150 YEARS OF HEALING; Pilgrims to mark Lourdes anniversary.

Byline: By MICHELLE O'KEEFFE

NEARLY six million pilgrims visit Lourdes every year in the hope of a miracle.

This year even more Catholics are making the trek to the French religious shrine in search of healing as it is the 150th anniversary of the first apparition of the Virgin Mary.

Lourdes, which before 1858 was known largely as a staging post for the spa towns of the Pyrenees, is now the biggest site of Christian pilgrimage outside Rome.

It all began on February 11 of that year when peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous set off with her younger sister and a pal to collect firewood in the countryside outside Lourdes.

In a natural grotto near the Gave river, she spotted a pile of twigs.

As she took off her clogs to cross the water the 14-year-old heard a sound "like a gust of wind" and caught sight of "a Lady in white".

The Lady appeared to Bernadette more than a dozen times that spring, identifying herself merely as "the Immaculate Conception".

Bernadette drew a crowd from the start, swelling to 8,000 by March 4 when she experienced her 15th vision.

One day the Lady told the teenage girl to drink from a mysterious fountain within the grotto itself, the existence of which was unknown and of which there was no sign.

But Bernadette scratched at the ground and a spring immediately bubbled up.

Pilgrims began to be attracted by a report a blind man could see again after bathing his eyes in it.

On another occasion the apparition made Bernadette go and tell the priests she wished a chapel to be built on the spot and processions to be made to the grotto.

The religious authorities were initially hostile to her but finally, because of her claimed apparitions and apparently miraculous cures, they authenticated her vision. In 1862 they began work on the chapel at the grotto where the girl claimed the Lady had appeared to her.

The Church started to buy up the surrounding land and today the 50-hectare site, known as the Domain, is one of the largest shrines in the world.

It has several churches and chapels, visitors' centres, two nursing homes with beds for 1,300 sick pilgrims and the all-important baths.

The pilgrimage season lasts from Easter to the end of October but this year the 150th anniversary of the apparitions is an exception. The Feast Of The Immaculate Conception will run until December 8, along with dozens of festivities including 12 monthly Church missions and a visit from the Pope.

There are only 15,000 residents but 25,000 visitors arrive at Lourdes a day to see a marble statue of the Virgin Mary in a rock ledge in a cave and to be welcomed by the outstretched arms of the Basilica Rosarie.

Each day, 66 masses are said in 40 places of worship within the complex.

Around 750 tonnes of candles are burned every year at Lourdes and there is a torchlight procession every night at 9pm from April to October in which thousands take part.

There have been more than 7,000 "cures" claimed by visitors but only 68 are recognised by the Lourdes Medical Bureau - a group of doctors charged with investigating claims since 1905.

IN one case Liverpudlian John Traynor, who was paralysed fighting in the Dardenelles, walked again after visiting Lourdes to take the waters.

The last recorded miracle was an Italian grandmother.

In 1952 Anna Santaniello recovered from chronic heart disease after a shrine visit. This was only deemed "inexplicable" in 2005.

In 1999 Frenchman Jean-Pierre Bely was confirmed by two separate medical and scientific committees as having been cured of multiple sclerosis after his pilgrimage to the town.

Also a mum spoke in Christmas 2005 of her nine-year-old son's "miracle" recovery from cancer after a pilgrimage.

Hayley Robinson took Thomas to the site when specialists told her he had little chance of survival.

But days after returning home, doctors at Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool carried out a last-ditch op and found no trace of his malignant brain tumour.

Hayley, 30, said at the time: "Our prayers have been answered."

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CAPTION(S):

DEVOUT: Nun kisses wall of grotto; SHRINE: Followers at the sacred site; MIRACLE WORK Praying in front of the grotto at Lourdes