Grotte de Massabielle

The Grotte de Massabielle is the site where Bernadette Soubirous reported her 18 apparitions of the Virgin Mary in 1858, and it remains the spiritual heart of Lourdes. The grotto is a natural cave in a rocky bluff beside the Gave de Pau river. Inside, a white marble statue of the Virgin marks the niche where Bernadette said the figure appeared. The spring that Bernadette was directed to unblock during her ninth apparition still flows, and pilgrims fill bottles with the water to take home.

The grotto is accessible at all hours of the day and night — it is never closed. The atmosphere inside is quiet and concentrated even when thousands of pilgrims are nearby. Candles burn continuously on stands beside the cave entrance, donated by pilgrims who take a small candle from the dispenser in exchange for a coin. The rock face itself is worn smooth by generations of hands. Whatever your beliefs, there is something in the grotto that commands attention.

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A story
On 11 February 1858, Bernadette Soubirous went to the grotto to collect wood and reported seeing a white light followed by a figure she described as "a small young lady." The apparitions continued for several months. When Bernadette asked the figure's name, the figure said, in the local Gascon dialect: "Que soy era Immaculada Concepciou" — "I am the Immaculate Conception." The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception had been defined by Pope Pius IX only four years earlier, a fact Bernadette could not have known.