What are some cool facts about Lourdes?

3- Lourdes has been an important Marian shrine and pilgrimage destination since 1858, when the Virgin Mary appeared to 14-year old peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous. 4- The town receives an impressive 5 million pilgrims and visitors each year, making Lourdes the most visited Christian shrine in the world.



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At Lourdes in 1858 in a grotto beside the Gave de Pau, a teenage girl, Bernadette Soubirous, saw visions of the Virgin Mary. She also found a spring said to have healing powers. Today Roman Catholics from all over the world visit the shrine at Lourdes.

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Since 1858, when a 14-year-old peasant named Bernadette Soubirous proclaimed she had had 18 encounters with the Virgin Mary, Lourdes has become one of the most visited sites by Catholics in the world. Lourdes has a special appeal for the fragile and the weak, including wounded military personnel.

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It is this very water that fills the Baths or Piscines in which pilgrims bathe on pilgrimage. This water is also available at taps throughout the Sanctuary for pilgrims to drink, wash, and bottle at will, above which it reads: “Wash your face and ask God to purify your heart.”

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Many miracles have been attributed to bathing in or drinking the water at Lourdes as well as to participating in the Eucharistic Procession and Adoration. Pilgrims may experience healing in body, mind or spirit and leave with a deeper sense of God's presence and love in their lives.

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Spiritually, in the Bible, the Rock symbolises trust in God, the stone on which the Church is built, the solid word on which we lean. Although the current health crisis does currently allow us to touch the Rock, you can make this gesture in your heart at the feet of the Virgin Mary.

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Lourdes is a place of the journey from sickness to health, spiritual as well as physical; a journey from darkness to light; a journey from the suffering of this earth to the peace of heaven.

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Every year, 6 million pilgrims descend upon the town of Lourdes. Explore how the town's history and developments in the Catholic Church made it so popular. Lourdes Eucharistic Procession.

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Our Lady of Lourdes teaches – and Bernadette understood clearly – three lessons for the sick: presence, healing, and sacrifice.

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