Post #6448

The first day of the apparition, that was the 11th of February of the year 1858, the Blessed Virgin Mary taught to the young girl to properly do with piety the sign of the cross and, by sliding the crown that previously hung from her arm into her hand, she excited her, with her example, to the recitation of the Holy Rosary: something that she also repeated in the other apparitions. But the second day of the apparition (14th of February 1858), the young girl, fearing, in the simplicity of her heart, a diabolical snare, she threw blessed water on the Virgin; but the Blessed Virgin, smiling gently, showed her an even more benevolent face. In the third apparition (18th of February 1858), she invited the young girl to the cave for 15 days. Since then she talked to her more often, and exorted her to pray with the sinners, to kiss the ground and to do penance; then she ordained her to tell the priests to edify there a chapel, and that people come there in the same way with solemn processions. Furthermore, she ordered her to drink the water from the spring, which was still hidden under the sand but would soon flow out, and to wash herself with it. Finally on the feast of the Annunciation, during the sixteenth apparition (25th of March 1858), asking the girl for her name, who had deigned to appear to her so many times, the Virgin, putting her hands on her chest and raised her eyes to Heaven, she replied in Gascon dialect: "Que soy era Immaculada Councepciou", in English: "I am the Immaculate Conception”. As the fame of the benefits grew, which was claimed the faithful received in the sacred cave, the number of men attracted to the cave by the veneration of the place increased more and more every day. Hence the bishop of Tarbes, Msgr. Bertrand-Sévère Mascarou-Laurence, moved by the fame of the prodigies and the candor of the girl, four years after the things narrated, on January 18, 1862, after the juridical inquisition of the facts, recognized with his sentence, that the characters of the apparition were supernatural, and allowed the cult of the Immaculate Blessed Virgin in the same cave. On the 4th of August 1864, the bishop of Tarbes himself took part in the first solemn procession to the Massabielle cave, where he blessed a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary (by the sculptor Joseph-Hugues Fabisch) which was placed in the niche of the apparitions. Immediately a primitive chapel (current Crypt) was built there, which was inaugurated on May 19, 1866; in the same year, works were started for the construction of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception (now the Upper Basilica). This basilica, in thirteenth-century Gothic style, built on the rocky precipice overlooking the cave of the apparitions, was blessed on August 15, 1871 and consecrated on July 2, 1876. Since that day, the crowds of faithful who flock there every year are almost countless from France, Belgium, Italy, Spain and other regions of Europe and even the distant Americas, and the name of the Immaculate Conception of Lourdes became famous throughout the whole universe. The water from the fountain, brought to all parts of the world, gives health to the sick. And the Catholic world, truly grateful for so many benefits, has erected marvelous sacred monuments around it. It is known to all how these pilgrimages have revived the faith in this century that was full of coldness, have encouraged the professing of Christian law, and have admirably increased the cult of the Immaculate Virgin. In this marvelous manifestation of faith the Christian people have as their leader the priests, who lead their people there. The bishops themselves often go to this sanctuary, preside over pilgrimages, and attend the most solemn feasts. Nor is it too rare to see the same princes of the Roman Church dressed in purple flock there as humble pilgrims. In turn, the Roman Pontiffs, in their devotion to the Immaculate Conception of Lourdes, enriched the sacred temple with the most distinguished favors.