#OurLadyOfLourdes
#SaintBernadetteSoubirous
#TheImmaculateConception

February 11, 1858...

"For brevity, we summarize the events described more fully in the article by Saints and Blesseds on the miraculous story of Bernadette.

From the first appearance of the “Beautiful Lady Dressed in White”, as she had always defined her, the shepherdess immediately began praying the Rosary. In her true naivety she never dared to associate that vision with the Madonna. It was the people who did it, with the grave opposition of Abbot Peyramale who, precisely in that historical context of the predominance of Masonic culture, feared the repression that would come from the government authorities.

But knowing the girl’s good faith, he asked her to ask the Beautiful Lady who she was.

With joy, Bernadette, after the apparition on March 25, 1858, ran to the religious with the answer received that day: «“Que soy era Immaculada Councepciou…” (I am the Immaculate Conception)» she repeated in the local dialect as she had heard. The priest was shocked because the girl had told him a theological concept that she could not have known for two reasons...

First, because the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception had been proclaimed by Pope Pius IX only 4 years earlier and very few religious people from the suburbs and especially parishioners knew its meaning.

Secondly, because the 14-year-old shepherdess was so ignorant and forgetful that she risked not being able to make her First Commun

#OurLadyOfLourdes #SaintBernadetteSoubirous #MotherOfGod

"The first of 18 apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes to St. Bernadette Soubirous in Lourdes, France, happened on this day in history, Feb. 11, 1858. Soubirous, then a sickly 14-year-old peasant girl living in poverty in the small town of Lourdes, saw a vision of a young lady. Not knowing who the lady was, Soubirous asked the friends she was with if they had seen something. They had not. The apparitions continued, with Soubirious reporting that the lady spoke to her starting with the third apparition, but still had not revealed her name. It was not until the third-to-last apparition, on March 25, 1858, that authority figures began to believe Soubirous' stories. On that day, she visited the grotto, but was still uncertain as to who the lady actually was; throughout the visions, the lady repeatedly refused to tell the young girl her name. Finally, with her arms down, she raised her eyes to heaven and then, folding her hands over her breast, she said, ‘I am the Immaculate Conception'. Following the apparitions, Soubirous underwent a series of investigations and was found to be telling the truth. In 1862, Pope Pius IX declared the visions to be "authentic."

The Lourdes sanctuary is now home to 22 places of worship, including three separate basilicas. Mass is said an estimated 10,000 times each year. Since 1858, the Lourdes Medical Bureau has verified 70 cures as "miraculous" in nature and unexplained by science..."