Grotto built in 1928 honors the Immaculate Conception of Mary
By Brenda Nettles Riojas
The Valley Catholic
RIO GRANDE CITY – Lourdes in southwestern France draws hundreds of thousands of pilgrims each year as the site where the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to a 14-year-old girl, Bernadette Soubiroux, in 1858.
The Virgin Mary appeared to Bernadette 18 times. During the ninth apparition, Bernadette, as instructed by the Virgin Mary, dug a hole in the ground with her hands, and a gush of water was released from an unknown spring. She was instructed to drink the water and wash herself there. The site is known around the world for its healing waters. During another apparition, the Virgin Mary identified herself saying, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”
Closer to home, Our Blessed Mother draws people west to Starr County where pilgrims come, in smaller groups, to Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto, a replica built in Rio Grande City 70 years after the apparition in France.
While there are no healing waters in a county where drought conditions persist, the man-made setting provides a quiet prayer space. One can choose to kneel in the grotto built on the north side of Immaculate Conception Church or sit on a stone bench shaded by the oak trees nearby.
Our Blessed Mother always in prayer, a rosary over her arm, the seven-foot statue brought from Paris, France stands in a hollow of the grotto. She stands above another statue of the child Bernadette who kneels before the Immaculate Conception. The agave cactus which grows on the concrete formed into the grotto reminds us we’re in south Texas, as does salmon-colored bougainvillea and the lavender periwinkles that surround the area.
A German priest, Father Gustave Gollbach, a missionary Oblate of Mary Immaculate who moved to Rio Grande City in 1924 as pastor of Immaculate Conception Church, built the replica in 1927-28.
According to the historical marker, “Father Gustave had dreamed of building a grotto to resemble the shrine of Lourdes in southern France.”
“Father Gustave fashioned the grotto with his own hands, and received help from many including a Baptist minister. It took 14 months of work before the grotto was dedicated on April 27, 1928,” reads the marker.
The grotto replica, which measures 33 feet high and 90 feet wide, cost an estimated $5,000 to construct.
“All of the rocks were brought from the surrounding hills of the petrified forest that once existed near Escobares.”
My visit to the grotto in Rio Grande City, reminded me of my first pilgrimage to Lourdes in 1998. Our group from the Diocese of Brownsville attended Mass at the grotto early one morning and participated in an evening procession and Rosary. As a lapsed Catholic some 15 years ago, my devotion and understanding of Our Blessed Mother grew during that early pilgrimage to the Marian shrines.
I remember wanting more time to sit in silence in Lourdes, but our busy schedule dictated otherwise. In Rio Grande City, I felt blessed to have an entire hour to sit in the grotto to pray and listen to the kiskadees splash in the water while the mocking birds added their own tune to the church bells ringing for evening Mass.
In my head I hummed the tune to “Immaculate Mary.” For me this song, particularly the refrain, which is both soothing and meditative, reminds me of that first pilgrimage to Lourdes.
Immaculate Mary, thy praises we sing;
Who reignest in splendor with Jesus our King.
Ave, ave, ave Maria.
Ave, ave Maria.
Pope Benedict XVI, who visited Lourdes on the 150th anniversary in 2008 said, “Mary teaches us to pray, to make our prayer an act of love for God and an act of fraternal charity.” He said, “A quiet encounter with Bernadette and the Virgin Mary can change a person’s life, for they are here, in Massabielle, to lead us to Christ who is our life, our strength and our light.”
They are in Rio Grande City as well, in a replica made 85 years ago by an Oblate priest who wanted to bring the message of the apparition to south Texas.
(Originally published in the June 2013 issue of The Valley Catholic newspaper.)
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