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Patron saints

Prayer to Our
Lady of Lourdes

The prayer the sick and those who care for them say to the Virgin Mary as she appeared at Lourdes.

Picture: Virgilio Tojetti, Our Lady of Lourdes, 1877

The words of the prayer

Plain English

Immaculate Virgin, Mother of mercy,health of the sick, refuge of sinners,comfort of the afflicted,you know my needs, my troubles and my sufferings.Turn a kind look on me.

When you appeared in the grotto of Lourdes,you wished it to become a chosen placefrom which you would pour out your favours,and many in distress have already found therethe cure for their sicknesses of soul and body.

I come full of trust to ask for your motherly favours.Answer my humble prayer, gentle Mary,and, filled with your blessings,I will try to imitate your virtues,so that one day I may share in your glory.Amen.

Traditional wording, 1904

O ever immaculate Virgin, Mother of mercy,Health of the sick, Refuge of sinners, Comfort of the afflicted,thou knowest my wants, my troubles, my sufferings;deign to cast upon me a look of mercy.

By appearing in the Grotto of Lourdes,thou wert pleased to make it a privileged sanctuary,whence thou didst dispense thy favors,and already many sufferers have obtained the cure of their infirmities,both spiritual and corporal.

I come, therefore, with the most unbounded confidence,to implore thy maternal intercession.Obtain, O loving Mother, the grant of my requests.Through gratitude for thy favors, I will endeavor to imitate thy virtues,that I may one day share thy glory.Amen.

Plain English by Wiser Walk, from the French. How the wording is made. Traditional wording: an unnamed translator, F. X. Lasance, Prayer-book for Religious, 1904.

Her story

She appeared to Bernadette Soubirous, a poor girl who was 14 years old, in a hollow of the rock of Massabielle just outside the town. Only Bernadette saw her and heard her voice, though crowds sometimes stood with her. On 2 March she asked for people to come there in procession and for a chapel to be built. When Bernadette asked her name on 25 March, she answered in the local dialect, “I am the Immaculate Conception”, words Bernadette did not understand and repeated all the way to the parish priest. Pope Pius IX had declared four years earlier that Mary was kept free from original sin from her conception. In 1862 the Bishop of Tarbes declared that the faithful could believe in the apparitions with certainty.

“Our Lady of Lourdes”, Catholic Encyclopedia, 1910; “25th March: the Apparition revealed her name”, Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes; “The recognition of the Lourdes Apparitions”, Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes

Her feast day

  • 11 February: Her feast in the Catholic Church.

“Our Lady of Lourdes”, Catholic Encyclopedia, 1910

Why people ask Our Lady of Lourdes

Healing

Catholics believe the Virgin Mary appeared 18 times in 1858 in the grotto at Lourdes, in the south of France, and a spring she pointed out there has flowed ever since. Pilgrims drink it and bathe in it, and the Church has recognised 72 cures at Lourdes as miracles, the latest in 2025. Pope John Paul II set up the Catholic Church’s World Day of the Sick in 1992, and it is kept every year on her feast, 11 February.

“The Grotto of the Apparitions at Massabielle”, Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes; “The Miracles”, Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes; Pope Francis, Message for the 30th World Day of the Sick, 11 February 2022

Where it comes from

Who wrote it

No one knows who wrote it. The Bishop of Tarbes approved it on 30 October 1867.

A prayer card bound into Règlements de la Société bienveillante de N.-D. de Bonsecours (Montreal, 1871), leaf 29

Our wording

The 1904 English asks her to obtain what we ask and adds “ever”; our wording follows the French, which asks her to answer the prayer.

In French

O Vierge Immaculée, Mère de miséricorde,santé des infirmes, refuge des pécheurs,consolatrice des affligés,vous connaissez mes besoins, mes peines, mes souffrances;daignez abaisser sur moi un regard favorable.

En apparaissant dans la Grotte de Lourdes,vous avez voulu que ce lieu devînt un lieu privilégié,d’où vous répandriez vos faveurs,et déjà bien des malheureux y ont trouvé le remèdeà leurs infirmités spirituelles et corporelles.

Je viens, plein de confiance, implorer vos maternelles faveurs.Exaucez, ô tendre Marie, mon humble prière;et, comblé de vos bienfaits, je m’efforcerai d’imiter vos vertus,pour participer un jour à votre gloire.Ainsi soit-il.

From Petite notice sur Notre-Dame de Lourdes (Montreal, 1874), p. 23.

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Berean Standard Bible