OUR LADY OF LOURDES
On February 11th, 1858, our Lady appeared to a fourteen-year-old peasent girl named Bernadette in Lourdes, France. Mary appeared to her eighteen times over the next several months.
Mary's message was very simple. She told her, "Pray to God for sinners" and "Do penance," to bring people closer to the Lord.
On March 25, Mary revealed to Bernadette that she was the Immaculate Conception. Bernadette was not educated, and she did not even know the meaning of this revelation, but this was the truth that Pope Pius IX had declared to be dogma of faith four years before.
As at Guadalupe, Mary sent a sign to show that this revelation was from God. She told Bernadette to dig a hole in the ground. Bernadette obeyed and found a spring that gives about 25,000 gallons of water a day.
Many people have traveled to Lourdes, where a great basilica has been built over the site of Mary's apparition. Many people who were sick have been healed there. Bernadette was canonized as a saint in 1933. We celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes on February 11.
Written by: Rev. JUDE WINKLER, OFM Conv.
1995 @ Catholic Book Publishing Co.., New York, N.Y.
