Bernadette was fourteen, poor, and often ill when the apparitions began. The Lady she saw asked for prayer and penance, asked that a chapel be built and that people come in procession, and named herself with the words “I am the Immaculate Conception.” The local bishop judged the apparitions worthy of belief in 1862, and Catholics are free to believe in them without being obliged to. Bernadette entered the convent at Nevers, where she died in 1879; she was canonized in 1933.
What pilgrims do at Lourdes follows from what was asked. They pray at the Grotto, touch the rock, and drink or wash with water from the spring. They walk in the Blessed Sacrament procession, in which the sick are blessed, and in the evening torchlight procession, praying the Rosary. They go to confession and to Mass. Above all they make room for sick and disabled pilgrims, who come by the thousands with volunteers to care for them, which is why February 11, the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, is also the Church’s World Day of the Sick.
A visit is not a promise of physical healing. The Church has formally recognized about seventy cures at Lourdes as miraculous, out of thousands reported, and it investigates each one for years. Most pilgrims come for other reasons: in thanksgiving, to bring someone they love, or to find peace with an illness that remains. Entry to the sanctuary is free, the grounds are level, and nobody is asked what they believe.