Praying with supplication for the sicks and weaknesses. Few people kiss the ground, this area is a holy place where Mary visited Bernadette in 1858 , pictures by hendra boeniardiPRAYER TO OUR LADY OF LOURDES
Mary, you showed yourself to Bernadette
in the crevice of the rock.
In the cold and grey of winter,
you brought the warmth, light and beauty
of your presence,
In the often obscure depths of our lives,
in the depth of the world where evil is so powerful,
bring hope,
return our confidence!
You are the Immaculate Conception,
come to our aid, sinners that we are.
Give us the humility to have a change of heart,
the courage to do penance.
Teach us to pray for all people.
Guide us to the source of true life.
Make us pilgrims going forward with your Church,
whet our appetite for the Eucharist,
the bread for the journey, the bread of life.
The Spirit brought about wonders in you, O Mary :
by his power, he has placed you near the Father,
in the glory of your eternal Son.
Look with kindness
on our miserable bodies and hearts.
Shine forth for us, like a gentle light,
at the hour of our death.
Together with Bernadette, we pray to you, O Mary,
as your poor children.
May we enter, like her, into the spirit of the Beatitudes.
Then, we will be able, here below,
begin to know the joy of the Kingdom of Heaven
and sing together with you :
Magnificent !
Glory to you, Virgin Mary,
blessed servant of the Lord,
Mother of God,
dwelling place of the Holy Spirit!
Amen.
There is a contrast between this damp and obscure Grotto and the presence of the Virgin Mary, "the Immaculate Conception". It reminds us of the Gospel: the meeting of the wealth of the goodness of God and the poverty of the human person. "Jesus goes to sit at the table of sinners", "because he came to search out that which was lost". The "Message of Lourdes" is the words and actions that were exchanged between the Virgin Mary and Bernadette at the Grotto of Massabielle during the 18 Apparitions from 11th. February 1858 to 16th. July 1858.
BASILIQUE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
To understand the events which took place and the "Message of Lourdes" it is necessary to know the context of the Apparitions that Bernadette experienced Lourdes in the 19th. Century was one of the main places in the district with more than 4,000 inhabitants including nobles, notaries, advocates, doctors, officers as well as manual workers, tradesmen, slate workers, small artisans such as millers. Mills were plentiful; many were dotted around outside the town, along one of the streams that flowed into the Gave - the Lapacca. Bernadette Soubirous was born in one of these, the Boly Mill, on 7th. January 1844. The bankrupt family were living in the Cachot. On 11th. February 1858 Bernadette, her sister Toinette and a friend of theirs, Jeanne, went looking for wood on the meadows and led towards "the place where the canal rejoins the River Gave". They were in front of the Grotto of Massabielle. Toinette and Jeanne crossed the icy water, crying out with the cold; Bernadette hesitated to do this because of her chronic asthma. She heard "a noise like a gust of wind", but "none of the trees were moving". "Raising her head, she saw, in a hollow of the rock a small young lady, who looked at her and who smiled at her. This was the first Apparition of the Virgin Mary.
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