious pilgrim who has gone to Lourdes with a real problem for healing, 90% of the time they will tell you that, for them, they had a real healing somehow. The 67 cases are indications beyond any possible skeptic, proving that Our Blessed Lady is indeed praying to God to work these miracles, and everyone who has gone and asked God for healing is touched in some way. Some of the cures have been inexplicitly worked on non-believers who weren't even aware of where they were.

Answer 2

Lourdes is the place where, in 1858, a young girl, Bernadette Soubirous, supposedly saw apparitions of the Virgin Mary in a grotto. Robert A. Scott (Miracle Cures) describes how the Catholic Church soon saw the commercial possibilities of these apparitions and aggressively marketed Lourdes as a place of pilgrimage.
Scott says that visions of the Virgin Mary are almost invariably associated with isolated rural settings and people on the margins of society. Paris was a sophisticated large city, where few people would have believed claims of visions such as those made by Bernadette. Nevertheless, the Virgin Mary supposedly did appear in Paris and for a while, her vision was celebrated with great enthusiasm. Therese Taylor (Bernadette of Lourdes) says that in November 1830, Catherine Laboure, a novice in the Rue du Bac Paris convent of the Daughters of Charity, had a vision in which the Virgin Mary appeared to her and asked that a special medal be struck in her honour. The medal began to circulate in 1832.

For more information, please visit: http://christianity.answers.com/catholicism/visions-of-the-virgin-mary

Answer 3

Throughout the past 2,000 years of history, Our Blessed Lady has appeared numerous times, with the same message every time: that people need to repent of their sins, believe in her Son, pray, and reform their lives. When Our Blessed Lady does appear, it is used to an innocent who has, as yet, been untouched by the "world, the flesh, and the Devil." Lourdes was one of these incidents.

At Lourdes, Our Blessed Lady appeared to Marie-Bernarde Soubirous, a young French girl, who later became a religious sister. One of the outstanding differences with her appearance at Lourdes were the spring, which was not there before, and the healing miracles which have occurred there right from the beginning. Because of these miracles, people continue to pilgrimage to Lourdes and pray for the Virgin’s intercession.

There have been uncounted miracles at Lourdes over the years. For the most part these are miracles which cannot be seen - spiritual and mental healings. However, the most amazing part, since the very beginning, has been the physical healings, of which there have been literally thousands. Because of skeptics and others who are wont to disparage this, the Church has been very cautious about proclaiming real miracles, and the unbelievable strictness of the requirements for a "complete physical healing miracle" mean that very few are actually accounted miracles on the Church's official lists: for the miracle to be recorded by the Church, it must be completely unexpected, the patient must be taking no medications or other treatments which might have effected the cure; the cure must be total and lasting, and totally unexplainable.

Of the nearly 7,000 recorded miracles, only 67 have been validated as meeting all of the Vatican's stringent requirements. (See the third link at the bottom) But if you talk to any serious pilgrim who has gone to Lourdes with a real problem for healing, 90% of the time they will tell you that, for them, they had a real healing somehow. The 67 cases are indications beyond any possible skeptic, proving that Our Blessed Lady is indeed praying to God to work these miracles, and everyone who has gone and asked God for healing is touched in some way. Some of the cures have been inexplicitly worked on non-believers who weren't even aware of where they were.