Talk:Our Lady of Lourdes

15 decade?

Was the Rosary Our Lady had in hand 15 decades? Also how long did it take St. Bernadette to pray the Rosary with Our Lady?--Maria Bernada (talk) 00:25, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I can look this up but believe Bernadette said it was five. Owing to the fact that the lady would leave after the rosary was finished, Bernadette probably stretched a five-decade rosary out as long as possible. We do know about her long, slow way of crossing herself, which she said she picked up from the Lady -- that's on record. I've noticed that in apparitions, Mary is said to encourage her visionaries to say their prayers slowly and think about what they are saying (ever heard a tape of Jacinta Gonzalez at Garabandal?), so one could guess that was probably true here also. --Bluejay Young (talk) 02:49, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

List of Churches

A long list of Churches called OLL was recently added. It does not seem to have a relevance here to the apparition and should probably go into a separate disambig page (from which it was probably copied). I will remove them in a few days unless someone gives good reasons not to. Thanks History2007 (talk) 03:17, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for removing that list. A more extensive list can be found at the Lourdes (disambiguation) page anyway, which is the right place for such references. Preacherdoc (talk) 13:12, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Apparitions split

The "apparitions" section should be split (or more likely removed entirely). It is unnecessarily long and detailed, and relies far too heavily on quotes. It exceeds the level of detail necessary in an encyclopedic article of this nature. I have never seen an article with a similarly organized list of events that occured on a series of dates. The information is also largely (and with much more appropriate organization) presented in the openening paragraphs of the article. Some guy (talk) 07:26, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Well my friend I have observed your edits in the past few hours. You have suggested, then deleted, then re-suggested, etc. I think you need to wait for a few days for a few comments from people before making major changes. My personal views of this page are:

• Importance: It is a crucial page for many Roman Catholics and major deletions from it will soon be contested. Lourdes had a major impact on the dogma of Immaculate Conception and is not just "another apparition". Hence it is an important Roman Catholic issue.

• Organization: The article can certainly be better organized. The sequence of events runs too long, and seems like a freeway with no end. However, the info in the sequence is important and should not be deleted. It just needs better presentation. No need to make a new article.

• Tone: Much of the text was obviously written by the faithful for the faithful. The tone can (and should) become more moderate.

Let us wait for other comments before any dramatic actions. Thanks History2007 (talk) 08:13, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Nobody else is commenting or editing the page. I would guess that few, if any, visitors actually take the time to read this poorly formatted and written article. I have already corrected numerous glaringly obvious typographical mistakes from the text that probably would not have gone so long uncorrected in a typical article. Maybe if we (more likely just I) clean out all the excess, the article will reach a presentable state where people are actually willing to read it. Some guy (talk) 22:42, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you guy. This page had 12731 readers during Oct 2008, slightly down from the 16,000 it had in June 2008, but still a high access page. And just 1 or 2 comments out of 12,000. But then that is/was the story of Wikipedia... from very modest beginnings a lot grew. So keep editing and it will grow and improve. Cheers History2007 (talk) 02:23, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I am one of the long-time editors of this article. I don't mind any changes to make it read more smoothly and concisely, but I do think that as much should be kept in from Bernadette's original testimony as possible. After all, she was the only person who had the experience. I agree that it doesn't have to be every single one of her words from the inquest transcript (as was done here for a long time). --Bluejay Young (talk) 20:30, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I think as an enyclopedia page, an overview is more important and appropriate than a lot of quotation. We don't need more than one or two short quotes. It is perfectly acceptable to summarize history or events or concepts without direct quotes and this is seen in countless articles. Some guy (talk) 21:32, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Needless to say, different readers have different opinions. Personally, I had found the deleted text useful, although it was structured like a freeway with no end. It is just a question of finding time to bring it back to life in a new page. Do you have time to work on it together BlueJay? If so, I will start a page today. Cheers History2007 (talk) 21:57, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I saw that you deleted a large amount of text. It was long, long, long, but still information that is lost now. I think we should make a new page out of it. Do you want to do it, or shall I? History2007 (talk) 20:32, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think the new page is necessary, but if you would like to make it, I won't oppose you or interfere. Some guy (talk) 08:28, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I will get to it as soon as I have a chance. History2007 (talk) 10:08, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Anglicanism

