Such a strange story about Bernadette of Lourdes mellow yellow. She certainly started a pilgrim tourist phenomenon LOL.
On 11 February 1858, Bernadette, then aged 14, was out gathering firewood with her sister Marie and a friend near the grotto of Massabielle when she experienced her first vision. While the other girls crossed the little stream in front of the grotto and walked on, Bernadette stayed behind sitting down to take her shoes off in order to cross the water when she heard the sound of rushing wind, but nothing moved.
A wild rose in a natural niche in the grotto, however, did move. From the niche, or rather the dark alcove behind it, “came a dazzling light, and a white figure”. This was the first of 18 visions of what Bernadette referred to as aquero, Gascon Occitan for “that”. In later testimony, she called it “a small young lady”. Her sister and her friend stated that they had seen nothing that first day. On Bernadette’s third visit to the grotto she said that “the vision” asked her to return every day for a fortnight.
Pope John Paul II in the Grotto of Massabielle at the Lourdes Shrine.
Bernadette’s story caused a sensation with the townspeople, who were divided in their opinions on whether or not Bernadette was telling the truth. Some of the people who interviewed her after her revelation of the visions thought her simple-minded. However, despite being rigorously interviewed by officials of both the Catholic Church and the French government, she stuck consistently to her story. After investigation, Church authorities confirmed the authenticity of the apparitions in 1862. In the 150 years since the vision told Bernadette to drink from a spring in the grotto, 69 cures have been verified by the Lourdes Medical Bureau as “inexplicable”.
Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, the sanctuary basilica built at Lourdes directly above the site of the apparitions which is is now one of the major Catholic pilgrimage sites in the world..
On 8 December 1933, Pope Pius XI declared Bernadette Soubirous a Saint of the Catholic Church. Her request to the local priest to build a chapel at the site of her visions eventually gave rise to a number of chapels and churches at Lourdes.
Today, close to 5 million pilgrims from all over the world visit Lourdes every year to pray and to drink the ‘miraculous’ water, believing they obtain from the Lord healing of the body and of the spirit.