The Apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary Immaculate (Lourdes)
In Apparitione Beatae Mariae Virginis Immaculatae
The feast of the apparitions of the Immaculate Virgin at Lourdes in 1858, when Our Lady made herself known to a poor and humble girl as the Immaculate Conception.
This feast commemorates the appearances of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the grotto of Massabielle, near the town of Lourdes in the south of France, in the year 1858. There, beginning on the eleventh of February, Our Lady showed herself eighteen times to a poor and unlettered girl of fourteen, Bernadette Soubirous, whom the Church now venerates as a saint.
“I am the Immaculate Conception”
The Lady appeared in a niche of the rock, clothed in white with a blue girdle, a rosary upon her arm. She called the faithful to penance and to prayer for sinners, and bade Bernadette ask that a chapel be built and that processions be made to the spot. When at last Bernadette asked her name, the Lady joined her hands, raised her eyes to heaven, and said: “I am the Immaculate Conception.” These words, spoken only four years after Pope Pius IX had solemnly defined that very dogma, set a heavenly seal upon the Church’s faith that Mary, from the first instant of her conception, was preserved free from all stain of original sin.
A Place of Grace
At Our Lady’s word a spring of water came forth at the grotto, and from that day Lourdes has drawn pilgrims without number. There the sick have sought healing, the sorrowful consolation, and sinners the grace of conversion; and there many cures, carefully examined, have been acknowledged by the Church. The feast was extended to the universal Church by Pope Saint Pius X. To keep it is to answer Our Lady’s own call — to prayer, to penance, and to confident trust in her who is the Immaculate Mother of God.
The Collect
O God, who by the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin didst prepare a worthy dwelling-place for Thy Son: we humbly beseech Thee that, keeping the feast of the Apparition of the same Virgin, we may obtain health of soul and body. Through the same our Lord Jesus Christ…
Deus, qui per immaculátam Vírginis Conceptiónem dignum Fílio tuo habitáculum præparásti: súpplices a te quǽsumus; ut, eiúsdem Vírginis Apparitiónem celebrántes, salútem mentis et córporis consequámur.
Patronage
Lourdes is honoured throughout the Church as a place of pilgrimage and of Our Lady’s care for the sick; the day is widely kept as a day of prayer for those who suffer in body and soul.
In the Modern Calendar
In the modern calendar, this feast is observed on 11 February as the optional memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes, and is also kept as the World Day of the Sick.
Common Questions
When is the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes?
The feast is kept on 11 February, the anniversary of the first apparition in 1858. In the traditional calendar it is a feast of the Third Class; in the modern calendar it is an optional memorial.
What happened at Lourdes?
In 1858 the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared eighteen times to Saint Bernadette Soubirous at the grotto of Massabielle near Lourdes, calling the faithful to penance and prayer and declaring, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”
What does “the Immaculate Conception” mean?
It is the truth, solemnly defined by Pope Pius IX in 1854, that the Blessed Virgin Mary was preserved free from original sin from the first moment of her conception. At Lourdes Our Lady confirmed this title with her own words.
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