Who is Our Lady of Lourdes?
Bernadette lived in Lourdes, a little town in France. Her family was very poor: her mama, her papa and the four children lived in one small, dark room that had once been a jail. Bernadette was often sick and could not read well yet, but she knew how to pray the Rosary, and she loved God with all her heart.
On February 11, 1858, she went to gather firewood by the river, at a rocky place called Massabielle. In a little cave in the rock she saw a beautiful Lady, all in white, with a blue sash, a golden rose on each foot and a rosary on her arm. Bernadette took out her own rosary and prayed, and the Lady passed her beads along with her. The Lady asked her to keep coming for fifteen days. Crowds came to pray with Bernadette, but only she could see the Lady.
One day the Lady asked her to drink at the spring, but there was no spring! Bernadette scratched at the ground with her hands, and a little muddy water came up. Some people laughed at her muddy face, but soon the trickle ran clear and became a spring. When the priest wanted to know the Lady’s name, she answered, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” Bernadette didn’t know those big words, so she repeated them all the way to the priest’s house.
The bishop studied everything carefully, and in 1862 the Church said yes: Mary had truly come to Lourdes. Bernadette became a sister in 1866, died in 1879, and was declared a saint in 1933. Today people from all over the world, especially the sick, go to Lourdes to pray, and at night they walk with candles, singing to Mary.
When is Our Lady of Lourdes’s feast day?
Our Lady of Lourdes’s feast day is February 11. It remembers the first time Mary appeared to Bernadette, on February 11, 1858, and it is also the World Day of the Sick. Saint Bernadette has her own feast day, April 16.
Clara tells the whole story at bedtime, in the Little Prayer Stories app.Get the app →
