29 Nov 2019

Roses for Our Lady of Lourdes

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The rose has been associated with Our Lady of Lourdes ever since the first Apparition. Abbe Peyramale, perplexed at the Lady’s request for a chapel, had the idea of asking for a sign and told Bernadette Soubirous of his expectation. “If she wants the chapel, ask her to say her name and to make the rose bush bloom!” He even added, “If she tells you her name, and if she makes the rose bush bloom, we will build her a chapel, and it won’t be a small one! It will be very big, go!” (Laurentin Bernadette speaks)

The thousands of roses will be deposited at the Grotto

On 8th December, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, on the Spanish Steps in Rome, the Pope will lay a bouquet of flowers at the foot of a marble column, more than 11 metres high and supporting a statue of Mary, to pay homage to her Immaculate Conception. On that same day, in Lourdes, at the very place where the Virgin said, “I am the Immaculate Conception”, the Sanctuary will join with the Holy Father’s actions: thousands of roses, ordered online by pilgrims visiting the website, will be placed in the Grotto, at the feet of Our Lady, to pay her homage and thus prolong the joy that Bernadette experienced when she said: she had a yellow rose on each foot, the colour of her rosary chain.

Every 8th December, the Sanctuary of Lourdes celebrates the feast of the Immaculate Conception

This year, Msgr. Antoine Hérouard, Apostolic Delegate, will be presiding at the Mass in the Basilica of Saint Pius X, followed by the Angelus at the Grotto and the Blessing of the Roses.

The programme

The rosary makes the world bloom

Believers from around the world are invited to join this event by offering a rose to Mary (via our online form). At the same time, on this same day, on all continents, an immense prayer chain will be organised, the initiative of the family Our Lady of Lourdes and the Padre Pio prayer groups. Poland especially will be actively participating in this prayer chain of the Rosary of the Immaculate to commemorate the fifteenth anniversary of the visit of Saint John Paul II to Lourdes. Why not join them? Saint Padre Pio said, “Let us love the Virgin and make her loved. Always pray the Rosary!”

The novena

From 30th November, we are invited to prepare for this great and beautiful celebration by going to confession and a by offering a novena.

Holy Virgin Mary, who in Lourdes named herself the Immaculate Conception,
you are the most beautiful, the purest being to radiate the love of the Lord.
Through you, He come into our world.
In you we welcome Him, we poor sinners,
You teach us to open our hearts to Him.
We contemplate with Bernadette
these yellow roses at your feet, the colour of your rosary chain.
We offer our roses too …
May we join our prayers with yours,
Mother of the Church, our Mother.
May the prayers of your children, the prayers of your loving heart make this world, tainted by sin, blossom once more.
May we come to taste the happiness of paradise in you, the dawn of the new world,
Mary, the chosen one, God’s accomplishment, we bless you.
Thank you, Lord, for the gift of Mary, Our Lady of Lourdes, our Mother. AMEN.

Every day; pray all or part of the rosary, offer an act of love, and say the suggested prayer, repeating the following invocation three times: O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee. Here are the intentions for each day:
  1. We pray especially for the Sanctuary of Lourdes, that it may respond to the desire of Mary, entrusted to Bernadette.
  2. We pray for the Church, may it be a truly Marian Church, alive in the faith of the most vulnerable and the poor, and knowing how to make them welcome.
  3. We pray for those who suffer, for victims of evil and violence, and for our persecuted brothers and sisters.
  4. With the martyrs of Algeria, beatified in Oran this 8th December, we pray for a world reconciled in fraternal life and in love.
  5. We pray that all life will be welcomed, loved and supported, from conception to natural death …
  6. May the homeless, refugees, and migrants, finally find a home, and may all our hearts be open to the gifts of God.
  7. We give thanks for the feast of Mary Mother of the Church, celebrated for the first time by the whole Church the day after Pentecost.
  8. We give thanks for the 160 years of the sanctuary of Lourdes, for all the graces from heaven that spread across our earth.
  9. We give thank for the Bernadette’s of today who respond to God’s gift.

Further intentions for each day:
For Pope Francis and his intentions
For peace
For Christian unity
For unbelievers and souls in purgatory.