why is lourdes a place of pilgramidge?

Answer 1

what should i do ?

Answer 2

Because the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared there to a girl named Bernadette and since then a spring has been flowing and many people have been healed there. It is a place of healing and prayer and conversion. The Blessed Virgin Mary said "Let processions come here" and they do from all around the world. Look up the story of St. Bernadette. It is really remarkable and she is one of the Saints who's body has not corrupted. She is still as fresh as the day she died.

The Virgin Mary also appeared in Fatima Portugal to three small children and the miracles there were witnessed by 70,000 people. In the middle of a rain storm the sun came barreling out of the sky and crashing toward Earth. Several people screamed believing the end of the Earth was present. Not only did the sun stop right before coming to do harm to the Earth, when everyone looked they noticed that their clothing and the ground was completely dry when just momentarily before this everything was soaking wet from the rain.

Answer 3

Lourdes is a place in France where the Virgin Mary appeared to Saint Bernadette in a cave close to the village. She was seen a number of times and since then Lourdes has been a very popular place of pilgrimage! Many people who have visited Lourdes have been cured of their illnesses and handicaps (the cave is filled with crutches left behind by people who no longer needed them). Before leaving many people take home some of the holy water which is tapped from a spring inside the cave.

Answer 4

Lourdes is a place of pilgramige because a 13 year old girl named Bernadette saw a vision of the Holy Mother Mary when she was out getting firewood for her family. She became so moved that when she got old enough she want into an abby and became a nun, later she went on to be ordained as a saint.All this can be found on the internet. I found this out through personal experience.Coming from a catholic family I visited Lourdes twice and brought back water from the healing spring though not sure how healthy itis since both my father and I got stomach bugs from drinking it!!!.All infromation on Bernadette and her 18 visions of the Virgin Mary can be found on the address below.

Answer 5

The Virgin Mary appeared there to a peasant girl named Bernadette Soubirou,Bernadette uncovered a spring whose waters are said to heal the sick.A lot of catholics do go there,but I saw people of various denominations there incuding muslim people,there are thousands of plaques in the Basilica of Lourdes,which are testimony and thanks from people who have been healed there,it is a very spiritual place.

Answer 6

Many people said that Jesus' mother Mary once showed up , so there was miracle going on there. There are a lot of places where the same thing happened.in (South)Korea, I think in Kwang Ju, Mexico where they call Jesus' mother Virgen Guadelupe, Ecuador, the list goes on and on.
To me everybody can say anything they want, but if it is against the Bible. I will not do it. The Bible says that our body is the temple of God, so we have to make sure to take a good care of it.

Answer 7

Because The Blessed Virgin Mary was there and Blessed the water, millions have been healed.

Answer 8

Catholics tend to flock to wherever an apparition of the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared. There is also a rumor that the waters there have healing powers.

Answer 9

Because that was where a lady thought she saw Mary. I will get more info in a second...

From wiki:
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, 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.

From The Guardian (UK newspaper):
Lourdes Finds Cure For Lack Of Miracles: A Less Strict Definition
By Angelique Chrisafis in Paris and Luc Torres – The Guardian (posted March 9, 2006)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,,1726713,00.html?gusrc=rss

Miracles, like much else in the Catholic church, aren't what they used to be. The French shrine of Lourdes has often been likened to a religious theme park, offering package tours and souvenirs for the millions of pilgrims who arrive each year, many of them sick and desperate to experience or at least witness a miracle.

As modern medicine raises the barrier on what can be deemed a sudden miraculous recovery, the Catholic church is having to modernize. Now Catholicism's leading shrine, which hosts some 6 million pilgrims each year, is considering a new category of religious experience: "miracle lite".

Every year, dozens of seriously ill people leave the grotto in south-western France where the Virgin Mary reportedly appeared to a local girl in 1858, convinced they have been cured. But the church does not rate their cases as miracles because strict rules from the 1700s say that doctors must acknowledge their ailments could not have been remedied. Modern medicine, however, increasingly refuses to declare any disease incurable.

Bishop Jacques Perrier proposes a new category of "authentic healings", so those that recover can share the story of their physical and spiritual experiences with others. The rule for declaring miracles would not have to change, he said.

While the Catholic church teaches that God sometimes performs miracles, including cures, which doctors cannot explain, skeptics reject this as unscientific and explain that sudden recoveries as psychological phenomena or the delayed result of earlier treatment.

"Doctors today speak in statistical terms, saying, for example, that the chances of recovery are very slim. They have a very hard time saying a disease is completely incurable," he told Reuters. "Most healings may fail to meet this or that criterion for a miracle. We want to get recognition for a category of authentic healings linked to Lourdes." Bishop Perrier said he was working on a new category of Lourdes healings to put before the Vatican for approval. He insisted it was not an attempt to boost pilgrimages to the shrine. "There has been no decline in visits," he said. He explained that those allegedly cured during a Lourdes visit but not declared miracles do not gain church approval to share their story in public, for example at retreats or meetings with fellow Catholics.

Of the millions who visit the Pyrenean place of pilgrimage each year, some 7,000 have claimed to have been cured since the medical bureau began keeping records in 1883 - only 66 are deemed miracles. Bishop Perrier said the shrine's International Medical Committee examined possible miracle cases and rejected most of them. The last official miracle - a man "healed" of multiple sclerosis - was declared in 1999, after 12 years of inquiries. Sometimes the site's 20 doctors see a sick person has been healed inexplicably, but do not draw further conclusions, he said. "What we want is to authenticate these healings and say that the people who say they have been healed are not making it up or swindling people," he said.

Answer 10

because it has healing powers,for the faithful.and it does work but not all the time,and its so serene,wonderful place.

Answer 11

I didn't know that lourdes was a place of 'pilgrimmage'.