Why is Mary called Our Lady of Lourdes?

Answer 1

In 1858 a peasant girl named Bernadette Soubirous claimed to have received miraculous apparitions of a lady in a grotto near a waste dump beside a river. She first saw the woman while gathering wood with her sister. The lady appeared several times and identified herself as the "Immaculate Conception" a title reserved for the Blessed Virgin Mary who was conceived without original sin. The lady gave messages to Bernadette and verified them and her authenticity by a miracle where a rose bloomed in winter and showing Bernadette where to dig into the ground with her hands which yielded forth a spring the water of which was soon discovered to contain miraculous properties, even bring back a dead boy, curing cancer, healing the crippled and blind, etc. After careful scrutiny and testing the Church declared the apparitions authentic and recognized their miraculous character. The lady is thus received for who she claimed to be, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus Christ.

Answer 2

The traditional date of Our Lady's birthday in the Catholic Church is celebrated on September 8th. The feast day of Our Lady of Lourdes is February 11th because that is the date of the first appearance to Bernadette.

Answer 3

She is Our Lady, the Virgin Mary, the Mother of Jesus. In different contexts she is referred to with many names. Our Lady of Lourdes is one of those, as she appeared to a 14 year old girl called Bernadette 18 times in the year 1858.

Answer 4

Janelle Paula Blaire Arcayos III-B Lovebirds November 12,2009

Information of the Lady of Lourdes

The Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in southern France is the most visited pilgrimage site in the world -- principally because of the apparent healing
properties
of the waters of the spring that appeared during the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary to a poor, fourteen-year-old girl, Bernadette Soubiroux.

The first apparition occurred February 11, 1858. There were eighteen in all; the last took place July 16, of the same year. Bernadette often fell into an
ecstasy during these apparitions, as was witnessed by the hundreds who attended the later visions, though no one except Bernadette ever saw or heard the
apparition.
The mysterious vision Bernadette saw in the hollow of the rock Massabielle, where she and friends had gone to gather firewood, was that of a young and
beautiful lady. "Lovelier than I have ever seen" said the child. She described the Lady as clothed in white, with a blue ribbon sash and a Rosary handing
from her right arm. Now and then the apparition spoke to Bernadette.

One day, the Lady told the girl to drink of a mysterious fountain within the grotto itself, the existence of which was unknown, and of which there was no
sign. But Bernadette scratched at the ground, and a spring immediately bubbled up and soon gushed forth. On another occasion the apparition bade Bernadette
go and tell the priests she wished a chapel to be built on the spot and processions to be made to the grotto. At first the clergy were incredulous.
The priest said he would not believe it unless the apparition gave Bernadette her name. After another apparition, Bernadette reported that the Lady
told her, "I am the Immaculate Conception". Though the girl was unfamiliar with the term, the Pope had declared the doctrine of the immaculate conception
of the Virgin Mary in 1854.

Four years after Bernadette's visions, in 1862, the bishop of the diocese declared the faithful "justified in believing the reality of the apparition"
of Our Lady. A basilica was built upon the rock of Massabielle by M. Peyramale, the parish priest. In 1873 the great "national" French pilgrimages were
inaugurated. Three years later the basilica was consecrated and the statue solemnly crowned. In 1883 the foundation stone of another church was laid, as
the first was no longer large enough. It was built at the foot of the basilica and was consecrated in 1901 and called the Church of the Rosary. Pope Leo
XIII authorized a special office and a Mass, in commemoration of the apparition, and in 1907 Pius X extended the observance of this feast to the entire
Church; it is now observed on February 11.

Answer 5

The title of Our Lady of Lourdes is the title given to the Virgin Mary. The name was introduced after the Marian apparitions, where a number of people around Lourdes claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary.

Answer 6

The virgin Mary is called Our Lady of Lourdes because 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 7

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Catholic AnswerYes, Our Lady appeared at Lourdes in the 1858 to Bernadette Soubirous, who later entered the convent. There is still a shrine at Lourdes where many people have been healed. See the website below:

Answer 8

Because she appeared to St. Bernadette Soubirous there.

Answer 9

She appeared in a grotto near Lourdes, France.

Answer 10

Our Lady of Lourdes is one of the titles of the Blessed Virgin Mary.