Saints
Up until 1858, Lourdes was a quiet modest sleepy county-town
with a population of only some 4,000 inhabitants. The castle
was occupied by an infantry garrison. The town was a place
people passed through on their way to the waters at Barèges,
Cauterets, Luz-Saint-Sauveur and Bagnères-de-Bigorre, and
for the first mountaineers on their way to Gavarnie, when the
events which were to change its history took place. On 11
February 1858, a 14-year-old local girl, Bernadette Soubirous
claimed a beautiful lady appeared to her in the remote Grotto of
Massabielle. The lady later identified herself as "the
Immaculate Conception" and the faithful believe her to be the
Blessed Virgin Mary. The lady appeared 18 times, and by 1859
thousands of pilgrims were visiting Lourdes. A statue of Our
Lady of Lourdes was erected at the site in 1864. See Our Lady
of Lourdes for more details on the apparations.
Our Lady of Lourdes
Oldest of six children in a very poor family headed by Francois and Louise
Casterot. Hired out as a servant from age 12 to 14. Shepherdess. On 11
February 1858, around the time of her first Communion, she received a vision of
the Virgin; her own account of it is in the Readings section below. She received
seventeen more in the next five months, and was led to a spring of healing
waters. She moved into a house with the sisters of Nevers at Lourdes where she
lived, worked, and learned to read and write. The sisters cared for the sick and
indigent, and at age 22 they admitted Bernadette into their order since she was
both. Always sick herself, and often mistreated by her superiors, she died with a
prayer for Mary's aid. Since the appearances of Mary to young Bernadette in
1858, more than 200 million people have visited the shrine of Lourdes.
Patronage
bodily ills, illness, Lourdes France, people ridiculed for their piety, poverty,
shepherdesses, shepherds, sick people, sickness
