Since the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to Bernardette Soubirous, various times between 11 February and 16 July 1858, Lourdes, the main town in the Upper Pyrenees region of southern France, has attracted pilgrims from all over the world.
This place of prayer is in fact a place of pilgrimage. Initially it was not easy to make a pilgrimage to the Grotto because the place was closed to the public following the apparitions. It was an intervention by Napoleon III which made it possible to visit the Grotto.
On 19 November 1858 for the first time a Bishop’s enquiry commission visited the Grotto after examining the events: Bernardette, miraculous events of healing and the Bishop gave official recognition to the apparitions.
From then on pilgrimages began and were to mark the fundamental stages of the Lourdes’ development.
At first, in the late 19th century, pilgrimages were made to experience miracles and healing. Gradually pilgrims focussed more on prayer and charitable works, now numerous in Lourdes.
Bernardette Soubirous was born on 7 January 1844. Due to serious economic difficulties her father, who owned a mill, had to travel to different places to defend himself from creditors, until one day, during a serious food shortage, he was arrested and charged with stealing flour. The accusations were unfounded and stemmed from the fact the family was extremely poor.
On 11 February 1858, Bernardette went with her sister and a little friend to Massabielle grotto to look for firewood and bones to sell and earn money to buy bread. Bernardette suffered from asthma and was loath to enter the grotto where the air was bad. Suddenly she heard the noise of wind and saw the cavity of the grotto filled with light. In the light, Bernardette saw a beautiful lady dressed in white who beckoned to her to come forward. In ecstasy at the vision the little girl took out her rosary and began to pray.
Somewhat unwillingly Bernadette told her sister about what happened who in turn told their mother. Her mother’s reaction was one of alarm but she did not forbid Bernadette from returning to the Grotto with the other two girls . There were apparitions on the 14 and the 18 February and on the last day the Lady asked the girl to come every day for two weeks and promised her: “I will make you happy, not in this world but in the next”.
From 19 February to 4 March there were 15 apparitions and during one of them the Blessed Virgin Mary gave instructions to Bernardette to uncover a spring of water which still gushes today.
On 2 March Bernadette was told to go to the parish priest to ask him to organise a procession to the site and build a chapel there.
On 25 March Bernardette went again to the Grotto and asked the Lady four times who she was; the reply was: “Que soy era Immaculada Conceptiou”. ‘I am the Immaculate Conception’. Two final apparitions followed on 7 April and 16 July.
Bernadette Soubirous was the only witness of what happened and she gave her testimony under humanly impossible conditions. This poor, illiterate girl of frail health was subjected to long interrogation by civil and military authorities who tried to make her contradict herself in order to prove that she was insane.
She would have been the last person to whom human wisdom would entrust a heavenly message.
Laurentin writes in Lourdes. The tale of a mystery, “Not by chance Our Lady chooses these miserable persons. The Gospel phrase <<Blessed are the poor>> is of major importance for Lourdes. Our Lady helps Bernadette’s detractors, accustomed to ignore such uninteresting persons, to discover in her the Beatitudes. The crowds revere the little girl, recognising her beatitude and hoping for a crumb of it for themselves. (…) Those who return home with the money refused, given back, thrown after them, experience the shock of the Gospel message on wealth and poverty: the message destined to assume for each person according to their condition, a personal form in their life”.
In addition to these difficulties, ecclesiastic judges tried to convince her that her visions were diabolic while pilgrims went to the other extreme calling her a saint.
Bernardette offered her greatest testimony in the religious life in a Convent in Nevers where she hoped to live a hidden life and to serve to poor and the sick. She became an excellent nurse but her poor health made her give up her service and to live her “uselessness” in prayer.
Prayer was the first manner of contact between Bernardette and Our Lady. During the first apparition, Bernardette began almost instinctively to pray her rosary; prayer helped her shoulder, in God, the sufferings of her whole life. Laurentin again: “if heaven chooses what for the earth is non existent it is not to make fun of the world. It chooses not nothing, but that which exists in truth. The poor Soubirous family, unconditionally generous, hard workers and simple of heart, existed for God, before 11 February 1858, more than all the important families of Lourdes …”
Her confessor, Father Febvre testified: “She suffered from chronic asthma, wounds in her chest and consequent vomiting of blood for two years, she had aneurysm, gastritis, a tumour in her knee and bone decay and her body became a receptacle of ills. Ear abscesses caused partial deafness which disappeared only shortly before her death”.
Besides physical suffering, Bernardette suffered also spiritually, fearing that she was being misled by the visions. She felt she was not corresponding to God’s grace and had been abandoned in this state and this caused more pain than physical suffering.