The article does not mention the Anglican approval and veneration of Our Lady of Lourdes.. should this be added? --Willthacheerleader18 (talk) 21:49, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I am also one of the long-time editors on Wikipedia. I do think too that as much should be kept in from Bernadette's original testimony as possible. Hafspajen (talk) 13:04, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

History

True, some of it is there. the story of Bernadette. But not everything. Still it is interesting how the little girl describes the whole thing. I am sure that many people would like to know about it more. Like myself. Hafspajen (talk) 21:40, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

If people want to know more there is an entire world from which they can learn. They can consult internet or printed sources, many accessible from the list of references in the article. There is even a link to the official website for the shrine. Wikipedia is a good place to provide information, but we can't always compile every single last shred into a Wikipedia article. Gigantic block quotes in particular make terrible article content; they bloat and disrupt the article with content the reader can find elsewhere. The CatholicPilgrims website is also not a reputable source and can't be used as a reference in the article. Some guy (talk) 02:19, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

• Oh, well, they can of course do that. But most people do use Wikipedia. Maybe you feel that this story of Bernadette disrupt the article. I still think that some of the things are very interesting indeed in this testimony. The feeling of it. But it is true, the story is described in the history part. And there are some minor faults, the chain is gold, but the beads are white, as Bernadette said, "same color as the chain of her rosary; the beads of the rosary were white." Also this: "The Lady made a sign for me to approach; but I was seized with fear, and I did not dare, thinking that I was faced with an illusion. I rubbed my eyes, but in vain. I looked again, and I could still see the same Lady. Then I put my hand into my pocket, and took my rosary. I wanted to make the sign of the cross, but in vain; I could not raise my hand to my forehead, it kept on dropping".The interesting thing about this is what the Lady did. "The Lady took the rosary that she held in her hands and she made the sign of the cross". Like a mirror. Or she could feel the girls wish. Than the Lady makes a sign for Bernadette to approach, and when this is not happening , than she she disappears. Next time she throw holy water in her direction, saying that if she came from God she was to stay, but if not, she must go. The vision started to smile, and bowed; and the more Bernadette sprinkled her with holy water, the more she smiled and bowed her head and the more she saw her make signs. All this is not there in the story.

Hafspajen (talk) 11:47, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Apparitions

This would need to be linked to the article somehow, like a Wikicitaton :

The 1st appearance (11 February)

Bernadette Soubirous was out gathering firewood in the countryside. "The first time I went to the Grotto was Thursday, 11 February 1858. I went to gather firewood with two other little girls." before a grotto. As they could go no further, had to cross the water lying before their path. Bernadette's soes and stocking were wet, so she started taking them off. "I came back towards the grotto and started taking off my stockings. I had hardly taken off the first stocking when I heard a sound like a gust of wind. Then I turned my head towards the meadow. I saw the trees quite still: I went on taking off my stockings. I heard the same sound again. As I raised my head to look at the grotto, I saw a lady dressed in white, wearing a white dress, a blue girdle and a yellow rose on each foot, the same color as the chain of her rosary; the beads of the rosary were white."

"The Lady made a sign for me to approach; but I was seized with fear, and I did not dare, thinking that I was faced with an illusion. I rubbed my eyes, but in vain. I looked again, and I could still see the same Lady. Then I put my hand into my pocket, and took my rosary. I wanted to make the sign of the cross, but in vain; I could not raise my hand to my forehead, it kept on dropping. Then a violent impression took hold of me more strongly, but I did not go."

"The Lady took the rosary that she held in her hands and she made the sign of the cross. Then I commenced not to be afraid. I took my rosary again; I was able to make the sign of the cross; from that moment I felt perfectly undisturbed in mind. I knelt down and said my rosary, seeing this Lady always before my eyes. The Vision slipped the beads of her rosary between her fingers, but she did not move her lips. When I had said my rosary the Lady made a sign for me to approach, but I did not dare. I stayed in the same place. Then, all of a sudden, she disappeared. I started to remove the other stocking to cross the shallow water near the grotto so as to join my companions. And we went away. As we returned, I asked my companions if they had seen anything. 'No,' they replied. 'And what about you? Did you see anything?' 'Oh, no, if you have seen nothing, neither have I.'"

