Lourdes

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This article is about the French pilgrimage location. For the Brazilian town, see Lourdes, Brazil.

Lourdes is a town situated in the Southwest of the Hautes-Pyrénées department, lying in the first Pyrenean foothills. It is overlooked from the south by the Pyrenean peaks of Aneto, Montaigu, Vignemale (3,298m), while around the town there are three summits reaching up to 1,000 m, which are known as the Béout, the Petit Jer with its three crosses and the Grand Jer with its single cross which guard over the town lying below.

Lourdes was originally a small unremarkable market town lying in the foothills of the Pyrenees. At that time the most prominent feature was the fortified castle which rises up from the centre of the town on a rocky escarpment. Following the apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes to Bernadette Soubirous in 1858, Lourdes has developed into a major place of Christian pilgrimage.

Today Lourdes has a population of some 17,000 inhabitants but is able to take in some 5,000,000 pilgrims and tourists every season. Lourdes has the second greatest number of hotels in France after Paris with some 270 establishments.

It is the joint seat of the diocese of Tarbes-et-Lourdes.

1 History
2 Geography
3 Sanctuary of Lourdes
4 Hospitalité Notre-Dame de Lourdes
5 2008 Celebrations
6 More information
7 References
8 External links

[edit] History

Statue of Our Lady of Lourdes

During the 8th century, Lourdes and its fortress became the focus of skirmishes between Mirat, the local Moor leader and Charlemagne, King of the Franks. Charlemagne had been laying siege to Mirat in the fortress for some time, but the Moor had so far refused to surrender. According to legend, an eagle unexpectedly appeared and dropped an enormous trout at the feet of Mirat. It was seen as such a bad omen, Mirat was persuaded to surrender to the Queen of the sky by the local bishop. He visited the Black Virgin of Puy to offer gifts, so he could make sure this was the best course of action and astounded by its exceptional beauty he decided to surrender the fort, and convert to Christianity. On the day of his baptism, Mirat took on the name of Lorus, which was given to the town, now known as Lourdes.

After being the residency of Bigorre counts, Lourdes was given to England by the Brétigny Treaty which bought a temporary peace to France during the course of the Hundred Years War with the result that the French lost the town to the English, from 1360.

In 1405, Charles V laid siege to the castle during the course of the Hundred Years War and eventually captured the town from the English following the 18 month siege.

Later on, during the late 16th century France was ravaged with the Wars of Religion between the Roman Catholics and the Huguenots. In 1569, Count Gabriel de Montgomery attacked the nearby town of Tarbes when Queen Jeanne d’Albret of Navarre established Protestantism there. The town was overrun, in 1592, by forces of the Catholic League and the catholic faith re-established in the area.

In 1607 Lourdes finally became part of the Kingdom of France.

The castle became an Estate jail under Louis XV but in 1789, the General Estates Assembly ordered the liberation of prisoners. Following the rise of Napoleon in 1803, he again made the Castle an Estate jail.

Towards the end of the Peninsular War between France, Spain and Britain in 1814, English forces, under the Duke of Wellington, entered France and took control of the region and followed Marshall Soult’s French army and defeated the French near the adjoining town of Tarbes before the final battle took place outside Toulouse on 10 April 1814 which brought the war to an end.

Up until 1858, Lourdes was a quiet modest sleepy county-town with a population of only some 4,000 inhabitants. The castle was occupied by an infantry garrison. The town was a place people passed through on their way to the waters at Barèges, Cauterets, Luz-Saint-Sauveur and Bagnères-de-Bigorre, and for the first mountaineers on their way to Gavarnie, when the events which were to change its history took place.

It wasn't until February 1858 that the town reached the history books again. On 11 February 1858, a 14-year-old local girl, Bernadette Soubirous claimed a beautiful lady appeared to her in the remote Grotto of Massabielle. The lady later identified herself as "the Immaculate Conception" and the faithful believe her to be the Blessed Virgin Mary. Our Lady appeared 18 times, and by 1859 thousands of pilgrims were visiting Lourdes. A statue of Our Lady of Lourdes was erected at the site in 1864. See Our Lady of Lourdes for more details on the apparations.

Since the appararations, Lourdes has become one of the world's leading Catholic Marian shrines and the number of visitors grow each year. It has such an important place within the Roman Catholic church, that Pope John Paul II visited the shrine twice on 15th August 1983 and 14th - 15th August 2004.

[edit] Geography

Lourdes is overlooked from the south by the Pyrennean peaks of Aneto, Montaigu, Vignemale (3,298m), while around the town there are three summits reaching up to 1,000m which are known as the Béout, the Petit Jer with its three crosses and the Grand Jer with its single cross which guard over the town lying below. The Pic du Jer is made accessible by the Funiculaire du Pic du Jer.

Lourdes lies at an altitude of 1,375 ft (420 m) and in a central position through which runs the Gave de Pau River from the south coming from Gavarnie, into which flow several smaller rivers from Barèges and Cauterets. The Gave then branches off to the west towards the Béarn, running past the banks of the grotto and on downstream to Pau and then Biarritz.

[edit] Sanctuary of Lourdes

Yearly from March to October the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes or the Domain (as it is most commonly known) is the place of mass pilgrimages from Europe and other parts of the world. The spring water from the grotto is believed by some to possess healing properties. An estimated 200 million people have visited the shrine since 1860 [1], and the Roman Catholic Church has officially recognized 68 miracle healings. Especially impressive are candlelight and sacrament processions. Tours from all over the world are organised to visit the Sanctuary. Connected with this pilgrimage is often the consumption of or bathing in the Lourdes Water which wells out of the Grotto – the cave in which the apparitions took place in 1858.

Basillica at night, during the Torchlight Procession

It has been claimed that the grotto was previously known as a shrine to the Greek goddess Persephone.^{[citation needed]}. At the time of the apparations, however, it was being used as a garbage dump.

Critic of faith healing, such as James Randi's book The Faith Healers, criticized Father Ralph DiOrio, who is a Vatican-approved healer.^[1] DiOrio, influenced by Kathryn Kuhlman, claims he can cure such things as arthritis, but has never supplied any subjects to give to proof to this.^[2]

[edit] Hospitalité Notre-Dame de Lourdes

Main article: Hospitalité Notre Dame de Lourdes

During one of the Virgin Mary’s apparitions to St Bernadette in 1858, she asked that people come in procession to the Grotto. Ever since then there has been a ‘ministry of welcome’ in Lourdes, receiving and caring for all the pilgrims who come to the apparition site, especially the sick and infirm.

The HNDL is active in Lourdes during the main pilgrimage season (which normally lasts from Easter until November), and it also provides people to welcome pilgrims at the Piscines (Baths) during the winter.

[edit] 2008 Celebrations

In 2008, Lourdes is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the first apparition with a number of events, especially during the pilgrimage season. The Lourdes authorities have set up a website dedicated to 2008: Lourdes 2008

As well as announcing the plans for Lourdes 2008, the Bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes made an unexpected statement concerning the question of miracles in Lourdes.

See Lourdes Medical Bureau.