Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, Eastney
In 1937 Mrs Beach and Mrs Light of 15 Bransbury Road offered a garage and land at the side of their house as a site for a church. Initially, the garage was converted (by the builder Marchetti of Portsmouth), and blessed by Bishop Cotter on Sunday 14th November 1937. Plans for a permanent church were in hand, and £3500 rose when war broke out. In 1947 the diocese acquired the site of the house at number fifteen. A new church was built by Marchetti, and opened by Archbishop King on 11th February 1956. Originally served from St Swithuns, the parish was created in 1964.
The church is a prefabricated framed structure with rendered masonry external walls. Worship area comprises a single aisled hall with a curved suspended ceiling and rectangular clerestory windows. There is some modern stained glass at the liturgical west end. The former liturgical east wall is cold in an abstract pattern of black and white ceramic tiles, presumably dating from the 1968 reordering. More recently it has been further reordered, with the altar now placed on the long axis against the liturgical north aisle wall, with a suspended plain timber canopy over. The seating is arranged on three sides around the altar. A porch addition with three rooms and a community hall were built in 1983-4.
The following is taken from an article on Wikipedia about Our Lady of Lourdes:
Our Lady of Lourdes is a Roman Catholic title of the Blessed Virgin Mary venerated in honour of the Marian apparitions that reportedly occurred in 1858 in the vicinity of Lourdes in France. The first of these is the apparition of 11th February 1858, when fourteen year old Bernadette Soubirous told her mother that a "lady" spoke to her in the cave of Massabielle (a mile from town) while she was gathering firewood with her sister and friend. Similar apparitions the alleged "Lady" were reported on seventeen occasions that year, until the climax revelation of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception took place.N50
In 1862, Pope Pius IX authorised Bishop Bertrand-Severe Laurence to permit the veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Lourdes. On 3rd July 1876, the same Pontiff officially granted a Canonical Coronation to the image that used to be in the courtyard of what is now part of the Rosary Basilica. The image of Our Lady of Lourdes has been widely copied and reproduced, often displayed in shrines and homes, often in garden landscapes. Soubirous was later canonised as a Catholic Saint.47.204
On 18th January 1862, Bishop Laurence, the Bishop of Tarbes, declared: "We are inspired by the Commission comprising wise, holy, learned and experienced priests who questioned the child, studied the facts, examined everything and weighed all the evidence. We have also called on science, and we remain convinced that the Apparitions are supernatural and divine, and that by consequence, what Soubirous saw was the Most Blessed Virgin. Our convictions are based on the testimony of Soubirous, but above all on the things that have happened, things which can be nothing other than divine intervention."W001
Because the apparitions are private, and not public revelations, Catholics are not required to believe them. They do not add any additional material to the truths of the Catholic Church as expressed in public revelation. Soubirous said, "One must have faith and pray; the water will have no virtue without faith."03.396
The Catholic Church celebrates a mass in honour of "Our Lady of Lourdes" (optional memorial) in many countries on February 11th of each year- the anniversary of the first apparition.
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