Mary Fabyan Windeatt

Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Story Coloring Book Mary Fabyan Windeatt

One damp and chilly morning in February of 1858, 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous and two other girls went off to the woods to look for firewood; the Soubirous family of two parents and four children could certainly use the warmth in their poor one-room home. It was on this trip that Bernadette was to see the first of several apparitions of a beautiful lady, about 16 years old, in a grotto over a mound of rock that served as the town dump. When she described the apparitions, many people at first did not believe her; after all, Bernadette was only an ignorant little girl who had not even made her First Communion. But then the lady directed Bernadette to dig in the earth with her hands: soon, up bubbled a miraculous spring whose waters cured sick people. Then finally, the lady told Bernadette who she was, saying, "I am the Immaculate Conception"-meaning she was the Blessed Virgin Mary herself. These are the wonderful events which helped make little Bernadette into a great saint and which have made Lourdes, France into one of the most famous shrines to Our Lady in the whole world.