11 February: Our Lady of Lourdes
I am the Immaculate Conception
Our Lady appeared to the 14-year old Bernadette Soubirous 18 times, between 11 February and 16 July 1858, in the Grotto of Massabielle in Lourdes. She asked Bernadette to become her messenger and to cooperate with her in the conversion of sinners. She also made some requests: to make the Grotto a place of prayer and pilgrimage and spoke to her about the dogma proclaimed by Pius IX in 1854.
Accompanied by her sister and a friend, Bernadette went to Massabielle, along the Gave River, on 11 February 1858 to collect some wood. Suddenly she heard a gush of wind and she raised her head towards the Grotto: “I saw a lady dressed in white, she wore a white dress, and equally white veils, a blue belt and a yellow rose on each foot”. Bernadette made the sign of the Cross and recited the Rosary with the lady. When the prayer had ended the Lady suddenly vanished.
The apparitions followed one another. The first two did not include words, but during the third one on 18 February the Lady spoke to Bernadette for the first time. The girl gave her a pen and asked her to write her name on it. She replied, “It is not necessary” and added, “I do not promise to make you happy in this world but in the other. Would you be kind enough to come here for a fortnight?”
During the eighth apparition on 24 February, Our Lady said to Bernadette: “Penance! Penance! Penance! Pray to God for sinners. Kiss the ground as an act of penance for sinners”!
The ninth apparition on 25 February was witnessed by 300 people. Bernadette reported the following: “She told me to go, drink of the spring (….) I only found a little muddy water. At the fourth attempt I was able to drink. She also made me eat the bitter herbs that were found near the spring, and then the vision left and went away”. In front of the crowd that was asking, “Do you think that she is mad doing things like that?” she replied; “It is for sinners.”
Even more people were present at the 13th apparition on 2 March. The Lady asked her to: “Go and tell the priests that people are to come here in procession and to build a chapel here”. Bernadette relayed the message to Fr. Peyramale, the parish priest of Lourdes, who wanted to know only one thing: the Lady’s name. He also asked her for proof: to see the wild rose bush flower at the Grotto in the middle of winter.
During the 16th apparition on 25 March, the Lady revealed her name, but the wild rosebush she was standing on did not bloom. Bernadette said: “she raised her eyes to heaven and then, folding her hands over her breast, she extended her arms towards the ground, then joined them as though in prayer and said ‘Que soy era Immaculada Concepciou’”. Bernadette left quickly, and, as she ran, she repeated continuously those words which she did not understand, but that struck and moved the surly parish priest.
During the 18th and last apparition on Friday, 16 July, Bernadette felt she had to go to the Grotto, but she found the entrance closed off by a fence. She thus went to the front on the other side of the Gave River and saw Our Lady for the last time: “I felt that I was in front of the Grotto, at the same distance as before, I saw only the Blessed Virgin, and she was more beautiful than ever”!
Bernadette truly became a messenger of Mary, imitating her in her hiddenness, service and humility. When she realized that her mission in Lourdes had ended, she understood that she had to leave room for Mary and retreated among the nuns of Nevers. She became Sister Marie Bernarde to everyone and never returned to Lourdes, because as she told her sisters as soon as she had entered the convent, “I came here to hide myself”.
On the day of her profession, she had not been assigned any particular work, so the Bishop entrusted her with the “work of prayer” which she carried out until the end, praying for sinners as Our Lady had asked her, saying “after all, they are our brothers”. She accepted the illnesses that followed and became a “pillar of the infirmary”. She died in 1879 at the age of 35, consumed by tuberculosis and by her love for poor sinners. Bernadette was canonized on 8 December 1933, not because of her apparitions, but because she had responded to Our Lady’s requests.
On 18 January 1862, the Bishop of Tarbes officially recognized the apparitions and “authorised worship, and invited the building of a shrine by appealing to the generosity of donors”. The Bishop wrote the following words in the official document: “We judge that the Immaculate Mary, Mother of God, really appeared lo Bernadette Soubirous on 11th February 1858 and following days, eighteen times in the Grotto of Massabielle, near the city of Lourdes; that this Apparition possesses all the characteristics of truth and that the faithful may believe in it with certainty”.
Since then, the world’s faithful have been visiting Lourdes. The liturgical memorial of the apparitions was inserted into the Roman calendar in 1907.
The 11th of February is also an important day for the Governorate of Vatican City State. It is the anniversary of its foundation, which this year has reached its 96th year. Pope Pius XI chose 11 February 1929 as the date for the signing of the Lateran Pacts between the Kingdom of Italy and the Holy See, precisely in memory of Our Lady of Lourdes.