Our Lady of Lourdes

Between February 11 and July 16, 1858, 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous reported 18 apparitions at the Grotto of Massabielle, Lourdes.

• Bernadette described the Lady in white veil and blue girdle, with a golden rose on each foot
• On the 16th apparition, when asked her name, the Lady replied in Occitan: "I am the Immaculate Conception"
• A spring appeared at the grotto; healings were reported
• The bishop declared the apparitions "worthy of belief" in 1862

• Bernadette said "I am the Immaculate Conception"—a phrase she could not have known. The dogma was proclaimed four years earlier (1854); she was an uneducated peasant who did not understand the words when she repeated them
• She dug in dry mud and a spring appeared; it still flows today, producing 140,000 gallons weekly
• The Lourdes Medical Bureau has recognized 70 healings as scientifically inexplicable after rigorous examination; thousands more have been documented
• She described the Lady in precise detail before any devotion or imagery existed at the site