11/02/2024
𝗙𝗲𝗯𝗿𝘂𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝟭𝟭 | 𝗔𝗣𝗣𝗔𝗥𝗜𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 𝗢𝗙 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗜𝗠𝗠𝗔𝗖𝗨𝗟𝗔𝗧𝗘 𝗩𝗜𝗥𝗚𝗜𝗡 𝗠𝗔𝗥𝗬 𝗔𝗧 𝗟𝗢𝗨𝗥𝗗𝗘𝗦
About four years after the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, a girl named Bernadette asserted that she had seen the Immaculate Mother of God several times. The place of the apparition was a grotto of the cliff by the bank of the Gave river, near the town of Lourdes, France, in the diocese of Tarbes. The many great miracles which followed were evidence enough for any prudent and faithful Christian that the finger of God was there. The location of a hitherto unknown spring at the grotto had been revealed in one of the apparitions; and the miracles for which Lourdes became best known were those very frequent occasions when the sick regained their health after drinking the water of the spring. And so, as news of the benefits said to be received by the faithful at the holy grotto was spreading abroad and the number coming there was increasing day by day, the Bishop of Tarbes carried out an official investigation and then gave permission for the cult of the Immaculate Virgin at the grotto. Soon a church was built. Vast crowds of the faithful have come to Lourdes each year, and the name of the Immaculate Mother of God continues to increase in glory all over the world. Adding to this glory are the events during the procession of the most Blessed Sacrament: year after year, among the sick brought to Lourdes from all parts of the world to ask health from the Lord through the intercession of his Immaculate Mother, many are immediately cured. Rightly influenced by these events, Pope St. Pius X extended to the Universal Church the feast already granted to certain places by Leo XIII.
𝗖𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁
Deus, qui per immaculatam Virginis Conceptionem dignum Filio tuo habitaculum praeparasti: supplices a te quaesumus; ut, eiusdem Virginis Apparitionem celebrantes, salutem mentis et corporis consequamur.
O God, who by the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin didst prepare a worthy dwelling place for thy Son, we humbly beseech thee; that we, who celebrate the appearance of the same Virgin, may obtain health of soul and body.
