Photo ~ Pilgrims stand in front of the Basilica of our Lady of the Rosary (French: Notre Dame du Rosaire de Lourdes) within the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes in France.
Thursday, March 25, 1858 Bernadette joyfully rejoined the lady in the grotto. It had been 3 weeks since she saw Aquero (Bernadette began to refer to the vision as Aquero, which means simply, 'It', and said that the Lady spoke in the Lourdes dialect, 'sweet and gentle', and not in French) and had not known whether she would ever appear again. This time she was determined to obtain the lady's name, so that she could finally tell the priest.
Bernadette was characteristically stubborn, and she repeated four times the question she had practiced so often, "Would you be so kind as to tell me who you are?" The answer finally came: "I am the Immaculate Conception."
The Church declared that Mary was the "Immaculate Conception" only four years earlier in 1854. The title would certainly have been unknown to Bernadette since …More