Lourdes is a small town located at the foothills of the Great Pyrenees Mountains in France. A young girl named Bernadette, the oldest of four children, lived with her family in a single room that had once been the town jail.

One day, she, her sister, and a friend went searching for dry wood for her mother. Bernadette's sister and friend crossed a small stream, but Bernadette hesitated at the bank. Suddenly, she heard a loud crashing noise and looked toward a stone grotto where a single bush was waving as if it was a windy day. Then, a golden glow came from the center of the grotto, and a beautiful woman appeared. Although Bernadette was initially terrified, when the woman smiled, her fear vanished.

A Healing Well

Bernadette then experienced multiple visions of Mary. In one of these encounters the Virgin Mary told Bernadette, “Go and drink from the spring and wash yourself there.” Bernadette saw no spring, so she got down on her hands and knees and began to dig. Soon, the small hole was filled with water, from which she drank and washed her face. This small pool became a river, and very quickly, people came to believe that this river had healing properties because a man who was going blind regained his vision after submerging his face in the water. Another woman with a paralyzed hand was able to use it completely after immersing it in the water.

Bernadette experienced eighteen apparitions of the Virgin Mary. Word of the apparitions spread, causing concern among local and church authorities. A local doctor subjected Bernadette to a battery of tests. She was repeatedly shown to be of normal mental health. In one of the more humorous incidents related to this apparition, Bernadette's local priest Abbe Peyramale refused to believe in the apparitions and requested a sign. But the Virgin Mary was unwilling to perform this sign for the skeptical priest. When Bernadette reported back to her priest she told him, “She smiled when I told her that you were asking her to work a miracle. I told her to make the rose bush, which she was standing near, bloom; she smiled once more. But she wants a chapel.”

When Bernadatte visited the grotto, others would flock there in the hopes of witnessing the visitation. During one apparition, 20,000 people were present. In August 1858, the Emperor of France, Napoleon III, ordered that water be brought from the well to be sprinkled on his two-year-old son who had contracted dangerous sunstroke with the threat of meningitis. When his son was cured, Napoleon III ordered that the barricades be removed from the grotto.

Lourdes Today

Today, five million pilgrims annually flock to Lourdes, which is called the Capitol of Prayer, seeking healing and spiritual refreshment. The small well that Bernadette uncovered now produces 15,000 gallons of water daily. Many drink from the wells, and over 400,000 visitors annually immerse themselves in the water in a nearby bathhouse.

A recent medical study demonstrated that over 2,500 healings have occurred in Lourdes, although church authorities to date have only officially recognized a small number of cures (about 65). Many more potential healings are currently under investigation, and more than 5,000 people claim to have experienced miracles at Lourdes.

Bernadette eventually joined a convent, although she was sickly for most of her life and died at thirty-five. To this day, her body remains incorrupt. She was canonized a saint on December 8, 1933.