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Centennial of the Apparition Of The Holy Virgin At Lourdes Scott 233-238 (1958)</center>
 
The Feast Day of Our Lady of Lourdes is celebrated on February 11. It commemorates the appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mary to a young peasant girl in France and is one of the great stories of the Catholic faith.
 
On February 11, 1858, fourteen-year-old Bernadette Soubirous experienced the first vision of the Blessed Mother, the figure described as “a woman in dazzling light” and “clothed in white”. She had 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, and to dig a hole, from which water flowed continually thereafter. During the sixteenth vision, the Blessed Mother identified herself by saying: “I am the Immaculate Conception”. Bernadette experienced a total of eighteen visions of the Virgin Mary at the rock of Massabielle in Lourdes from February 11 to July 16, 1858.
 
After initial skepticism, the visions were confirmed as legitimate in 1862. Many ill people were cured by visits to the site, and the water from the ever-flowing stream was considered a means to cure these illnesses, 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 in the infirmary. She died at the age of 35 of tuberculosis on April 16, 1879, and was canonized in 1933 by Pope Pius XI.
 
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The Basilica of the Immaculate Conception 
and Massabielle Grotto, Lourdes, France 
Photo by Jan Hager 
From Wikimedia Commons, used under the terms of the Creative 
Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license</center>
 
The spring at the Massabielle Grotto in Lourdes, France, has a consistent and substantial flow of approximately 122,000 liters (about 27,000 gallons) of water per day. The water is collected in a 450,000-liter reservoir located beneath the basilicas. From there, it is distributed through a system of pipes to the Sanctuary's taps and the bathing pools. Over the history of the grotto (and the millions of pilgrims who have visited it), the spring has flowed continuously since it was first uncovered in 1858. As word spread about the apparitions of the Blessed Mother, her calls for prayer and penance, and the healing powers of the spring water, visits to Lourdes flourished in subsequent years, and the pilgrimage movement to the site became the largest in Europe. To this day, Lourdes, the small village in the foothills of the Pyrenees, remains one of the most-visited Christian pilgrimage sites, accommodating upwards of 7 million pilgrims every year.
 
The story of Saint Bernadette was made into a movie in 1943, entitled "The Song of Bernadette", based on the novel written by Franz Werfel. Both the book and movie were very popular, with the movie being nominated for eleven Academy Awards and winning three, including the Best Actress Award won by Jennifer Jones for her portrayal of Bernadette.
 
Finally, February 11 is an important day for the Vatican City State. It is the anniversary of the State's formal establishment with the signing of the Lateran Pacts on February 11, 1929. Pope Pius XI specifically chose the date for the signing of the Pacts in memory of Our Lady of Lourdes.
 
REFERENCES: 
<li>Wikipedia, <a href='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Song_of_Bernadette_(film)'>The Song of Bernadette (film)</a> 
<li>Anonymous, Vatican Notes, Volume 9, Number 5, pp. 9-12, 1961, <a href='http://vaticanstamps.org/vaticannotes/idisplay2.php?p=058-09&r=0'>Lourdes Centennial (Part I)</a> 
<li>Anonymous, Vatican Notes, Volume 10, Number 2, pp. 10-12, 1961, <a href='http://vaticanstamps.org/vaticannotes/idisplay2.php?p=060-10&r=0'>Lourdes Centennial (Continued)</a> 
<li>Thomas Lera, 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</a>
 
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Apparition Of The Virgin Mary At Lourdes 
150th Anniversary, Scott 1388M and 1389M (minisheets) (2008)</center>

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