"I thought I had been mistaken. But as we went, all the way, they kept asking me what I had seen. I did not want to tell them. Seeing that they kept on asking I decided to tell them, on condition that they would tell nobody. They promised not to tell. They said that I must never go there again, nor would they, thinking that it was someone who would harm us. I said no. As soon as they arrived home they hastened to say that I had seen a Lady dressed in white. That was the first time."

On realising that she alone had seen the apparition, and not her companions, she asked her sister Toinette not to tell anyone what had happened. Toinette, however, was unable to keep silent, and told their mother, Louise Soubirous. Both girls received a beating, and Bernadette was forbidden by her mother from returning to the Grotto again. A few days passed and Bernadette asked for permission to go again with her siblings and the permission was granted.

The 2nd appearance (14 February)

"The second time was the following Sunday. I went back because I felt myself interiorly impelled. ..."I went to the Parish Church to get a little bottle of holy water, to throw over the Vision, if I were to see her at the grotto. When we arrived, we all took our rosaries and we knelt down to say them. I had hardly finished the first decade when I saw the same Lady. Then I started to throw holy water in her direction, and at the same time I said that if she came from God she was to stay, but if not, she must go. She started to smile, and bowed; and the more I sprinkled her with holy water, the more she smiled and bowed her head and the more I saw her make signs. Then I was seized with fright and I hurried to sprinkle her with holy water until the bottle was empty. Then I went on saying my rosary. When I had finished it she disappeared and we came back to Vespers. This was the second time."

Troubled by the notion that the apparition might represent an evil spirit, Bernadette used the holy water as a test. A further reassuring sign was the apparition's beautiful bare feet: demonic apparitions (even while in human form) were believed to have cloven hooves or animal paws.

The 3rd appearance (18 February)

The Apparition did not speak until the third appearance, and therefore its identity was a matter of considerable speculation. Pious villagers Jeanne-Marie Milhet and Antionette Peyret, on hearing Bernadette's description of the apparition, considered it may have been a revenant, a soul returning from purgatory. Although not part of Catholic doctrine, the concept of the revenant was deeply rooted in Pyrenean superstition; further, revenants frequently manifested to young children. The previous October, the head of the local chapter of the Children of Mary, a woman named Elisa Latapie, had died. According to tradition, revenants rarely spoke, but communicated their messages in writing, and so Milhet and Peyrey furnished Bernadette with paper, a pen and an inkpot to take with her, in case the apparition should make use of them.

"The third time was the following Thursday. The Lady only spoke to me the third time. I went to the grotto with a few matured people, who advised me to take paper and ink, and to ask her, if she had anything to say to me, to have the goodness to put it on paper. I said these words to the Lady. She smiled and said that it was not necessary for her to write what she had to say to me, but asked if I would do her the favour of coming for a fortnight. I told her that I would. She told me also that she did not promise to make me happy in this world, but in the next."

Although she spoke in Occitan, the regional language which Bernadette (whose French was poor) used, the apparition used remarkably formal language in her request: "Would you have the goodness to come here for fifteen days?" (in Occitan: "Boulet aoue ra gracia de bié aci penden quinze dias?"; in French:"Voulez-vous me faire la grâce de venir ici pendant quinze jours?") This significance of this politeness was not lost on the observers. It would be very unusual for anyone to adopt this formal form of address when speaking to a penniless, working-class peasant girl such as Bernadette.

