How the apparitions of our Lady at Lourdes changed the world

Not all Marian apparitions are created equal. The worldwide impact of the Blessed Mother’s appearances on Tepeyac Hill and at Cova da Iria far overshadow almost all other approved Marian apparitions.

Granted, no one in their right mind would tell an Irishman that Our Lady of Guadalupe is a greater miracle than Our Lady of Knock. But the Guadalupe event led to millions of conversions in a remarkably short time. The messages of Our Lady of Fatima led Catholics all over the world to pray for the conversion of Russia for over seven decades. Only one other Marian apparition can compete with those two famous events: our Lady’s appearances to Saint Bernadette Soubirous in Lourdes, France.

Obviously, as a private revelation, Catholics are not obligated to accept the apparitions of Lourdes or any other apparitions with the same level of belief as matters of public revelation, such as the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. But the New Testament itself says that our Lord appeared to hundreds of people after His Resurrection,¹ as well as the Apostles, reminding us that it’s possible for residents of heaven to appear to residents of earth through supernatural means.

Many Catholic saints have claimed to have seen our Lord and His Blessed Mother over the centuries as well, and these visions cannot be dismissed as hallucinations, scams, or wishful thinking. Often, these mystical phenomena helped the recipients of the visions to grow in holiness. For example, visions of our Lord and Lady guided the Carmelite nun and founder Saint Teresa of Avila as she grew in spiritual depth.

Similarly, Bernadette Soubirous was profoundly affected by the eighteen Marian apparitions that she experienced in 1858 at Massabielle, near Lourdes. Put more bluntly, the visions changed the course of her life.

While most people at the time thought of Bernadette as a poor, unintelligent child, she was clearly one of God’s favorites. After all, the asthmatic fourteen-year-old girl might not have survived the unhealthy conditions of her family’s home—which was an abandoned prison cell—without divine intervention and the subsequent human interventions which lifted her family out of poverty. Even after becoming as famous as a modern Tiktok influencer, Bernadette seemed cooly impervious to the endless flattery of pious Catholics and the ridicule of unbelievers. The incessant questions of curiosity-seekers never led her to become either proud or annoyed. Instead, this paragon of Christlike humility patiently answered the same questions about what she had seen in the grotto again and again and again.

Some biographies of Bernadette’s life imply that she was nearly forced by Church leaders to enter a convent. A more realistic interpretation might be that she never dreamed that an uneducated poor girl such as herself would be allowed the privilege of giving her life to Christ. After she became Sister Marie-Bernard in the Sisters of Charity of Nevers—which she was only permitted to do because her superiors thought she was near death—she accepted the anonymity of being a sister in a religious community as a gift, not a punishment. She quietly sewed altar cloths, cared for the sick in the infirmary, and cleaned the church sacristy. And prayed deeply, of course.

Although she died at the young age of thirty-five, she demonstrated heroic patience while slowly dying of tuberculosis. It was as if Bernadette was always meant to live the life of a religious sister, but it took a miracle to make that possible.

However, the apparitions of Lourdes did much more than assist Bernadette in her personal sanctification.

The beautiful “Lady” whom Bernadette saw in a hollow area of rock didn’t simply appear. She spoke. The Lady prayed the rosary with Bernadette and repeatedly reminded her to do acts of penance for sinners. She also warned Bernadette, “I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next.”²

As Bernadette related the details of her visions to the waiting crowds—who saw and heard nothing—faithful Catholics did not need help interpreting these messages from heaven. Catholics know that we should pray and offer penances for sinners, rather than allowing ourselves to be scandalized by them. We also know that praying the rosary helps us meditate on the life of Jesus Christ and that life in this fallen world will always be full of trials. However, we apparently needed the maternal reminders of Our Lady of Lourdes to pick up our rosaries more often and complain about our difficulties less often.

Of course, the most dramatic message of Our Lady of Lourdes was her identity. Bernadette asked the Lady her name repeatedly, but it wasn’t until fourteen days after the first event, on March 25, 1858, that the Lady proclaimed, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”

Due to her poor health, Bernadette did not attend school very often and was considered a slow learner. She had no idea that Pope Blessed Pius IX had declared the Immaculate Conception of Mary to be a Catholic dogma four years earlier, so she did not understand the significance of the Lady’s statement. However, she dutifully related the Lady’s words to her parish priest.

