Our Lady of Lourdes

Today the Church celebrates the Blessed Mother under her title of Our Lady of Lourdes. As we observe this memorial, we remember a series of eighteen apparitions of Mother Mary to Bernadette Soubiroux, a fourteen-year-old girl in Lourdes, which is located in the department of Hautes-Pyrénées, in southwestern France.

These apparitions in 1858 began on 11 February, and the last one occurred on 16 July. Bernadette described what she saw (in the grotto of Massabielle, a rock where she and friends had gone to gather firewood) as a young and beautiful lady, to use her words - "Lovelier than I have ever seen.” She described this lady as dressed in white, with a blue ribbon sash and a Rosary hanging from her right arm.

For an overview of each of the apparitions, please visit:

Our Catholic Faith: Apparitions Of Our Lady Of Lourdes

For information on St. Bernadette and the message of Lourdes and its meaning, please visit:

Lourdes Center in Boston, Massachusetts, a Marist Ministry

Our Lady's shrine in Lourdes, France:

Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes (Sanctuaires Notre-Dame de Lourdes), Lourdes