Why is Our Lady of Lourdes Significant?

Summary

In 1858, 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous was blessed with 18 visitations from the Blessed Virgin Mother in a region in France called Lourdes. Bernadette saw Mary appear to her in the cave of Massabielle. This place would come to be called the “grotto,” a translation of the French word for “cave.” Bernadette’s first description of the visitation to people, including her mother, was met with disbelief.

Mary’s appearance to Bernadette was as a young woman, possibly about 16-18 years of age, clothed in a brilliant white dress (a fabric quality and color virtually unknown to the peasantry that lived in Lourdes at the time). She donned a blue ribbon around her waist and she wore a long white veil that fell to her feet. This echoes Bernadettes own words, ““I saw a lady dressed in white, she wore a white dress, an equally white veil, a blue belt and a yellow rose on each foot.” “

Mary seemed to be standing upon a wild rose bush, and two gold roses covered the top of her feet. Her hands were fixedly clasped together in a position of prayer, and she held in her hands a long white and gold rosary. In the 18 apparitions, Mary revealed to Bernadette some key messages about conversion and prayer, but the most pivotal of the messages was doctrinal.

The first apparition was a gentle one, with Mary not saying much to Bernadette, merely making the sign of the cross and gesturing for Bernadette to come closer to her, upon which Mary disappeared. Bernadette’s family was concerned that the apparition was demonic; hence, when Bernadette and her sisters went to the Grotto a second time, they brought holy water to pour on the apparition. Not only did the water not repel Mary, but she gently and lovingly approached the young girl, and they both prayed the Rosary together.

The town quickly heard about this, and there was a cacophony of mixed reactions surrounding the poor Bernadette. As a person, Bernadette was not one to draw attention to herself, and yet here, she found herself at the center of one of the most powerful spiritual events of that century.

In the following apparitions, Mary eventually speaks more to Bernadette and invites her to return to the Grotto for exactly 15 consecutive days, during which Mary appears to her. There was a consistent theme of sadness in Mary’s apparitions to Bernadette, which is key. The sadness was expressed due to the loss of souls because of sin. Hence, Bernadette was constantly encouraged by the Blessed Mother to pray for sinners.

Some unusual events took place during those early apparitions. The Blessed Mother taught Bernadette a prayer that she was to pray every day of her life but to share with no one. She was also told some things about her future that she was to keep to herself. From the 8th apparition onwards, Bernadette was asked to kiss the earth and eat grass as a sign of penitence for sinners. She would repeat these acts for every visitation of Mary onwards.

The healing spring affiliated with Lourdes was a miracle our Lady worked during the 9th appearance. She asked Bernadette to dig the ground at a particular spot in the cave with her bare hands. While Bernadette herself had no idea what was to come, what started as a little puddle of muddy water overflowed into a spring by the very next day.

Quickly, people bathing in the spring began experiencing miracles of physical healing. The most noteworthy early miracle was that of Catherine Lataple, whose baby was born with a paralyzed arm. After bathing in the spring, her baby’s arm was completely healed and able to fully function. This became recognized by the Church as the first official miracle of Mary’s appearance at Lourdes.

By the later appearances, Mary instructed Bernadette to ask the priests of the town to lead a procession to the Grotto and to build a chapel there. Such a magnificent request from so lowly a peasant girl was immediately met with rejection and disdain from the priests, particularly Fr. Peyramale. He accused little Bernadette of lying and absolutely refused to. Bernadette, however, steadfastly repeated Mary’s request. Finally, the priest stated in some frustration, “Ask this lady her name, and when we know it, we will build a sanctuary.” Little did he know that this request would lead to one of the greatest heavenly confirmations of a magisterial dogmatic pronunciation.

Bernadette returned the following days and repeatedly asked for Mary’s name. Until this point, Mary had not actually identified herself to Bernadette. Bernadette always assumed that this was the Blessed Mother, but Mary did not formally announce her identity. It wouldn’t be until the 16th appearance, the second-to-last appearance, that Mary would speak those paradigm-shifting words, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”

Upon hearing the words, Bernadette was determined to convey them to the priest. What made it difficult for her was that, due to her lack of learning and her simple command of the Occitane dialect she spoke, those words were completely foreign to her. She had absolutely no concept of what they meant other than that this was the Lady’s name. She ran to the rectory to convey these words to Fr. Peyramale, repeating them to herself carefully the whole way, lest she forget them.

