Lourdes apparitions

The Marian Apparitions at Lourdes were reported in 1858 by Bernadette Soubirous, a 14-year-old miller's daughter from the town of Lourdes in southern France.

From 11 February to 16 July 1858, she reported 18 apparitions of "a Lady". Soubirous described the lady as wearing a white veil and a blue girdle; she had a golden rose on each foot and held a rosary of pearls. Despite initial skepticism from the Roman Catholic Church, these claims were eventually declared to be worthy of belief after a canonical investigation, and the apparition is known as Our Lady of Lourdes.

According to Soubirous, her visions occurred at the grotto of Massabielle, just outside Lourdes. On 16 July 1858, Soubirous visited the grotto for the last time and said: "I have never seen her so beautiful before." On 18 January 1860, the local bishop declared: "The Virgin Mary did appear indeed to Bernadette Soubirous." In 1958, Pope Pius XII issued the encyclical Le pèlerinage de Lourdes ("The pilgrimage to Lourdes") on the 100th anniversary of the apparitions. Pope John Paul II visited Lourdes three times; Pope Benedict XVI visited Lourdes on 15 September 2008 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the apparitions.

Soubirous was canonized a saint in 1933 by Pope Pius XI.

On Thursday, 11 February 1858, a week before Lent would begin on Ash Wednesday, 17 February, a 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous was out gathering firewood with her sister and a friend at the grotto of Massabielle outside Lourdes, when she reportedly had the first of 18 visions of what she termed "a small young lady", not in French but in a regional language "Occitan": ({uno petito damizelo}) , standing in a niche in the rock. Her sister and her friend stated that they had seen nothing.

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