Why do people visit Lourdes?

Answer 1

Supposedly, the Virgin Mary appeared to a girl named Bernadette in Lourdes. It is now considered a holy place and a pilgrimage site for Christians. Many Christians believe if you go there it will heal you from illnesses.

Answer 2

Answer

Lourdes is a commune in south-western France.

Most people go on Easter.

The Virgin Mary because if her ghost did not appear in Lourdes then it wouldn't be a pilgrimage site.

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It involves bathing in a spring to heal there ill's.

They do it because the city is holy and they want to get healed from there ills by visiting it.

some people go as part of there holiday.

First of all the Apparitions of Lourdes were declared authentic by the Vatican, secondly there have been 68 authenticated miracles, however, there have been thousands more, there is an extensive protocol to ascertain them and many people do not report them. Lourdes receives 5 million pilgrims each year Many people go to Lourdes to reaffirm their faith not just to heal from sickness.

Answer 3

Lourdes is a place of pilgrimage because in 1858, a local village girl Bernadette Soubirous claimed to have seen visions of the Virgin Mary in a grotto near the village. A spring that subsequently gushed from the cave was said to have healing properties.

Lourdes soon became a place for pilgrimage for many Catholics in the surroundiing areas both for prayer and for healing in the waters.

Nowadays, Lourdes is a town that is much larger. I visited Lourdes a couple of years ago partly as a holidaymaker and partly as a pilgrim, despite not being a Catholic (but still a Christian). However, nowadays Christians of all denominations descend on the town to make a pilgrimage to the grotto.

The town, however, is quite horrid. Every other shop is a souvenir shop devoted to cheap plastic effigies of the Virgin Mary or other tourist tat. It is reminiscent of the traders in the Temple that Jesus drove out. However, if you can get past all this commercialism, the area surrounding the Basilica and the grotto is very different.

Immediately one feels in a special place, where commercialism is left behind and instead prayer and worship happen round the clock, and where there is a real feel of God's presence and peace. Whatever the origins of the appparition of Mary the place is still very special and worthy of its place as one of the great centres for pilgrimage.

As for the healing properties of the water, thousands go there every year, and, whilst not all are cured physically, invariably spiritual healing takes place. However, despite the lack of a high percentage of cures, there are many hundreds each year whose recoveries cannot be explained by normal medical science.

Answer 4

People go to Lourdes every year because they believe after you went there you'll get cured (this has happened to lots of disabled peole; even scienctist don't know how it happened). People also go there as there was two sightings of Mary there.

Answer 5

This is because there was a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary there in 1858. Since then, most popes have taken a pilgrimage to the site where the BVM appeared. Consequently, it has become a popular pilgrimage site for tourists.

Answer 6

Not all Christians do this. This is a Catholic tradition, the Catholic branch of Christian faith makes much of saints and modern day miracles. The pilgrims go to Lourdes as an act of devotion and some go in the hope of a miracle healing of some ailment they may have.

Answer 7

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 8

When a location becomes known for having been visited by the Virgin Mary, 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.

During the nineteenth century, Bernadette Soubirous, a 14-year-old peasant girl from Lourdes 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. A statue of the Virgin Mary was erected in the cave, but Bernadette insists that the statue looks nothing like the lady she saw, who was a much shorter and different woman.

Pope Pius IX authorised the local bishop to permit the veneration of the Virgin Mary in Lourdes in 1862, although the truth of the apparitions of Lourdes is not an article of faith for Catholics.

Lourdes is now a site for Catholic pilgrimage, renowned for its cures. It receives over 80,000 pilgrims a year. 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.

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

Answer 9

The high Pyrenees are still a place of wild beauty, and Lourdes was already a significant tourist destination before 1858, so visitors of all faiths can enjoy sight-seeing although this is no longer the main reason for visiting the site..
Lourdes is now renowned for its miracle cures. Catholics can participate in a religious experience and, if they wish, bathe in the spring waters in the hope of a cure and purchase spring water and other curios. 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.

Answer 10

Because it is where The Virgin Mary appeared to St. Bernadette Soubirous, and where numerous miraculous cures take place.