As soon as Bernadette saw the priest, she blurted out, “The Lady says, ‘I am the Immaculate Conception!’” Needless to say, Fr. Peyramale was completely floored. The apparitions took place in 1858. The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception had only been pronounced by the Holy Father, Pope Pius IX nary 4 years before that, in 1854. Unlike now, in the age of digital transmission of information and widespread literacy, dogmatic pronunciations and the circulation of papal declarations were not often privy to the lay masses. Most would go their whole lives knowing nothing about Rome save the Holy Father’s name. For these words to come from Bernadette’s lips, the priest knew it was nothing short of Heavenly intervention.

The last of Mary's appearances were much like her first two to Bernadette. Rather nondescript but gentle, loving, and affirming to the little girl. After Mary's last visit, Bernadette spent her whole life consecrated to God. She would enter religious life and become a Sister of Charity and Christian Instruction at Nevers in 1866 and devoted her entire life to prayer and penance. She passed into eternal life of tuberculosis at the early age of 35 in 1879. She remains today one of the handful of saints whose body is largely incorrupt. Her body may be viewed at the Chapel of Saint Girard at the Sisters of Charity in Nevers, France.

The Importance of the Lourdes Apparitions

As mentioned, the most important point of the Lourdes apparitions is that they affirm the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, a crucial declaration flowing from the truths of Sacred Scripture. It took literal centuries for the dogma to be pronounced because the question of original sin and its effects on the soul had to be properly understood in light of Divine Revelation. It would be due to the works of John Duns Scotus and St. Thomas Aquinas that the Church would have a clear understanding of original sin and its place in fallen human nature. Pope Pius IX’s declaration of the dogma flowed from this rightly ordered understanding of original sin. Mary’s appearance to Bernadette in Lourdes was the Heavenly sign that blessed the Magisterium’s declaration of the dogma.

Second, the apparitions have a fixed theme of poverty, simplicity, and humility. Bernadette's person most powerfully embodies this theme. Mary could have appeared to a wealthier, more learned young girl in Paris, about 500 miles away. Yet she chooses this unexceptional young peasant girl who had no formal learning to receive these visions that continue to inspire and heal the world to this day.

Third, Mary kept emphasizing to Bernadette the place of the Cross and suffering in the Christian life. Today, more than at any other point in history, we live in the most peaceful, most affluent era of human development. The notion of suffering is utterly repulsive. Yet Mary here wants us to embrace a penitential life so that we can learn to love and find pleasure in God and Heavenly things most of all.

Fourth, Mary always appeared with her hands held together in prayer. She models for us the posture of the faithful Christian: humble, pure in soul, loving, gentle, but ever fervently looking to God in prayer and finding refuge in Him. Like Mary, prayer nourishes our entire spiritual life. It is, as St. Alphonsus Liguori says, “the great means of our salvation.”

Church Declarations about Lourdes

On January 18th, 1862, a short 4 years after the end of the apparitions, the local Bishop signed the pastoral letter approving the apparitions, their supernatural character, and the authentic life of witness and faith of St. Bernadette Soubirous.

In 1874, Pope Pius IX granted the chapel sanctuary in the Lourdes Grotto the title of “Basilica.”

In 1876, he solemnly crowned the statue of the Virgin in the Grotto in Lourdes.

In 1890, Pope Leo XIII approved the office of mass for Lourdes and declared it a liturgical feast in the Diocese of Tarbes (where Lourdes is in).

In 1907, Pope Pius X declared the Feast Day of Our Lady of Lourdes for the Universal Church to celebrate. He declared Lourdes as the “Throne of power and mercy of Mary, where marvelous apparitions of Mary took place.”

He went on to state that “Lourdes is the place where the Blessed Virgin appeared several times to the blessed Bernadette, who exhorted all men to penance.”

Pope St. Pius X elevated St. Bernadette Soubirous to the honors of the altar on December 8th, 1933.

In 1957, Pope Pius XII wrote the encyclical “Le Pèlerinage de Lourdes,” or “The Pilgrimage to Lourdes,” the most complete document on Lourdes that the Church’s Magisterium has ever put out.

In 1959, John XXIII, closing the centenary of Mary’s appearances at Lourdes, declared the following: “The Church, through the voice of the Popes, does not cease in recommending to Catholics to pay attention to the messages of Lourdes.”

The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception

The Dogma of Mary’s Immaculate Conception holds special significance for me. It was the biggest hurdle I had to return to the Catholic Church—mind you, I had others, this was just the biggest one. As an anti-Catholic pentecostal, I couldn’t fathom the Catholic declaration of Mary’s sinlessness. It was repugnant to my sensibilities.