One could say that the Blessed Mother appeared at Lourdes to confirm the validity of the infallible teaching that had recently been declared by a pope. Or one could say that the Blessed Mother appeared to an ordinary teenager to convey the teaching in a way that was more comprehensible to lay Catholics than a detailed, footnoted theological statement.

During the apparition on February 23, the Lady told Bernadette to “Go, drink in the spring and wash in it.”³ Although Bernadette was initially confused because she didn’t see water flowing in the cave, she followed the Lady’s direction, began digging in the area the Lady pointed out, and tried to drink muddy water with her hands.

Those who were watching Bernadette play in the mud that day had good reason to believe the teenager had become mentally unwell. Yet the water that sprang up from that muddy patch quickly became a torrent of water. The first miraculous healing at Lourdes occurred several days later on March 1 when a pregnant woman prayed at the site and bathed her paralyzed right hand in the water. Instantly cured, the woman gave thanks to God, returned home cured, and gave birth to her third child that night. (The baby grew up and became a priest.)

Since that first miracle, 7,000 cases of healing have been reported at Lourdes. Due to the large number of reported healings, an official medical bureau was established at Lourdes in 1883. Even today, each reported case of healing is carefully evaluated by specialists. Since 1858, seventy individuals have been recognized as having received inexplicable, miraculous cures at Lourdes.

It is an interesting coincidence that just as medical science developed rigorous methods of assessing many conditions, inexplicable supernatural healings began to occur at one location for decades. At Lourdes, modern science has been forced to acknowledge the existence of miraculous healings. One almost feels sorry for the atheists.

The most recent miraculous healing at Lourdes involves a French oblate sister who experienced serious medical problems and repeated surgeries over a twenty-year period. In 2008, the sixty-eight-year-old sister decided to undertake a pilgrimage to Lourdes. At that time, her conditions required her to wear a spinal neurostimulator, a cervical-lumbar corset, and a splint on her left foot. She was also required to take multiple medications, including morphine for her pain.

She returned to her community after the pilgrimage, full of peace but unhealed. Five months later, at the same time of day that the daily torchlight procession was occurring in Lourdes, the sister was praying in her community chapel. She unexpectedly experienced a warm sensation and felt called to remove her assistive medical devices. Believing herself to be healed, she also stopped taking her medications. The medical board at Lourdes eventually agreed that, based on their seven detailed criteria for miracles, the religious sister had been miraculously healed.

But there is yet another gift hidden in the Lourdes apparitions.

Before the final apparition had occurred in 1858, a Capuchin priest named Fr. Marie-Antoine de Lavaur traveled to Lourdes as a pilgrim. Inspired by his experience, he began leading pilgrimages himself. In 1863, he began torchlight processions to the grotto in the evening. For over a century, from April through October, thousands of pilgrims have continued this tradition each day, carrying candles as they pray, sing, and process through the grounds at night.

From the earliest days of Christianity, Christians have undertaken pilgrimages to holy places. Today, the story of Lourdes has inspired millions of modern Catholics to travel as pilgrims, generally for the sake of physical healing for themselves or their loved ones. But those pilgrims have also been inspired and healed by the sight of thousands of other pilgrims, all holding their tiny candles, making their way through the dark toward the spiritual healing offered by the Light of the world.

The visionaries of Guadalupe, Fatima, and Lourdes—Saints Juan Diego, Jacinta and Francisco Marto,⁴ and Bernadette—were not wealthy, educated, respected members of their communities. They were children and peasants, poor people whose greatest treasure was their purity of heart. Their simple trust in God made them willing to obey Mary’s call to pray, make sacrifices for the salvation of sinners, and face ridicule out of love for Him.

The healings of Lourdes, France, may be inexplicable to unbelievers. But to Catholics, the visions of Our Lady of Lourdes simply remind us that our Savior lives and that He still heals the sick and makes His children into saints.

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