Located in the Pyrenees Mountain region of France, Lourdes is the home of one of the most important shrines in the Catholic Faith: the Grotto of Massabielle. Approximately eight million pilgrims, of whom a great number are sick or handicapped, come to Lourdes each year. The care of the sick and the handicapped is experienced like no other place on earth. Lourdes is the place where each life, each individual matters and is recognized. Many come with a desire for a physical cure and others to be of service to those who suffer, all leave with their own individual encounter from the Holy Spring, the place where heaven touches earth.
This region of France was a strategic stronghold during medieval times. Situated at the foot of the Pyrenees, the medieval castle of Lourdes provided protection against foreign forces. During the Hundred Years War, the French captured this region from the English in 1406 after an 18-month siege the medieval castle was used as a state prison from the reign of Louis XIV (1643-1715) until the beginning of the 19th century. It was in 1858 when Lourdes’ importance as a military and state stronghold ended and its spiritual importance began.
Between February 11th and July 16th 1858, Bernadette Soubirous, a 14-year-old peasant girl, experienced 18 apparitions of the Virgin Mary in the nearby Massabielle grotto. During the 9th vision, an underground spring was revealed. The Holy See currently recognizes 70 official miracles attributable to Lourdes.
During the 18 Apparitions the Virgin Mary spoke to Bernadette suggesting that we come there in procession. The response of millions of people to that invitation is made in Lourdes each year, a world center of pilgrimage and a special place of meeting between God and people.
The entire world converges in Lourdes no matter race, country, color – all are the same, the universality of the human person. People are people and a smile and service is the language.