Pope highlights link between Our Lady of Lourdes, sick and suffering

Published: 2004-02-09

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- This year's World Day of the Sick highlights the close connection between Our Lady of Lourdes and the world of suffering and illness, Pope John Paul II said at his midday Sunday Angelus. The pope spoke to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square Feb. 8, three days before the main celebration of World Day of the Sick at the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in France. It was at that shrine, the pope said, that "Holy Mary appeared to Bernadette Soubirous, revealing herself as 'the Immaculate Conception.'" The pope said this year also marks the 150th anniversary of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, a papal bull that Mary was conceived without sin. Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogma in 1854. World Day of the Sick takes place every year on the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, Feb. 11, the date the Blessed Virgin Mary is said to have first appeared before St. Bernadette in 1858.

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