The Second Apparition

WOOPS! Forgot to post on the second apparition 14th of February

Okay so I meant to post on each of the Lourdes apparitions and seem to have fallen at the second of eighteen hurdles - clearly am a bit rubbish. Anyway should have posted this on Saturday but didn't get time.

The second time Bernadette went back to the grotto was with two friends. Her confessor had advised her to take holy water and she did as she had been instructed by him. Ever obedient, Bernadette had done as her mother told her and steered clear of the grotto even though it caused her great sadness. However, on this Sunday her mother relented and, provided she stayed with her friends, the sickly Bernadette, over whom her mother fretted was allowed to return there.

This was the second silent apparition. Bernadette later wrote her own clear account of it. Bernadette was forced to recount her vision hundreds, even thousands of times and not even the smallest detail ever changed or altered - impressive considering that at the time of the visions she had been struggling to remember the catechism which would mean she could make her first holy communion. The veil to the left is the one that Bernadette wore during the apparitions These were worn by most peasant girls in the basque region in order to keep them warm in the cold Pyreneen winters. Little did anyone know the events of the winter of 1858 would change the quiet town of Lourdes (and the world) forever. Below is Bernadette's account of the apparition whichoccurred on 14th of February (next apparition is the 18th)

"The second time was the following Sunday. I went back because I felt myself interiorly impelled. My mother had forbidden me to go. After High Mass, the two other girls and myself went to ask my mother again. She did not want to let us go, she said that she was afraid that I should fall in the water; she was afraid that I would not be back for Vespers. I promised that I would. Then she gave me permission to go.

I went to the Parish Church to get a little bottle of holy water, to throw over the Vision, if I were to see her at the grotto. When we arrived, we all took our rosaries and we knelt down to say them. I had hardly finished the first decade when I saw the same Lady. Then I started to throw holy water in her direction, and at the same time I said that if she came from God she was to stay, but if not, she must go. She started to smile, and bowed; and the more I sprinkled her with holy water, the more she smiled and bowed her head and the more I saw her make signs. Then I was seized with fright and I hurried to sprinkle her with holy water until the bottle was empty. Then I went on saying my rosary. When I had finished it she disappeared and we came back to Vespers. This was the second time."