What happened at the place of pilgrimage called Lourdes?

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. Lourdes was one of these incidents. 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

A: A 14 yr old girl called Bernadette was praying in the Lourdes grotto and a veiled, beautiful woman came to her, and prayed the rosary with her. The woman was surrounded by light and had roses on her feet. Bernadette didn't know at the time but it was the Virgin Mary. Bernadette told her sister and soon the whole of her school found out and then all Lourdes. Some people didn't believe it but others thought the girl was a saint and a visionary. Bernadette kept going back to the grotto to pray, and people followed her and saw that she had ecstacies there, and the Virgin appeared to her most times she went. No one else saw her. The Lady told Bernadette to dig for a spring there and sure enough, there was water, which was, and still is, miraculous in that it cures illnesses. The Lady called herself "the Immaculate Conception", which was a new title for the Virgin Mary, although there was no way that Bernadette could have known this.

A:

In 1858 St. Bernadette of Lourdes had a series of visions of the Blessed Virgin Mary near the town.

Our Lady, the Virgin Mary, appeared 18 times to a 14 year old girl named Bernadette Soubirous. She is now St. Bernadette and millions of people visit Lourdes because of those events.

Answer 3

In 1858 a girl name Bernadette Soubirous saw a series of apparitions of Our Lady. As news spread about this, people came to watch. Eventually the apparitions were validated and permission was granted by the Catholic Church for Lourdes to be a place of pilgrimage. Millions of people now go there every year.

Answer 4

Lourdes is the place where, in 1858, a young girl, Bernadette Soubirous, supposedly saw apparitions of the Virgin Mary in a grotto. Although she was sometimes accompanied by others when she saw these apparitions, only Bernadette was able to see the visions she described. Bernadette called the young woman in her visions aquero - "that one" - and it was only when others told her she had seen the Virgin Mary that Bernadette realised that she had indeed done so. The local clergy ridiculed her claims but then, as pilgrims began to arrive, accepted them as true.

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. In 1866, the Missionaries of Notre Dame de Garaison took over administration and began to publicise it agressively in the French Catholic Press. Lourdes was promoted through newspapers, guidebooks and other publications. The economic potential of Lourdes was further exploited when the Augustian Fathers of the Assumption assumed joint ownership of the shrine with the Grotto Fathers. A rail line had been built to cater for pilgrimages to Lourdes, and Father Picard, head of the Assumptionist order, negotiated for pilgrim discounts on rail fares.

At first, there was no suggestion that miracle cures could be expected at Lourdes, but people of medieval and early modern times expected that wherever Mary's apparition was seen, one could expect the possibility of cures. Lourdes is now renowned for its miracle cures. It receives over 80,000 pilgrims a year, of whom approximately 7000 people in more than a century have sought to have cures confirmed as miracles. Only 68 of these have been declared as scientifically inexplicable by both the Lourdes Medical Bureau and the Catholic Church, a number so small as to suggest that these cases were likely to have been cured or gone into remission anyway.

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

Answer 5

Many Catholic shrines are associated with alleged apparitions of the virgin Mary. In the case of Lourdes, Bernadette Soubirous, a 14-year-old peasant girl, told her mother that she had seen a 'lady' in the cave of Massabielle, about a mile from Lourdes, while she was gathering firewood with her sister and a friend. Similar appearances of the lady were reported on seventeen further occasions that year, and many Christians believe the sightings to have been of Mary mother of Jesus.

When a location becomes known for having been visited by the Holy Mother, it becomes a place of pilgrimage and donations to the local church quickly allow for the construction of impressive shrines and for the betterment of the church and its community. Pope Pius IX authorised the local bishop to permit the veneration of the Virgin Mary in Lourdes in 1862. Lourdes is now a site for Catholic pilgrimage, receiving over 80,000 pilgrims a year. It renowned for its cures and approximately 7000 people have sought to have cures confirmed as miracles, but only 68 of these have been declared as scientifically inexplicable by both the Lourdes Medical Bureau and the Catholic Church. This number is so small as to suggest that these cases were likely to have been cured or gone into remission anyway.

The truth of the apparitions of Lourdes is not an article of faith for Catholics. For more information, please visit: http://christianity.answers.com/catholicism/visions-of-the-virgin-mary

Answer 6

Bernadette, born Marie Bernarde Soubirous, was the eldest of four surviving children of François Soubirous and his wife Loïsa Casteròt. On February 11, 1858, while gathering firewood with her sister and a family friend, she had an apparition of a beautiful young lady near the town of Lourdes, France. During the vision she was told that she must return everyday for the next fortnight.
Bernadette was always a sickly child and this prevented her from attending school and catechism classes. She was basically illiterate. At the time she was only 14 years of age. Bernadette never referred to the apparition as the Blessed Virgin Mary, always referring to the vision as 'that.'
On February 25, 1858, she was instructed by the vision to dig with her hands a few inches below the soil where she was kneeling to reveal a miraculous spring of water. Since that time many thousands of pilgrims to Lourdes have followed the instruction of Our Lady of Lourdes to "drink at the spring and wash in it". Thousands of cures have been claimed but the Church, upon intense investigation of a committee of medical doctors and scientist, has only certified 67 as true miracles with no know explanation.
Bernadette was ridiculed by family, friends, local clergy and threatened with arrest by town authorities but she never wavered from her story one iota. The parish priest told Bernadette to request that the vision identify herself which Bernadette did on the 13th visit. The apparition simply smiled at her and only on the penultimate vision (the 17th) did she finally reveal herself as the "Immaculate Conception" which Bernadette did not understand. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception had only recently been declared by Rome and few outside the clergy knew of it. Her parents, teachers and priests all later testified that she had never previously heard the expression 'immaculate conception' from them.
Almost immediately the town of Lourdes became a destination for pilgrims from all over despite actions of both the Church and the French government to discourage it. The Catholic Church finally relented and had a shrine built on the location and today 5 million people per year visit the site. The Church has nothing to gain financially from the site but survives on votive offerings and donations from pilgrims. The town of Lourdes, however, has greatly benefited and now only the city of Paris has more hotels in all of France.
After investigation the Church approved the cult of Our Lady of Lourdes for public veneration. However, it is not an "article of faith" so belief in what happened at Lourdes is not a required belief for Catholics.

Answer 7

Catholic Answer

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. Lourdes was one of these incidents. 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 8

In 1858 a miller's daughter, Bernadette Soubirous, claimed to have had visions of "a small young lady" on 18 occasions.

Answer 9

Saint Bernadette had 18 visions of the Blessed Virgin Mary.