FRANCE: Lourdes
Lourdes, in the Haute-Pyrenees department of south-west France, has
attracted some 200 million Christian pilgrims since the first appearance of
an apparition of the Virgin Mary in 1858. Surrounded by rugged mountain
peaks, the quiet market town rose to prominence when a 14 year-old
shepherdess named Bernadette Soubirous reported seeing a vision of a
beautiful lady in the Grotto of Massabielle. Wearing white robes and
carrying a rosary on her wrist, the lady identified herself as Our Lady of
the Immaculate Conception. As word spread of Bernadette`s experience,
thousands of Christians began making the journey to Lourdes. Our Lady is
said to have appeared on a further eighteen different occasions and in 1862,
declaring the faithful were justified in believing the reality of the
apparition, the bishop of the diocese ordered a basilica to be built on the
rock. One of the world`s leading Marian shrines, Lourdes attracts mass
pilgrimages of believers and the infirm. Arriving on crutches and in
wheel-chairs, pushed by nurses, they assemble for a candlelit blessing at
the sanctuary and to partake of holy Lourdes water flowing from the grotto,
and bottled by dozens of shops. The Catholic Church has officially
recognised sixty-eight miracle healings at Lourdes. In 2008, the 150th
anniversary of the first apparition, more than 10 million Christian pilgrims
visited the town.