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Our Lady of Lourdes
'Je suis l'Immaculée conception'

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THE POSITION OF THE CHURCH - APPROVED

The Actual Grotto where Mary appeared to Bernadette

What ensued next was one of the greatest apparitions of all times.  It was also one of the most scientifically documented, researched and to this day - still proven as REAL!  Nothing has disproved Lourdes.

15 promises to those who say the Rosary

1. Whoever shall faithfully serve me by the recitation of the rosary, shall receive signal graces.
2. I promise my special protection and the greatest graces to all those who shall recite the rosary.
3. The rosary shall be a powerful armor against hell, it will destroy vice, decrease sin, and defeat heresies.
4. It will cause virtue and good works to flourish; it will obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God; it will withdraw the heart of men from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire of eternal things. Oh, that souls would sanctify them- selves by this means.
5. The soul which recommend itself to me by the recitation of the rosary, shall not perish.
6. Whoever shall recite the rosary devoutly, applying himself to the consideration of its sacred mysteries shall never be conquered by misfortune. God will not chastise him in His justice, he shall not by an unprovided death; if he be just he shall remain in the grace of God, and become worthy of eternal life.
7. Whoever shall have a true devotion for the rosary shall not die without the sacraments of the Church.
8. Those who are faithful to recite the rosary shall have during their life and at their death the light of God and the plenitude of His graces; at the moment of death they shall participate in the merits of the saints in paradise.
9. I shall deliver from purgatory those who have been devoted to the rosary.
10. The faithful children of the rosary shall merit a high degree of glory in heaven.
11. You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the rosary.
12. All those who propagate the holy rosary shall be aided by me in their necessities.
13. I have obtained from my Divine Son that all the advocates of the rosary shall have for intercessors the entire celestial court during their life and at the hour of death.
14. All who recite the rosary are my son, and brothers of my only son Jesus Christ
15. Devotion of my rosary is a great sign of predestination.

1st Apparition
Thursday 11th. February 1858 : the meeting
Accompanied by her sister and a friend, Bernadette went to Massabielle on the banks of the Gave to collect bones and dead wood. Removing her socks in order to cross the stream, she heard a noise like a gust of wind, she looked up towards the Grotto : "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." Bernadette made the Sign of the Cross and said the Rosary with the lady. When the prayer ended the Lady suddenly vanished.

2nd Apparition
Sunday 14th. February: Holy Water
Bernadette felt an inner force drawing her to the Grotto in spite of the fact that she was forbidden to go there by her parents. At her insistence, her mother allowed her; after the first decade of the Rosary, she saw the same lady appearing. She sprinkled holy water at her. The lady smiled and bent her head. When the Rosary ended she disappeared.

3rd Apparition
Thursday 18 th. February : the lady speaks
For the first time, the Lady spoke. Bernadette held out a pen and paper asking her to write her name. She replied; "It is not necessary" and she 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?"

4th Apparition
Friday 19th. February: short and silent Apparition
Bernadette came to the Grotto with a lighted blessed candle. This is origin of carrying candles and lighting them in front of the Grotto.

5th Apparition
Saturday 20th. February: In silence
The lady taught her a personal prayer. At the end of the vision Bernadette is overcome with a great sadness.

6th Apparition
Sunday 21st. February: "Aquéro"
The Lady appeared to Bernadette very early in the morning. About one hundred people were present. Afterwards the Police Commissioner, Jacomet, questioned her. He wanted Bernadette to tell what she saw. Bernadette would only speak of "AQUÉRO" ("that thing" in local dialect)

7th Apparition
Tuesday 23rd. February: The secret.
Surrounded by 150 persons, Bernadette arrived at the Grotto. The Apparition reveals to her a secret "only for her alone".

8th Apparition
Wednesday 24th. February: Penance.
The message of the Lady: "Penance! Penance! Penance! Pray to God for sinners. Kiss the ground as an act of penance for sinners!"

9th Apparition
Thursday 25th. February: The spring.
Three hundred people were present. Bernadette relates; "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."

10th Apparition
Saturday 27th. February: Silence
Eight hundred people were present. The Apparition was silent. Bernadette drank the water from the spring and carried out her usual acts of penance.

