Our Lady of Lourdes

By
Sean Jewitt
 Mary has appeared to many people in many
different places she is given a title for each
place she has appeared. Our lady of Lourdes
appeared in Lourdes to a 14 year old girl called
Bernadette on 11th feb 1858.
Lourdes is in France in the Pyrenees
Bernadette with her sisters and her friends
went
to collect fire wood from a cave near the
river.
Suddenly Bernadette saw a lovely lady appear up
in the cave. Then the lady made the sign of the
cross so Bernadette did too and prayed the rosary
but she did not know who the lady was. Her
sisters and friends did not see anything.
 A few days later Bernadette went back to the
grotto. As she began to pray the rosary the lady
appeared again and smiled at her.
Each day Bernadette went to the grotto. On
the third day the lady asked her to come
back each day for the next two weeks.
 The fourth time Bernadette visited the
grotto she took a holy candle with her and
she always did this from then on. This began
the custom of bringing candles to the grotto.
Each day many people followed Bernadette to
the cave but no one else saw the lovely lady,
they teased Bernadette made fun of her and
said she was lying.
 One day as hundreds of people gathered to
watch they saw Bernadette kneel down and dig
into mud with her hands, she put the mud to her
face and mouth. The crowd thought she had
gone crazy but Our Lady had told her to do it.
Suddenly clear water began to come out of the
hole she had dug.
The police asked Bernadette lots of questions,
they were angry because they thought
Bernadette was telling lies and was enjoying
everybody looking at her.
One day the lady asked Bernadette to go to the
priest because she wanted a chapel to be built.
The priest told Bernadette to ask the lady what
her name was.
 The news spread quickly that there had been
two miracles at the spring of water where
Bernadette had dug, a blind man could see
again after bathing his eyes with the water and
a little crippled boy was now able to run
around with his friends.
 At last on 25th March the lady told Bernadette
her name, she said “I am the Immaculate
Conception” Bernadette did not understand that
but the priest did, he then believed that
Bernadette was telling the truth. It was Our
Lady .
Bernadette still had to answer many questions
from the bishop, the police the doctor and even
her own family. She was always calm because
she knew she was telling the truth and that Our
Lady would look after her. In 1864 work began
to build a chapel; one of the work men was
Bernadette’s dad Francis.
In 1864 a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes was put
into the grotto and blessed in front of more than
20 thousand people.
Today millions of people from all over the world
go to Lourdes, many more Churches and
basilicas have been built.
Lourdes is a very special place to me, I have
been a few times and I have made lots of
friends who also love to go there, I stayed in
hosanna house with group HCPT 527.
 I love walking in the torchlight procession
where we walk at night with a lighted candle,
we pray and sing Immaculate Mary , it is
beautiful.
We say lots of prayers, we pray the stations of
the cross, we visit lots of Churches.
We have lots of fun and games there too, i can’t
wait to go back to Lourdes, thank you Our Lady.
 When I went to Hosanna house in 2019,
our group made this song. It was great
fun. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.
It is also on YouTube.