I don’t intend to do a deep biblical apologetics here, but I do wish to point out some key apologetic points about the dogma.

If Christ’s sinlessness and Godly purity was intrinsic to the salvation of all mankind, it would stand to reason that the ark that bore Him would also categorically be pure. One needs only think about the ark of the Old Testament. So pure was it that anyone touching it in an improper manner was immediately struck dead, overwhelmed by the sheer divine purity of the vessel. See 2 Samuel 6:1 for more on this.

Mary’s Immaculate conception was actually told of in Scripture, but in order to understand it, one needs to take a look at the Greek words of Luke 1:28. In Luke, the angel Gabriel says to Mary, “Hail full of grace, the Lord is with thee.” Those words are so familiar that they are common to the everyday Catholic. However, Gabriel’s words here in the Greek read, “Χαῖρε, κεχαριτωμένη!” (Chaire, Kecharitomene!). Those two small words contain the powerful implication of Mary’s perpetual immaculateness.

Firstly, Chaire, translated to “Hail” in the Koine Greek New Testament, is always reserved for royalty or someone of stature. Christ is greeted with Chaire when he is addressed as either “lord,” “king,” or “rabbi.” This is crucial. Because Gabriel, who greets Mary this way, is an Archangel of the Lord. In other words, his words are God’s words. He greets Mary as His superior or queen. This should jar us and awaken us to the deep mystery taking place in this event.

That second word is even more difficult to understand and translate. Kecharitomene is a participle word, meaning it is a non-finite nominal verb that has almost absolute connotations. Charis is the Greek word for “grace.” The word kecharitomene, if simply translated, means so much more than “highly favored.” It means who was, is, and will forever be perfectly filled with the grace of God. If this wasn’t enough, we need only to understand that, in the New Testament, grace isn’t just external favor. It’s the very life of God poured into the soul of a person. Mary is the only person in all the Scriptures to be granted this title!

The angel Gabriel, mouthpiece of God, ostensibly states to Mary, “Hail my Queen, who was, is, and will forever be perfect in the divine life of my God!” That’s what those two words mean. If that is the case, then it stands to reason that Mary’s Immaculate Conception has clear biblical roots as well.

To that end, in Ineffabilis Deus, Pope Pius IX writes that “Accordingly, the Fathers have never ceased to call the Mother of God the lily among thorns, the land entirely intact, the Virgin undefiled, immaculate, ever blessed, and free from all contagion of sin, she from whom was formed the new Adam, the flawless, brightest, and most beautiful paradise of innocence, immortality and delights planted by God himself and protected against all the snares of the poisonous serpent, the incorruptible wood that the worm of sin had never corrupted, the fountain ever clear and sealed with the power of the Holy Spirit, the most holy temple, the treasure of immortality, the one and only daughter of life — not of death — the plant not of anger but of grace, through the singular providence of God growing ever green contrary to the common law, coming as it does from a corrupted and tainted root.”

The doctrine has been held as truth of Divine Revelation since the very advent of Christianity. That the Church declared it as Dogma was the necessary pronunciation of what the Christian revelation has always known: Our Mother is pure in grace from the moment of her conception.

Prayer to Our Lady of Lourdes

Be blessed, O most pure Virgin, for having vouchsafed to manifest your shining with life, sweetness and beauty, in the Grotto of Lourdes, saying to the child, St. Bernadette: 'I am the Immaculate Conception.' A thousand times we congratulate you upon your Immaculate Conception. And now, O ever Immaculate Virgin, Mother of mercy, Health of the sick, Refuge of sinners, Comforter of the afflicted, you know our wants, our troubles, our sufferings: deign to cast upon us a look of mercy.

By appearing in the Grotto of Lourdes, you were pleased to make it a privileged sanctuary, whence you dispense your favors, and already many have obtained the cure of their infirmities, both spiritual and physical. We come, therefore, with the most unbounded confidence to implore your maternal intercession. Obtain for us, O loving Mother, the granting of our request.

(state your request)

Through gratitude for your favors, we will endeavor to imitate your virtues, that we may one day share your glory. 
Our Lady of Lourdes, Mother of Christ, you had influence with your divine son while upon earth. You have the same influence now in Heaven. Pray for us; obtain for us from your Divine Son our special requests if it be the Divine Will. Amen.

Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us.

Saint Bernadette, pray for us.

Deus Benedicat