A visit to Lourdes

Lourdes, once a quiet, small market town lying on the foothills of the Pyrenees, has developed through the years into a major place of Christian pilgrimage.

With five million visitors and pilgrims annually, the holiest site at Lourdes is a lot of things to many people.

For devoted Christians and streams of believers, it is the renewal of one’s faith; for the invalid and the sick, it is a hope for recovery; for the young, a yearning for unfulfilled dreams; and for the elderly, it is a place of solace, tranquility and surrender.

The Grotto of Massabielle known as the Miraculous Cave where the Virgin first appeared to 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous, who was out with siblings gathering firewood, is a mass of rock about 27 meters high with three adjoining openings. To the right is an oval-shaped recess where Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception first appeared on February 11, 1858.

On the ninth apparition of the Virgin, she instructed Bernadette to drink from the spring. Today, this water feeds the taps found on the left of the grotto and flows at the rate of thousands of liters a day. Pilgrims, devotees and tourists alike, with their own reasons, hopes and aspirations, fill containers in all shapes and sizes with the “miraculous, healing water.”

On March 4, 1864, a statue of Our Lady in white Cararae marble by sculptor Fabish de Leon was placed there. On its pedestal is engraved in local dialect “Que Soy Era Immaculada Concepcion” (I am the Immaculate Conception). These were the words uttered by the Blessed Mother to Bernadette during her 18th and last apparition on July 16, 1858.The grotto as we know it today was finished in 1955. There is an altar at the center and in front is a huge candelabrum where candles burn unceasingly. The slabs of marble are mostly covered by ivy and blackened by the smoke from the candles that burn day and night.

Everyday, thousands of devotees including the sick and the aged, many in wheelchairs, gather for the two daily processions at the Grotto of the Apparitions. The Blessed Sacrament procession leaves from the grotto at 4:30 p.m. and slowly winds its way along the main esplanade for the Benediction. The candlelight rosary procession that begins at the grotto as 8:45 p.m. with the singing of the Salve Regina, the saying of the rosary in dozens of languages, sometimes even our very own Tagalog, and the singing of the Ave Maria is an experience simply not to be missed.

The 16 baths made of stone and constructed in 1955 are several yards to the right of the grotto. Hundreds of visitors and the sick bathe there every day, helped by qualified volunteers. The water is changed twice every 24 hours.

In response to the Virgin’s request, a chapel was built on the very spot of the apparition. The present Rosary Basilica consists of three chapels erected one on top of the other. The massive dome is on the level with the Crypt .This forms the pedestal of the Upper Basilica which towers over the Domain.

To the right of the grotto, just above the Domain in a truly dramatic rugged setting, is a twisting path that leads to the larger than life statues in cast iron that make up the 14 Stations of the Cross by renowned sculptor Raffi. One is drawn deeply into the last painful journey and suffering of Jesus Christ to Calvary.

 A visit to Lourdes, is an experience of a lifetime. Whatever one’s religion, whether one’s faith is strong or not, Lourdes leaves one feeling fulfilled, at peace and touched by the love of God and the Blessed Mother.