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The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes is in the town of Lourdes, France. It comprises an area of 51 hectares, and includes 22 separate places of worship. There are six official languages of the Sanctuary: French, English, Italian, Spanish, Dutch and German. About 6 million people visit Lourdes annually, and the town has about 270 hotels to accommodate pilgrims.
In 1858 from February 11 to July 16, Virgin Mary appeared to a 14-year-old peasant girl, called Bernadette Soubirous, while playing in the stream with her sister and friend. The vision was of Mary standing next to a rose bush at the entrance to the Massabielle grotto, on the left bank of the stream. Bernadette saw this vision 18 times. On the land bordered by a loop of the Gave de Pau river is an outcrop of rock called Massabielle, (from masse vieille: "old mass"). On the northern aspect of this rock, near the river bank, is a naturally occurring, irregularly shaped shallow cave or grotto, wherein the apparitions took place.
Virgin Mary instructed Bernadette Soubirous to "Go and drink from the spring", "Go and tell the priests to build a chapel here", and "Have the people come here in procession". These three instructions in particular were to prove pivotal in the development of the Domain and its ceremonies. The local priest, Abbé Dominique Peyramale, together with his bishop, Monsignor Bertrand-Sévère Mascarou Laurence, bought the grotto and the land around it from the commune in 1861, 3 years after the apparitions. Immediately they set about modifying the area to make it more accessible to visitors, and started work to build the first of the churches, which is now known as the Crypt.
Saint Bernadette of Lourdes, born as Marie Bernarde Soubirous, called Bernadette Soubirous (7 January 1844 - 16 April 1879) had Marian apparitions of a "young lady" who asked for a chapel to be built at the nearby cave-grotto at Massabielle. These apparitions occurred between 11 February and 16 July 1858, and the woman who appeared to her identified herself as the "Immaculate Conception." After a canonical investigation, Soubirous's reports were eventually declared "worthy of belief" on 18 February, 1862, and the Marian apparition became known as Our Lady of Lourdes. Since her death, Soubirous's body has remained incorrupt. On 8 December 1933, Pope Pius XI, declared Soubirous a saint of the Catholic Church. Her feast day, is observed on 16 April.