Massabielle Grotto is the place, on the bank of the Gave de Pau, where Bernadette Soubirous saw — according to her own testimony, recognized by the Church in 1862 — the Virgin appear eighteen times between 11 February and 16 July 1858. Its name comes from the Gascon Massavièlha, “the old rock.” What was once just a rocky recess used by the poor of Lourdes — shepherds, wood gatherers, people living along the Gave — became, within a few decades, one of the most visited Marian sanctuaries in the world. The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes today welcomes around 3.6 million pilgrims and visitors every year (lourdes-france.org, 2024).
This hub presents the place as a whole: what happened there in 1858, what remains of it today, and how the Church has examined each of these elements — apparitions, spring, cures. Each linked article develops one of these aspects in detail.
In this collection
- Massabielle Grotto — The 18 apparitions told one by one, with their dates.
- Lourdes Water — Where the spring comes from and how to use it without superstition.
- Miracles of Lourdes — The 72 cures recognized by the Church, and how they are recognized.
- Sanctuary of Lourdes — The basilicas, the domain, and pilgrim life today.
What Is Massabielle Grotto?
Massabielle is the grotto where Bernadette Soubirous, 14 years old, saw and heard a “Lady” — identified by the Catholic Church with the Virgin Mary — eighteen times, between February and July 1858.
On 11 February 1858, Bernadette Soubirous is gathering firewood near the Gave de Pau with her sister and a friend when she notices, in a small opening in the rock, a young woman dressed in white. According to the testimony of the visionary of the eighteen apparitions gathered during the diocesan trial (1858-1862), she can at first only call the apparition by the patois word “Aquéro,” “that.”
The apparitions recur, irregularly, until 16 July of that same year. They are accompanied by a spring welling up under Bernadette’s hands, by calls to penance and procession, and by a decisive declaration on 25 March: « Que soy era Immaculada Councepciou » [I am the Immaculate Conception — Pyrenean Gascon, 25 March 1858]. This sentence, spoken in Gascon patois by a teenager who did not know its theological weight, carried considerable weight in the later examination of the case. Bishop Laurence of Tarbes recognizes the authenticity of the apparitions in 1862, after a commission of inquiry lasting several years.
The 18 Apparitions of 1858
Eighteen apparitions occurred in succession from 11 February to 16 July 1858, with specific requests: penance, procession, the building of a chapel.
Each apparition contributes a distinct element to the account. The first is silent: Bernadette sees the Lady without a word being exchanged. The following ones progressively introduce a message of conversion and prayer — as early as the eighth apparition, the Lady tells her: « Pénitence ! Pénitence ! Pénitence ! Priez Dieu pour les pécheurs ! » [Penance! Penance! Penance! Pray to God for sinners!] (Official Sanctuary, lourdes-france.com) — then an explicit request for a procession and the building of a chapel on the site. The ninth apparition, on 25 February, is that of the spring. The sixteenth, on 25 March, is that of the identification as the Immaculate Conception — four years after this dogma was proclaimed by Pius IX (Ineffabilis Deus, 1854). This coincidence of dates is one of the elements the episcopal commission examined before recognizing the apparitions as authentic.
Several of these apparitions mark recognized milestones in the story. During the twelfth, later that same night, a Lourdes resident, Catherine Latapie, dips her dislocated arm into the water of the newly formed spring. She immediately regains its mobility, a fact the Church will recognize in 1862 as the first cure of Lourdes (lourdes-france.org). During the fourteenth, more than 3,000 people gather at the Grotto, after the parish priest Fr Peyramale demanded, before passing on the request for a chapel, a sign: a wild rose bush blooming in the middle of winter. During the seventeenth, on 7 April, Dr Dozous observes that the flame of the candle held by Bernadette surrounds her hand for a quarter of an hour without burning it — an episode known ever since as the “miracle of the candle.”
The details of each of the eighteen apparitions, with their precise circumstances and the words reported by Bernadette, are set out in the dedicated article.
To learn more → the full account of the 18 apparitions.
The Spring and the Water of Massabielle
A spring welled up under Bernadette’s hands during the ninth apparition, on 25 February 1858; it still feeds the Sanctuary’s fountains and pools today.
Before that date, no spring existed at this precise spot in the grotto. Bernadette herself described the moment: « Elle me dit d’aller boire à la source (…). Je ne trouvai qu’un peu d’eau vaseuse. Au quatrième essai je pus boire » [She told me to go and drink from the spring (…). I found only a little muddy water. On the fourth attempt I managed to drink] (Official Sanctuary, lourdes-france.com). The flow then stabilized over the following days. This spring has since fed all the water points of the domain: drinking fountains, bathing pools, taps installed along the pilgrims’ route.
