Our Lady of Lourdes: Feast Day, Patronage & Prayers

Feast day: February 11 (optional memorial)

Patron of: The sick and all who suffer in body.

About Our Lady of Lourdes

Between February 11 and July 16, 1858, the Blessed Virgin appeared eighteen times to Bernadette Soubirous, a poor and sickly fourteen-year-old girl, in the grotto of Massabielle near the town of Lourdes in southern France. The Lady asked for prayer and penance, asked that a chapel be built, and told Bernadette to dig in the ground, where a spring began to flow that still runs today. On March 25, the Lady gave her name in the local dialect: "I am the Immaculate Conception," a title the Church had solemnly defined only four years earlier.

After careful investigation, the bishop of Tarbes declared in 1862 that the faithful could believe the apparitions. Lourdes soon became one of the great pilgrimage places of the world, especially for the sick, and the Church has recognized a number of healings there as miraculous after strict medical review. Pope St. John Paul II chose February 11 as the World Day of the Sick. At Lourdes, the sick are honored guests, and pilgrims learn that suffering joined to Christ is never wasted.

Prayers to Our Lady of Lourdes on Daily Catholic Prayers

• Prayer After a Difficult Diagnosis

• Prayer for a Sick Loved One

• Prayer to Our Lady of Lourdes for Healing

Learn more: “Lourdes” in the Catholic Encyclopedia (New Advent)

Browse every saint in our Catalog of Saints A–Z.

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