11th Apparition
Sunday 28th. February: Penance
Over one thousand people were present at the ecstasy. Bernadette prayed, kissed the ground and moved on her knees as a sign of penance. She was then taken to the house of Judge Ribes who threatened to put her in prison.

12th Apparition
Monday 1st. March: The First Miracle
Over one thousand five hundred people assembled and among them, for the first time, a priest. In the night, Catherine Latapie, a friend from Lourdes, went to the Grotto, she plunged her dislocated arm into the water of the Spring: her arm and her hand regained their movement.

13th Apparition
Tuesday 2nd. March: Message to the priests.
The crowd becomes larger and larger. The Lady asked her: "Go, tell the priests to come here in procession and to build a chapel here." Bernadette spoke of this to Fr. Peyramale, the Parish Priest of Lourdes. He wanted to know only one thing: the Lady's name. He demanded another test; to see the wild rose bush flower at the Grotto in the middle of winter.

14th Apparition
Wednesday 3rd. March: A smile
From 7 o'clock in the morning, in the presence of three thousand people, Bernadette arrives at the Grotto, but the vision did not appear! After school, she heard the inner invitation of the Lady. She went to the Grotto and asked her again for her name. The response was a smile. The Parish Priest told her again: "If the Lady really wishes that a chapel be built, then she must tell us her name and make the rose bush bloom at the Grotto."

15th Apparition
Thursday 4th. March: The day all were waiting for!
The ever-greater crowd (about eight thousand people) waited for a miracle at the end of the fortnight. The vision was silent. Fr. Peyramale stuck to his position. For twenty days Bernadette did not go to the Grotto, she no longer felt the irresistible invitation.

16th Apparition
Thursday 25th. March: The name they awaited for!
The vision finally revealed her name, but the wild rose bush, on which she stood during the Apparitions, did not bloom. Bernadette recounted; "She lifted up her eyes to heaven, joined her hands as though in prayer, that were held out and open towards the ground and said to me: Que soy era Immaculada Concepciou (I am the Immaculate Conception) ." The young visionary left and, running all the way, repeated continuously the words that she did not understand. These words troubled the brave Parish Priest. Bernadette was ignorant of the fact that this theological expression was assigned to the Blessed Virgin. Four years earlier, in 1854, Pope Pius IX declared this a truth of the Catholic Faith (a dogma)

17th Apparition
Wednesday 7th. April: The miracle of the candle
During this Apparition, Bernadette had to keep her candle alight. The flame licked along her hand without burning it. A medical doctor, Dr. Douzous, immediately witnessed this fact.

18th Apparition
Thursday 16th. July: The Final Apparition.
Bernadette receives the mysterious call to the Grotto, but her way was blocked and closed off by a barrier. She thus, arrived across from the Grotto to the other side of the Gave. "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!
 

Table of the apparitions


The Church officially recognises the Apparitions.

The solemn declaration by the Bishop Laurence, the Bishop of Tarbes at the time of the Apparitions, can be read on a marble slab on the right hand side after entering the Upper Basilica "We judge : that Mary Immaculate, the Mother of God, really did appear to Bernadette Soubirous, on eighteen occasions from 11th. February 1858 at the Grotto of Massabielle, near the town of Lourdes ; that these Apparitions bear the characteristics of truth ; that the faithful can believe them as true. We humbly submit our judgement to the judgement of the Sovereign Pontiff, who is responsible for governing the Universal Church".
This was a major declaration by the Bishop of Tarbes: four years after the Apparitions, on 18th. January 1862, he recognises these Apparitions as authentic in the name of the Church.
Mgr. Laurence did not allow things to drag on : the 18 Apparitions took place from 11th. February to 16th. July 1858 and on 28th. July 1858 he appointed a commission of enquiry "to gather and to set down the facts about what happened or what could happen again in the Grotto of Lourdes ; to inform us of these, to make us aware of their nature, and to furnish us, as well, with all the important elements involved in order to arrive at a solution..."

