Lourdes

In 1858 Our Lady appeared eighteen times to Bernadette Soubirous, a fourteen-year-old girl, in the Grotto of Massabielle beside the river Gave. On 25 March she gave her name: “I am the Immaculate Conception”. She asked for prayer and penance, and for a chapel to be built and people to come in procession.

Millions now come each year to pray at the Grotto, drink and bathe in the spring water, and join the evening torchlight procession. The Church has recognised dozens of healings at Lourdes as miraculous.