We walk along the expansive esplanade towards the three-steepled Basilica of the Rosary that rises majestically in the distance like a Byzantine wedding cake, its curved ramps metaphorically embracing all who enter. He and his wife, Louise, had nine children, the eldest, Marie-Bernarde, was known as Bernadette. She was fortunate to survive cholera as a young child, but was left infirm and severely asthmatic. On February 11, Bernadette, then aged 14, was out gathering firewood with one of her sisters and a friend, half a mile below the village on land bordered by a loop in the Gave de Pau, near a rugged outcropping known as Massabielle.
On the northern side of Massabielle, near the riverbank, an irregularly shaped grotto lay in shadow. The girls crossed the stream in front of the grotto in search of kindling. Suddenly, Bernadette heard the sound of rushing wind, though nothing else stirred.
Following the sound, her eyes were drawn to a dark alcove above the opening of the grotto, where she saw the shape of a lady in a white veil surrounded by dazzling light.
The other girls saw nothing. Word of her vision spread quickly and swarms of the sick and dying descended upon Lourdes in pursuit of a glimmer of hope. They followed Bernadette to the grotto, but still no one except Bernadette ever saw anything. During the ensuing weeks the apparition imparted many revelations to Bernadette, including the source of a therapeutic spring in the cavernous hollow, and soon rumours escalated that after drinking the water tumours shrank, cancers went into remission and the paralysed walked.
Within the course of six months, the apparition appeared to Bernadette a total of 18 times. Upon her last visitation, the lady disclosed herself to be the Virgin Mary. This final revelation would soon make Lourdes one of the most famous pilgrimage destinations in Christendom, behind only Rome; and Bernadette a saint. Nearly eight years of rigorous investigation followed, offering no explanation for some of the miraculous cures that had occurred.
But Bernadette never wavered from her story, despite being repeatedly interviewed by the local bishop and church experts dispatched from Rome. Quite possibly her innocence and sincerity made her testimony all the more believable, and her revelations were finally declared authentic by the Church in Inexplicably, she never returned to Lourdes in search of a cure for herself.
Bernadette achieved sainthood in and was enshrined at the Saint Bernadette Chapel on the grounds of Saint Gildard. Werfel, a German Jew, and his wife, Alma, former widow of famed composer Gustav Mahler, were sequestered in Lourdes for five days during their escape to America after France fell to the Nazis. Werfel vowed that if they reached America, he would write the story, which was subsequently made into the eponymous film starring Jennifer Jones.
As rumors of healing miracles at the pools of the grotto in Lourdes became more numerous in the 19th century, the pilgrimages every July to commemorate the appearance of Mary to Soubirous became much more important in Catholic religious practice. During a pilgrimage, people visit a place , often where a significant religious event occurred.
According to the Bible, locations where God appeared to humans could become special sites where regular pilgrimages could happen. The significance of this pilgrimage clearly played an important role in ancient Israelite religion. Archaeological excavations have revealed ancient routes attesting to journeys of pilgrims to Jerusalem.
Deuteronomy makes it clear that such visitations to the holy site will bring tangible benefits in agricultural produce. Despite the mandate in the Bible for pilgrimage, such journeys had limited value in the earliest centuries of Christianity. For many Christians during this time, physical places like Jerusalem were more valuable as spiritual concepts than actual destinations for pilgrims.
Karen Armstrong , author of many books on religion and history, observes that Origen, a third century A. Christian scholar, visited Jerusalem and its environs in order to understand where certain events in the Bible occurred. The importance of pilgrimage changed and occupied a more central place in Christianity beginning in the fourth century A. His mother Helena visited Jerusalem and Israel , following the footsteps of the life, trial and death of Jesus. It was a general belief in the ancient world that anywhere God or a divine emissary made themselves visible to humans could become a holy space.
Materials from such divine visitation could become holy relics around which stories of miracles and shrines, objects of pilgrimage destinations, could be constructed. People often feel that they benefit from having their lives redirected or feel that they learn something about themselves while in Iona.
This can allow Christians to face the challenges of life back at home in a different way. Pilgrimages are often criticised, as some Christians believe that the money spent could be better used helping those in need rather than paying for travel. Lourdes is often crowded with visitors, and many people say the site has become too commercialised , with shops selling souvenirs, including statues of the Virgin Mary.
Some Christians feel that the benefits of the pilgrimage, like those felt at Iona, can be felt at home when praying.
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