THE COMMISSION OF ENQUIRY.
The Commission had to examine the cures caused by using the water of the Grotto. Is the water natural or supernatural? Are the visions of Bernadette true? If 'yes'; are they of divine character? Did the object that appeared make demands of the child? What were these demands? Did the spring in the Grotto exist before the vision which Bernadette claimed to have had?
And the Bishop insisted, in his mandate, which set up the Commission, of the seriousness of the work in hand : an enquiry to establish the facts, question the witnesses, consult with scientists not just with doctors who cared for the sick before their cures, but also those who specialise in physical science, chemistry, geology : "The Commission must neglect nothing in order to tie up all loose ends and arrive at the truth, whatever it may be."
For almost four years the Commission made its enquiry, during which it questioned Bernadette, and the Bishop gave his conclusion in the famous document of 18th. January 1862 "giving the judgement on the Apparitions which took place at the Grotto of Lourdes." 

A DOCUMENT THOROUGHLY ARGUED.
After recalling the description of the Apparitions, the Bishop explained the reason for the lack of haste which the church has in examining supernatural things: she demands definite proof, before admitting to them and to proclaiming them as divine, because the devil can lead people astray by taking on the form of an angel of light : "We are inspired by the Commission comprising of wise, holy, learned and experienced priests who questioned the child, studied the facts, examined everything and weighed all the evidence. We have also called on science, and we remain convinced that the Apparitions are supernatural and divine, and that by consequence, what Bernadette saw was the Most Blessed Virgin. Our convictions are based on the testimony of Bernadette, but above all on the things that have happened, things which can be nothing other than divine intervention".

THE TESTIMONY OF BERNADETTE.
The first argument of the Bishop was that Bernadette did not wish to deceive: she was sincere and her testimony gives all the guarantees that we could wish for. "Who could not admire, on meeting her, the simplicity, the openness, and the modesty of this child? She only spoke when she was spoken to. She spoke without exaggeration and with a touching naivety. To the many questions asked of her, she gave clear and precise answers always to the point, without hesitation and stamped with a strong conviction."
The Bishop underlined that Bernadette was not shaken by threats or tempted by generous offers by saying : "Always in control of herself, she has, in the many different interrogations to which she was submitted, constantly maintained what she said, with nothing added, nothing retracted. The sincerity of Bernadette is, thus, unquestionable." But the Bishop goes further in his argument: sincere, Bernadette is not mistaken : "But if Bernadette does not want to deceive, was she not deceived herself? How could she believe to see and hear what she did not see and hear? Was she not the victim of hallucinations? How could we believe her? The wisdom of her answers reveals in this child a spirit of goodness, a quiet imagination, good sense beyond her years. Religious feelings never showed in her a spirit of exhalation; nobody could prove in the young girl neither intellectual disorder, nor change of mind nor unusual personality nor morbid feelings which would allow her to give way to a creative imagination."
And the Bishop added that Bernadette saw not once but eighteen times, suddenly, when nothing was prepared there and that there were other times when she waited and saw nothing. He notes that her expression changed during the Apparitions and that she heard in a language that she did not always understand, but which she always remembered. "These circumstances put together do not allow us to believe in a hallucination, the young girl has truly seen and heard a being calling herself the Immaculate Conception. And this phenomenon cannot be explained naturally, we have good reason to believe that the Apparition is supernatural".

THE MARVELS OF GRACE.
To complement the testimony of Bernadette, the Bishop recalls "the marvellous things that have been happening since the first event. If one judges the tree by its fruits, we can say that the Apparition as seen by the young girl is supernatural and divine, because she has produced supernatural and divine results".
The Bishop recalls how the crowds grew and gathered during the Apparitions and afterwards when the Apparitions had ended : "pilgrims came from faraway districts and neighbouring countries hurrying to the Grotto...to pray and ask favours from the Immaculate Virgin Mary. Souls already Christian are strengthened in virtue, people frozen into indifference have been brought back to the practice of their religion, obstinate pilgrims are reconciled with God after having Our Lady of Lourdes invoked in their favour. These wonders of grace, which have a universal and lasting character, can only have God as their author, do they not come, as a result, to confirm the truth of the Apparitions?"

