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The appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mary to a young peasant girl in Lourdes, France, is one of the great stories of the Catholic faith.			 			 			 
 
On February 11, 1858, fourteen-year-old Bernadette Soubirous experienced the first of her 18 visions of the Blessed Mother, the figure of a woman in dazzling light and a clothed in white. She encountered the vision while searching for firewood at the Massabielle Grotto at Lourdes. She was instructed to return to the spot of the visions for two weeks. The lady in white instructed Bernadette that a chapel be constructed on the site. She was also instructed to dig a hole, from which water flowed continually thereafter. During the sixteenth vision, the lady in white stated, I am the Immaculate Conception.
 
 After initial skepticism, the visions were confirmed as legitimate in 1862. Many ill persons were cured by visits to the site, and the water of the ever-flowing stream was considered a means to a cure from illness, although Bernadette stated it was faith and prayer and not water than provided the cures.
 
Bernadette was to join the Sisters of Charity at Nevers (France) where she worked as a sacristan and also in the infirmary. She died at the age of 21 of tuberculosis on April 16, 1879, and was canonized in 1933 by Pope Pius XI.
 
To this day, Lourdes, a small village in the foothills of the Pyrenees, remains one of the most-visited Christian pilgrimage sites, accommodating upwards of 7 million pilgrims annually. 
 
REFERENCES:: 
<li>Thomas Crimando, Vatican Notes, Volume 32, Number 4, pp. 8-10, 1984, <a href='http://vaticanstamps.org/vaticannotes/idisplay2.php?p=192-08&r=0'>Lourdes</a> 
<li>Greg Pirozzi, Vatican Notes, Volume 53, Number 5, pp. 5-6, 2005, <a href='http://vaticanstamps.org/vaticannotes/idisplay2.php?p=319-05&r=0'>Postal History Perspective</a> 
<li>Thomas Lera and Daniel Piazza, Vatican Notes, Volume 57, Number 340, pp. 6-10, 2008, <a href='http://vaticanstamps.org/vaticannotes/idisplay.php?p=57-340-06-07&r=0'>The Grotto of Lourdes Sesquicentennial and The Major Sanctuaries of Lourdes</a>

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