My Statement of Intent
I am going to produce a piece of coursework on the subject of pilgrimage in Christianity. I am going to descried what happens at the place of Christian’s pilgrimage.
The first question I will attempt to answer is to, describe what happens at a place of Christian pilgrimage?
The next question I will attempt to explain is why Christians go on a pilgrimage there and what affect it has on them?
The final question I will do is there more important things to Christians than pilgrimage?
Do you agree explain your answer?
Part A
In this part of my course work I will describe a Christian place of pilgrimage. The Christian place of pilgrimage that I will describe is Lourdes. I will explain why Lourdes is a place of pilgrim, why people visit and what has happened there in the past. I will also describe the places that a pilgrim whilst at Lourdes and what they would do and see there.
Nowadays you will see sick people and many other Christians going to Lourdes. This is because they believe going to Lourdes will miraculously cure them of the illnesses and ill faith. Lourdes is most importantly known as a place of divine interventions. It is also known to be a place of spiritual healing and strengthening. Since the first appearance of the blessed Mary millions of people go day after day and year after year and they have all been touched and healed by the Spiritual wellspring.
Bernadette Soubirous has had a large impact of why Christian’s pilgrims go to Lourdes. February 11th 1858 is an important date because this is when the story of Lourdes begun. Bernadette who was fourteen went out to collect wood with her sister and another girl. Whilst collecting wood she heard a noise which made her look up were she saw a women praying the rosary. The woman was dressed in white and was really beautiful. In total Bernadette saw the beautiful lady seventeen times, but the lady did not talk to her until the third time Bernadette saw her. This was on the 18th of February were the lady in white told Bernadette to keep visiting the grotto everyday for the following two weeks. Bernadette was told she would live happily in the next life if she was to do this. Gradually people found out of Bernadette’s vision whilst some chose to believe her others did not. Later on people went with Bernadette to see this woman that she was talking of. When people got to the place where Bernadette saw the vision of the lady they could not see her. This led them to believe that Bernadette had lied to them all. On February the 25th the lady told Bernadette to wash at the spring but there was no spring. So Bernadette, using her hands, dug a hole in the ground. Out of the hole muddy water appeared, so Bernadette began to wash herself at the spring. The next day when Bernadette arrived at the grotto she went to the place she had dug the hole the previous night, and to her amazement a fresh, clean spring of water was flowing from it. People would use the spring water to wash themselves and also to drink from it.