After the wonderful things that happened "for the good of souls", the Bishop moved on to the results produced by way of physical healing, especially among the sick who imitated Bernadette by drinking and washing themselves in the place pointed out by the Apparition, asks if this was not an indication of a supernatural power coming down upon the spring of Massabielle "In this way, sick try the water of the Grotto, and this is not without success, many were sick who did not respond to the most stringent of treatments, and who suddenly recovered their health. These extraordinary cures have had an immense effect...Sick people of all countries request the water of Massabielle...we cannot list here all the favours granted, but what we want to say is that it is the water of Massabielle which has cured those who were sick and who were abandoned or declared incurable. These cures have been obtained by using a water which in itself has no special curative qualities, according to those skilled in chemistry who have carried out rigorous tests." These cures are permanent, specifies Mgr. Laurence, who wonders what had caused them: "Science, which was consulted on this subject, responded negatively. These cures are thus the work of God." Because, the Bishop remarks, they are directly linked to the Apparition which is the point of departure and inspiration of the confidence of the sick."

THE JUDGEMENT OF THE BISHOP.
To conclude, the Bishop said : "There is thus a direct link between the cures and the Apparitions, the Apparitions are of divine origin, since the cures carry a divine stamp. But what comes from God is the truth! As a result, the Apparition, calling herself the Immaculate Conception, that Bernadette saw and heard, is the Most Holy Virgin Mary! Thus we write: the finger of God is here." And the Bishop making reference to the declaration of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception by Pope Pius IX at the end of 1854 states : "Then about three years afterwards, the Virgin Mary appeared to a child telling her: 'I am the Immaculate Conception...I want a church built here in my honour'. Does this not appear that she wants to confirm, by a monument, the infallible word of the successor of St. Peter?" Then, following the invoking of the Holy Name of God we have the text of the mandate carrying the official recognition of the Apparitions that we cited at the beginning.

THE APPARITIONS IN THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH.
This judgement of the Church is essential because the Apparitions add nothing to the Creed or the Gospel; they are a reminder for an age that had a tendency to forget them, they are indeed, a prophetic Visitation to our world. God does not want us focusing on the wonderful or the extraordinary; but through the Apparitions he gives us a sign that we should return to the Gospel which is the Word of his Son, the Word of Life. Faithfulness to the message of the Gospel, the authenticity of our life of witness, the results of holiness which flow out from it for the people of God are the criteria of an authentic Apparition in the Church. At Lourdes they are verified with a special clarity: the Church is not deceived in this.

The Time of Reflection
The first discovery of religion for Bernadette was in contemplation. She knew the Carmelite convent in Bagnères. In 1860-61 she spoke to her cousin about an order dedicated to St. Bernard. She wished to go there because they practised vigils, fasting, discipline, mortification… but Bernadette's health was an obstacle as well as her poverty because you to be requested to join.

In 1863, the Sisters at the Hospice began to look after the sick. This was a decisive experience. What she really appreciated about the Sisters of Nevers was their discretion towards her compared with other congregations that sought her. Later she said "I'm going to Nevers because they did not try to attract me". On 27th September 1863, Bernadette has an interesting conversation with Bishop Forcade of Nevers. During the following months, Bernadette developed her intentions on this new base.
On 4th April 1864, after Mass in the Hospice, Bernadette sought out the Mother superior, Sister Alexandrine Roques, and told her: "Now I know, dear Mother, where I must become a sister (…). With you, dear Mother."
From 4th October to 19th November 1864, Bernadette left on holidays without a reply to her request of previous 4th April. In Nevers, the Superior, Mother Josephine Imbert, hesitated. She was uneasy about the difficulties that the famous visionary would cause for the religious house that accepted her. Mother Marie-Therese Vauzou, the Mistress of Novices, was in favour. The bishop supported the request.
When she returned to on 19th November she received the good news that the response was favourable.
Her postulancy could begin. Bernadette delayed it from the beginning of December 1864 to the end of January 1865. Her convalescence was further set back by the death of her young brother Justin.

Bernadette began her postulancy in February 1865 and in April 1866 she requested to enter the Novitiate.

On 28th April 1866, she announced her departure. But Bishop Laurence wanted her present at the opening of the Crypt. Bernadette attended the celebration and took part in the first official procession in response to the request of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Bernadette underwent the attention of the curious and finally, Bishop Laurence allowed her to depart.

On 3rd July 1866, the whole family were together for a final meal in the Lacadé Mill.