*Includes pictures
*Includes medieval accounts
*Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading
While an admirable work of art created by the lapping waters of the once turquoise Gave de Pau, the unassuming riverside grotto tucked away on the northern neck of the Massabielle ("Old Mass") in the quaint town of Lourdes is hardly the most majestic in Mother Nature's collection. In fact, the cramped cave was so unexceptional that, for the most part, it remained untouched until the mid-19th century, save for a few stranded fishermen or herdsmen who took refuge there from unanticipated tempests and thunderstorms. Surrounded by hearty shrubs and swathed in winding vines of ivy, the shallow grotto, as damp as it is dim, is not even large enough to accommodate a coven of witches.
Despite its quotidian exterior and underwhelming dimensions, the grotto draws in millions upon millions of visitors year after year without fail today. Zigzagging queues of locals, out-of-towners, and Christian pilgrims alike wait patiently for their chance to not only appreciate, but pay their respects to the mystifyingly magnetic grotto. Many of the starstruck believers raise their hands, their eyes welling with genuine tears, towards a statue of whom the locals hail "Our Lady of Lourdes," which is housed in a niche illuminated by a Christmas-tree-shaped candelabra holding stacks of white taper candles.
They say that judgment does not exist in Lourdes. Once one sets foot on this hallowed soil, all barriers of race, social status, background, and religious differences cease to exist. One is no more than a humble soul in search of a renewal of one's connection to God. In a statement released to the French press in mid-August of 2008, Father Jacques Nieuviarts guaranteed the following: "Those who touch the rock at the grotto in Lourdes...Perhaps they are praying to be imbued with the strength of this rock. Those who drink the water from the fountain feel that their inner thirst is being quenched, that they have been changed, and that the water has purified them...In lighting the candle, they open themselves up to the clarity that comes from God, and when they depart leaving a burning candle, their prayer continues in union with the prayers of all the other people who have placed their lighted candles at the grotto..."
Given these promises of inner peace and spiritual awakenings, not to mention the countless cases - both claimed and "verifie