This Wednesday we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. It is undoubtedly the most famous Marian apparition site, and it is also a huge challenge to the modern conviction that God no longer intervenes in history. France, known as the “eldest daughter of the Church”, in the mid 19^th century, was marked by upheaval, secularisation and persecution of the Church. And so perhaps it’s not surprising that Our Lady appeared there repeatedly, as this is what she often does in times of turmoil. In 1830, she appeared to St Catherine Laboure at the Rue de bac in Paris, where she gave us the Miraculous Medal. In 1846, she appeared to two shepherd children at La Salette, weeping and warning of the consequences of sin and the neglect of God. And then in 1858, she appeared eighteen times to Bernadette Soubirous (1844-79) a fourteen year old girl at a grotto in Lourdes.

Bernadette was a simple girl – she had poor health and was uneducated, and had nothing to gain by deceiving people. Our Lady’s message was the same as it always is when she appears: it was a call for prayer, penance and conversion. And at Lourdes this message was accompanied by a miraculous sign. At the ninth apparition on 25^th February 1858, Our Lady instructed Bernadette to drink from the spring and wash – except there was no visible spring there. But Our Lady pointed to a precise spot. Bernadette began digging in the ground and wiping herself with mud, and everyone thought she had gone mad. They were astonished, however, when shortly after, water began to flow from the very spot where she had been digging. And within just a few days people were claiming cures as a result of using this water.

The water at Lourdes has brought about thousands of reported healings, but the Church has officially recognised only seventy since 1858. Qualified medical experts of all religious beliefs are used, including atheists and agnostics, before any miracle is declared. Among these is the cure of Marie Bailly in 1902. She was suffering from acute tuberculous peritonitis, and was practically dying on the train to Lourdes. As the train pulled in to the station, she was taken immediately to the grotto where three pitchers of water from the spring were thrown over her abdomen. Within thirty minutes she was completely cured. After exhaustive investigation, the Church declared the cure medically inexplicable.

However, Lourdes is not only a place of physical healing. The greater miracle is the number of conversions that have taken place there. Countless men and women who have arrived burdened by sin, scepticism or complete indifference have left reconciled with God. The queues for Confession are long, and sufferings offered to God become a means of grace rather than despair.

Our Lady told Bernadette, “I cannot promise you happiness in this life, but only in the next.” She became a nun and died in 1879 at the age of 35 of tuberculosis of the bone. Bernadette always said the spring was not meant for her. She understood that sanctity doesn’t consist in being spared the cross, but in carrying it faithfully. St Bernadette was canonised by Pope Pius XI in 1933, and her body remains incorrupt.

Fr Paul Gillham, IC