Lourdes, in the 19th Century, was one a village with more than 4,000 inhabitants. Mills were plentiful; many were dotted around outside the town, along one of the streams that flowed into the River Gave - the Lappaca.
 

Bernadette Soubirous was born in one of these mills on January 7, 1844, and lived there for ten years with her parents, Francois Soubirous and Louise Castérot. She called her home the "mill of good fortune" because it was there she discovered something very important in the life of every person: human love.

Around 1854 the introduction of steam mills helped launch the Industrial Revolution and ruin many millers with water mills including Francois Soubirous. At the same time, cholera struck Lourdes, thirty-eight died and hundreds of them were affected including Bernadette. These events reduced the Soubirous family to extreme poverty

The "Message of Lourdes" is the words and actions that were exchanged between the Virgin Mary and Bernadette at the Grotto of Massabielle during her 18 Apparitions, experienced from February 11, 1858 to July 16, 1858.
 

Tarbes Chambers of Commerce Monaco Scott 413
(Yvert Ceres #6, 1968) Revenue Stamp

To better understand the events which took place and the "Message of Lourdes" it is necessary to know the context of the Apparitions that Bernadette experienced. On February 11, 1858 Bernadette, her sister Toinette and a friend of theirs, Jeanne, went looking for wood on the meadows and towards "the place where the canal rejoins the River Gave" in front of the Grotto of Massabielle. Toinette and Jeanne crossed the icy water crying out with the cold; Bernadette hesitated to do this because of her chronic asthma. She heard "a noise like a gust of wind", but "none of the trees were moving". Raising her head, she saw, in a hollow of the rock a small young lady, who looked at her and smiled. This was the first Apparition of the Virgin Mary.
 

At the time of Bernadette’s apparitions, the Grotto was dirty, damp and cold, and was called the "pigs' shelter" because that was where pigs feeding in the area usually took shelter. Yet it was there that the Virgin Mary, dressed in white, a sign of total purity, the sign of the Love of God, the Immaculate Conception (Scott 412), appeared to Bernadette.
 

            
     Monaco Scott 417

Monaco Scott 416

      
        Monaco Scott 418

The center stamp (8f) shows a stained glass with apparition, the left stamp (10f) the empty grotto and the right stamp (12f) Grotto with statue and altar.

Map locations 1 & 2 are depicted on the 1f (Scott 412) and 12f (Scott 418).  Map location 1 is the location of the apparition as depicted on 8f (Scott 416).  Map location 12 is where the shrine is depicted on the 12f (Scott 418).  The 10f (Scott 417) is the view of the shrine and grotto from the Upper Basilica.

At Lourdes, the fact that Mary had appeared in a dirty and obscure Grotto, in Massabielle, the Old Rock, tells us that God comes to join us wherever we are, even in the midst of our poverty and failures. The Grotto is not only a geographical place, but also it is also a place where God gave us a sign by revealing his heart in a message.  The heart of the Message of Lourdes is that loves us as we are, with all our successes, but also with all our wounds, weaknesses and limitations.
 

Monaco Scott 421

Monaco Scott 412

Soubirous, on eighteen occasions from February 11, 1858 at the Grotto of Massabielle, near the town of Lourdes; that these Apparitions bear the characteristics of truth; that the faithful can believe them as true. We humbly submit our judgment to the judgment of the Sovereign Pontiff, who is responsible for governing the Universal Church".

This was a major declaration by the Bishop, four years after the Apparitions, on January 18, 1862, as he recognized these Apparitions as authentic in the name of the Church. This judgment was important because, although the Apparitions add nothing to the Creed or the Gospel, they are an essential reminder of a prophetic Visitation to our world.
 

Diamond Jubilee Commemorative Envelope mailed from Lourdes