Around 350,000 litres of water are distributed each day (Official Sanctuary) to visitors who come to draw it, bathe in the pools set aside for that purpose, or take it home in small containers sold or handed out on site. This gesture, very old in Lourdes popular piety, belongs to a long tradition of sacramental acts rather than a search for a remedy.
Bathing in the pools is assisted by volunteers, often members of the Hospitalité Notre-Dame de Lourdes, who help people who are sick or have reduced mobility. This organized setting sets the Lourdes practice apart from an isolated use of the water: it takes place as a collective gesture, supervised, and bound to prayer rather than to a care protocol.
To learn more → where the spring comes from and how it is used.
A Matter of Faith, Not a Remedy
The spring water has revealed no particular chemical property; the Sanctuary itself says so. Its value is spiritual and sacramental, not medical.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines this kind of sign precisely: « Les sacramentaux sont des signes sacrés par lesquels, selon une certaine imitation des sacrements, des effets surtout spirituels sont signifiés et sont obtenus par la prière de l’Église » [Sacramentals are sacred signs which bear a resemblance to the sacraments. They signify effects, particularly of a spiritual nature, which are obtained through the intercession of the Church] (CCC § 1667). They prepare a person to receive grace; they do not produce it mechanically. Bernadette herself warned against any magical reading of the gesture: Lourdes water is not taken like a medicine — its value comes only from the faith that accompanies it.
This distinction guards against two opposite errors: treating the water as a therapeutic product, or, conversely, seeing it as nothing but superstition with no real spiritual meaning. The site consistently notes that Lourdes water never replaces medical advice or an ongoing treatment; it belongs within the acts of prayer that accompany it, such as the rosary or the novena.
The Cures Recognized by the Church
The Church has recognized 72 cures as miraculous out of around 7,300 case files examined since 1862 (Theillier; most recent recognition 16 April 2025).
This figure of 72 does not cover every cure reported at Lourdes, only those that have passed through every stage of a very strict medical and then canonical examination. As early as his Episcopal Decree of 18 January 1862 recognizing the apparitions, Bishop Laurence of Tarbes had grounded his judgment on three criteria: « la fiabilité de la voyante — les fruits spirituels — les guérisons du corps » [the reliability of the visionary — the spiritual fruits — the bodily cures] (Episcopal Decree, 18 January 1862). The proportion — 72 recognitions out of several thousand case files submitted — illustrates the rigour of the procedure rather than an arbitrary scarcity or a figure inflated for communication purposes.
Each recognized case carries a name, a date, an initial diagnosis, and a date of proclamation by the bishop of the place concerned. The full list, the circumstances of each of these cures, and the procedure followed for each case are presented in the article devoted to the miracles.
To learn more → the 72 recognized cures in detail.
How the Church Authenticates a Cure
A case file first goes before the Sanctuary’s Medical Bureau, then before the International Medical Committee of Lourdes (CMIL), before any decision is made by the bishop of the diocese concerned.
The Medical Bureau was founded in 1883 by Dr Georges-Fernand Dunot de Saint-Maclou. He acted at the request of Fr Rémi Sempé, the Sanctuary’s first rector: no cure was to be declared without rigorous, collegial medical verification (lourdes-france.org). It gathers the initial case file: diagnoses, examinations, testimony from the treating physicians. Since it was founded, several thousand case files have been submitted to the Bureau. If a case appears solid, it is passed to the International Medical Committee of Lourdes (CMIL), a body created in 1947 and made international in 1954. The CMIL brings together around thirty specialists from several countries. It applies criteria inherited from Cardinal Lambertini in the eighteenth century: the cure must be sudden, complete, and lasting. It must also remain unexplained in the current state of medical knowledge, with no link to an ongoing treatment.
The CMIL’s role stops at this scientific finding: its members are tasked with certifying that the way the cure occurred is genuinely « inexpliqué dans l’état actuel des connaissances scientifiques » [unexplained in the current state of scientific knowledge] (lourdes-france.org), never with ruling on its miraculous character. Only the bishop of the diocese where the cured person lives can then, on the basis of that finding, declare it miraculous in the name of the Church — a distinction the site is careful to state clearly each time. The Bureau is today chaired by Dr Alessandro de Franciscis, its 15th president since 2009 (lourdes-france.org).
