The First Miracle at the grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes

February 11th is the feast day of Our Lady of Lourdes, commemorating the first Marian apparition Saint Bernadette had. The miraculous spring of Lourdes is world renowned for its healing waters. Many miracles are recorded in history, which affirms the healing power of the water in the spring. Here is the first miracle recorded to have happened in Lourdes.

Mrs Catherine Latapie was born in 1820 and she lived in Loubajac, near to Lourdes. She was 39 year old when she was cured on 1st March 1858.

At the time of the Apparitions, Catherine Latapie lived at Loubajac, a few kilometres from Lourdes. She had injured her right hand after a fall from a tree, in October 1856; in addition, she was at the end of her third pregnancy.

This accident caused a subluxation of the humerus, which was easily reducible, but owing to the traumatic stretching of the brachial plexus, she was left with an ulnar type of paralysis. She could not use the last two fingers of her right hand, which were held in typical palmar flexion.

During the night between the 28th February and the 1st March, 1858, Catherine Latapie was moved by a sudden impulse. She rose at three in the morning, woke her young children and set off for Lourdes.

Arriving there at dawn, she met Bernadette, went to the Grotto and knelt down to pray. Then with all simplicity, she bathed her hand in the little hollow which had already collected water from the Spring.

Straightaway her fingers returned to normal. They had regained their movements and suppleness. She could flex and extend them with the same facility as she could before the accident.

With haste she returned home, and the same evening–(it is this detail which enables us to be sure of the date of the cure)-she gave birth to her third child. He was ordained a priest in 1882.

In his report for Mgr Laurence, Prof. Vergez classed this case amongst the cures “presenting a supernatural character”.