Hafspajen (talk) 17:03, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

References

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Secular views section

The secular views section contains almost no details of secular views, but rather seems to be a confused collection of the RCC opinion of 'analogies' (whatever they are) and what she thought the apparition looked like. Is this section the result of an edit war? Either way, it needs to be fixed. Ashmoo (talk) 11:03, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Criticism Section

I noticed this page does not read as NPOV at all, even compared to other explicitly religious articles such as other Marian apparition pages. The 'Secular Views' section that existed in previous edits was anything but secular and then was deleted entirely. That is never a good sign. In the spirit of offering a plurality of views, I boldly went ahead and added a Criticism section and offered a quick (cited) example in the hopes it may be expanded at a later date. I am an infrequent editor but I hope my edit was in line with some voice of neutrality. If anything, it may in some small way goes towards making the article more robust and comprehensive. Please do not revert or delete the edit without good reason, and if there is good reason please respond here. Issekinicho (talk) 06:13, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

However, Randi critizes things that a) have never been stated (on the contrary!) or b) which everybody knows: nobody claimed the water to have curative effects, contrariwise there exist some results of investigation that the water is just ordinary spring water. Futhermore, everyone knows that Bernadette called her vision always „the Lady" and nothing else. For the faithful, an ecclesiastial commission much later stated that this in their opinion was the Virgin Mary. All in all this new passage does not seem to be an improvement.--Medusahead (talk) 08:56, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Hello. In the spirit of good faith I will not protest your edit, but I also must further question your reasoning for it. My concern is this: as the article stands now, there is a discussion of reported miraculous healings from the water at Lourdes in an article about the Marian apparition. If there is no connection between the two, and this is common knowledge as you appear to suggest, then the section about the water is out of place in this article. A reader finding that it is just regular spring water would be led to believe by the tone of the article that it has hidden miraculous properties through connection to the vision of Bernadette, and this is the view of millions of pilgrims who visit Lourdes.

As this is an encyclopedia I feel like the view of those people is important, but equally important is the views of those critical to it; otherwise, it is a biased article presenting only one view. The passage you deleted "She herself never made any claim that the vision she said she had seen there promised cures at the shrine" I would argue is not at all obvious from reading the article, which heavily seems to suggest a connection between the vision and the reported healings from the water.

If you wish for a more direct and more critical view I will find it, but I figured mild criticism of something mentioned in the article would be the best way to start a section on critical views.Issekinicho (talk) 23:19, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

I am not sure if I get your point right: Which section about the water? In my (not so) humble opinion the article expresses that there is a spring which appeared after one of the visions of "the Lady" and that there occured miraculous healings (if I remember correctly, 69 up to now) after bathing in the spring water. This need not mean that the cause of the healings is the water itself or some of its "powers". ("The lady", btw., asked Bernadette to drink from the water and to wash herself in it.) As a small personal note: I wonder why anyone wants to critisise miracles that healed people. Is there anything bad about it?--Medusahead (talk) 08:36, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

I am referring to the reported healings section, which is more a discussion of the water than it is of the miracle.

It is not that people being healed is bad, it is just that to attribute an explicitly miraculous cause to their cures represents a certain point of view about reality; to represent that reality here without representing at least some of the dissenting views to that would be NPOV. Some people do believe that the healings approved by the medical board are evidence of miracles; others, for instance the coiner of the Lourdes Effect, claim that it is not statistically satisfactory to establish a truth claim. Representing both views makes the article broader in its scope.

I don't mean ill will so I shouldn’t have to feel like I am saying something controversial here; a criticism section representing other views is offered on other miracle articles (such as the Miracle of the Sun, The Splitting of the Moon, and the Ganesh Drinking Milk Miracle). Even on topics unrelated to miracles and espousing a non-religious POV, such as Agnosticism there is a criticism section (or separate pages such as Criticism of Atheism). All these sections in those pages make the articles more informative, and more comprehensive about the plurality of views that exist concerning their topics.

If the water had no healing effect, it would be disingenuous on the part of the city to profit off the tourism of sick pilgrims. To speak frankly, as the article stands now it reads like it belongs more on the tourism website for Lourdes than on an internet encyclopedia. But that is beyond the point of discussion. I don’t like the feeling that I am beginning to have here of stepping on toes so I will leave our discussion at this juncture. Issekinicho (talk) 04:20, 16 April 2021 (UTC)