Author Archives: communication

In this year dedicated to prayer, the Sanctuary of Lourdes is offering some suggestions for experiencing the liturgical season with Bernadette.Of the eighteen apparitions of the Virgin Mary to Saint Bernadette, fourteen took place during Lent. Lent is a forty-day … Continued

On 18th February and 16th April each year, the Catholic Church honours Saint Bernadette Soubirous, the young visionary from Lourdes to whom the Virgin Mary appeared in 1858. The feast day on 18th February marks the date on which, according … Continued

On 11th February each year, the Catholic Church celebrates World Day of the Sick, a highly symbolic date as it coincides with the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. In 1992, Pope John Paul II established 11th February as World … Continued

On 2nd February, the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, better known as the Feast of Candlemas, commemorates the event related in the Gospel of St Luke: Mary and Joseph going to present the child Jesus at … Continued

On 11th February, Lourdes commemorates the first apparition of the Virgin Mary to Bernadette Soubirous, a 14-year-old girl who went to the grotto of Massabielle, on the banks of the Gave de Pau, to collect wood. Thousands of pilgrims are … Continued

From 18th to 25th January, Christians around the world are invited to pray for the unity sought by Christ: ‘That they may all be one’ (Jn 17:21). The theme chosen for 2026 is taken from the Letter to the Ephesians … Continued

The baptism of Jesus, celebrated on the Sunday after Epiphany, 11th January in the year 2026, is one of the best recounted events in the life of Jesus, as all four evangelists mention it. It is the first public manifestation … Continued

Bernadette Soubirous was born on 7th January 1844 in Lourdes, at the time a small town in the Pyrenees, to a family of millers who lived quite comfortably for the first few years of Bernadette’s life.Two days after her birth, … Continued

The Epiphany celebrates the Magi’s coming to worship the Infant God. These visitors appear in an episode of the Gospel according to Matthew. Having learned of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, they come ‘from the East’, guided by a … Continued

“Hail, full of grace” Pilgrims from all over the world have been converging on Rome to pass through the Holy Door. The Jubilee Year will be officially concluded at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes during the 11 p.m. … Continued