Issue No. 19

Photo © Santuaries ND Lourdes P Vincent
Lourdes doesn’t have a local monopoly of
supernatural events. In Betharram near
Lourdes some shepherds saw a vision of a
ray of light which guided them to a statue of
the Virgin Mary. In the early sixteenth
century, a twelve-year-old shepherdess
named Angleze de Sagazan claimed a
vision near a spring at Garaison. Her story is
strikingly similar to that of Bernadette. Pious
but illiterate, she successfully convinced
authorities that her vision was genuine.
There are also several similarities between
the apparition at La Salette near Grenade,
predating Lourdes by eleven years.
Bernadette’s apparitions were not
recognized until 1862. The statue of Notre
Dame de Lourdes was installed in the
Massabeille (meaning old rock) grotto two
years later. Bernadette died in Nevers
convent in 1879 and was canonized in 1933.
Her body was exhumed three times and
found to be “incorrupt”.
but only 70 recognized by the Lourdes
Medical Bureau, a group of theologians and
doctors charged with investigating claims.
Meanwhile, as I stood watching, thousands
continued to process. Three boy scouts
carried a 1.5-metre-long candle. A voice
intoned ”Saloe, Regina; mater misericordia,
vita, dulcedo et spes nostra, saloe”. Another
beside me whispered “Ave Maria Gratia
plena Dominus tecum Virgo serena”.
Then, as the processions of pilgrims moved
another few yards: “O Mary our mother we
come to this place where you who are
sinless appeared full of grace.”
A teenage boy processing a handicapped girl
told me “You learn a lot from coming to
Lourdes. One hundred countries are
represented here every day. It’s a
transfiguring place. You can’t help be moved
and touched. Whatever your beliefs you feel
belief. “
There have been over 7000 claimed “cures”