The Sanctuary Today: Basilicas and Domain
The Sanctuary’s domain, 52 hectares around the Grotto, brings together the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, the Basilica of the Rosary, and the underground Basilica of St Pius X.
Built successively between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, these three basilicas reflect how far the pilgrimage grew beyond the grotto of the apparitions alone. The Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, known as the “upper basilica,” was the first to be built. Constructed between 1862 and 1871 to the plans of architect Hippolyte Durand, it was blessed on 15 August 1871 and consecrated on 2 July 1876 (Lourdes Tourist Office). It answers the request made by the Lady to Bernadette during the thirteenth apparition: « Allez dire aux prêtres de faire bâtir ici une chapelle » [Go and tell the priests to have a chapel built here].
Soon too small, it was supplemented by the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary, known as the “lower basilica.” Its foundation stone was laid on 16 July 1883, the 25th anniversary of the last apparition, to the plans of architect Léopold Amédée Hardy, in Romano-Byzantine style. The underground Basilica of St Pius X, the domain’s third building, was consecrated on 25 March 1958 for the centenary of the apparitions.
The domain today covers 52 hectares crossed by the Gave de Pau and includes 22 places of worship (Lourdes Tourist Office). The torchlight procession, which has taken place since 1872, is held every evening at 9pm from April to the end of October: pilgrims, candle in hand, walk while singing from the Grotto of the Apparitions to the esplanade of the Basilica of the Rosary.
The domain also includes the pools, the esplanade, and several facilities dedicated to the sick and their companions, a large part of whose organization is carried out by the Hospitalité Notre-Dame de Lourdes. The Sanctuary’s leadership is entrusted to a rector, a post held since 1 September 2022 by Fr Michel Daubanes.
The Sanctuary also pays particular attention to welcoming deaf and hard-of-hearing visitors, with a dedicated interpreting service, and to visitors with reduced mobility. This attention to accessibility extends, in the material organization of the site, the care for the sick that has marked its history since 1858.
To learn more → the basilicas and the domain today.
Visiting Massabielle: Welcoming Pilgrims
Around 3.6 million people visit the Sanctuary each year (lourdes-france.org, 2024), individual pilgrims or organized groups, often accompanied by the sick.
Welcoming the sick and people with disabilities remains a historic priority of the Sanctuary, reflected in particular in the large national pilgrimages that gather thousands of sick people and volunteers every year. This care for the sick finds a particular echo on 11 February, the anniversary of the first apparition. In his letter of 13 May 1992 to Cardinal Angelini, John Paul II writes that he had « décidé d’établir la “Journée mondiale des malades”, qui sera célébrée le 11 février de chaque année, mémorial liturgique de la Bienheureuse Vierge Marie de Lourdes » [decided to establish the “World Day of the Sick,” to be celebrated on 11 February each year, the liturgical memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lourdes] (John Paul II, letter of 13 May 1992). This alignment of dates is no coincidence, but an explicit papal choice.
Beyond the large organized gatherings, most visitors come individually or in small groups, for a visit of a few hours or a stay of several days including Mass, procession, and a visit to the pools. To plan a pilgrimage to Lourdes in practical terms, a dedicated practical guide sets out the steps of organizing the stay.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is Massabielle Grotto?
How Many Cures Have Been Recognized as Miraculous at Lourdes?
Does Lourdes Water Have Curative Properties?
What Is the Difference Between the Grotto and the Sanctuary?
Is It Necessary to Believe in the Miracles of Lourdes?
Is the Sanctuary Open All Year?
Sources and References
Magisterium
- CCC, editio typica, 1997 — § 1667 (sacramentals), § 67 (private revelations)
- Bishop Laurence, Episcopal Decree of recognition of the apparitions, 18 January 1862
- John Paul II, letter to Cardinal Angelini establishing the World Day of the Sick, 13 May 1992
Lourdes sources
- Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes — lourdes-france.org / lourdes-france.com (2024 attendance; ~350,000 litres of water/day; history of the Medical Bureau; CMIL criterion; 72nd cure, 16 April 2025; official account of the apparitions and Bernadette’s reported words)
- Lourdes Tourist Office — lourdes-infotourisme.com (basilica construction dates; surface area and torchlight procession)
Bernadettine corpus
- Laurentin, Logia de Bernadette (vol. I-III)
- Theillier, Lourdes, terre de guérisons