Pope Leo prays for the sick and suffering in the Lourdes grotto in France

LOURDES, France (OSV News) — In the Marian shrine of Lourdes, Pope Leo XIV prayed for the sick and the suffering and drank from healing spring water in the grotto where the Virgin Mary appeared to St. Bernadette in 1858.

“Our Lady of Lourdes, the Immaculate Conception, in this blessed place you spoke with such gentleness and tenderness to St. Bernadette, a humble daughter of the French people, to convey to the world a radiant message of prayer, conversion and hope,” Pope Leo said in his prayer in the grotto.

The shrine of Lourdes is one of the most visited Catholic pilgrimage sites in the world, known as a place of healing and miracles since the Marian apparition. More than 7,000 cases of healing connected to Lourdes have been officially recorded since 1858, with 72 of them officially recognized as a miracle by the International Medical Committee of Lourdes. The most recent of which was announced last year: the 2009 healing of Antonietta Raco, an Italian woman who had suffered from primary lateral sclerosis, during a pilgrimage to Lourdes.

As the sun set, the pope arrived at the Lourdes grotto for the first time in his pontificate to the singing of the traditional Lourdes hymn “Ave Maria,” waving to eager pilgrims from the popemobile.

In an intimate moment of prayer in the illuminated grotto, the crowd was silent as Pope Leo knelt before the image of Our Lady of Lourdes above.

Standing, he paused to touch the rock of the grotto’s wall, and received a glass of water from the site’s miraculous spring, offered by Father Michel Daubanes, the rector of the Sanctuary of Lourdes. Moving his hand over the walls of the grotto, he walked to its tiered candelabra, where he lit a tall candle, placing it among the others.

He then offered a public prayer to the Virgin Mary in French. “We turn to you with trust, for you are the Mother whom Jesus has given, and you are attentive to all our needs,” he said. “We pray to you, our Mother, for France, for you are her patroness and have protected her for so many centuries.”

Pope Leo prayed in particular for peace and for the renewal of “the faith and fervor of Christian families.”

“May they be generously open to life, and may God awaken vocations within them, especially to the priesthood and religious life,” he prayed. “Grant that your Church in France may show, especially to the youngest among them, the luminous path of the Gospel, so that they may build the just and fraternal society to which they aspire.”

Praying for the sick, the caretakers, the poor and the disadvantaged, the pope asked the Virgin Mary to “obtain for France wise and generous leaders, ready to make sacrifices, capable of responding to challenges, and eager to serve the common good.”

“We pray that you will remove all the obstacles that still separate us from your beloved Son and that he may reign in all heart,” he concluded.

After his prayer, Pope Leo offered the shrine the gift of the “golden rose,” a gilded rose that conveys papal affection and is a traditional papal gift especially to Marian shrines.

Under a shining full moon in a clear autumn sky, the pope then led the crowd in singing the Lord’s Prayer in Latin and then imparted his apostolic blessing before individually greeting Lourdes’ chaplains.

Lourdes is the fourth most visited Catholic pilgrimage site in the world after St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico, and the Basilica of Our Lady of Aparecida in Brazil.

The Virgin Mary appeared to a poor and uneducated 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous 18 times in 1858. During the ninth apparition, Mary told St. Bernadette: “Go and drink at the spring and wash yourself there.” That year, the miraculous spring that appeared after St. Bernadette humbly dug in the dirt with her hands resulted in the healing of a woman with a paralyzed hand in the presence of more than 1,500 people.

During the 16th apparition, St. Bernadette asked Mary, whom she had called “the Lady dressed in white,” her name. Mary replied: “I am the Immaculate Conception,” referring to the Catholic dogma — long held in tradition but only promulgated four years earlier — that she was conceived without sin.

Lourdes is the second leg of Pope Leo’s four-day apostolic journey to France. On Sept. 27, the pope will offer Mass in Lourdes, where he will also meet with clerical abuse victims, visit the sick, speak to French bishops, and preside over a candlelight rosary procession.

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