Three days later, Bernadette and the two girls received Bernadette’s mother’s reluctant permission to return. Thus began a series of trips to the grotto, with a growing number of townspeople joining the three. Only Bernadette, though, saw the lady. On the third appearance, the lady spoke to Bernadette for the first time, in Occitan, asking Bernadette to return for the next fourteen days. During the next two weeks, the lady appeared to Bernadette twelve times. She instructed Bernadette to tell the priests they were to build a chapel there, that she should wash in the fountain, and that she was to pray for sinners. The lady also revealed three secrets to Bernadette, enjoining her silence. Even as more people flocked to the grotto, many doubted Bernadette, criticizing her and her family. During the ninth vision, the lady asked Bernadette to drink from a spring of water in the cave. Finding and drinking from a small muddy puddle, Bernadette emerged with mud on her face and encountered the onlookers’ ridicule. Over the next two days, the little mud puddle turned into a flowing spring of clear water. After a woman with a paralyzed arm bathed her limb in the water and was cured, many began to believe that Bernadette was seeing and talking to the Blessed Mother, although the lady had not revealed her name. Bernadette returned to the grotto on March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation. When she asked the lady’s name, the lady responded, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” Bernadette repeated the name to herself over and over so she wouldn’t forget. When she told the parish priest, he was stunned. Only four years prior, the pope had issued the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception. This fact, especially, convinced Church leaders that the apparitions were authentic. Several years later, Bernadette entered religious life. She died in 1879 and was canonized in 1933. Today, the waters in Lourdes continue to flow. The faithful have professed countless healings, and the Church has confirmed seventy healings through a rigorous scientific process. Millions of the sick flock to this holy grotto every year to seek a cure by bathing in or drinking the miraculous water, making Lourdes one of the most frequented pilgrimage sites in the world. *Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us 🙏*