The Water of Lourdes

The Catholic shrine of Lourdes was established after Bernadette Soubirous, in 1858, received visions of Our Lady the Virgin Mary in a cave, or Grotto, just outside the French Pyrenean town of Lourdes. During one of these visions, Our Lady revealed a freshwater spring, that became an important feature of the shrine, and continues to flow.
This short film explores the theme of water, from the rain of the French Pyrenees, to the river Gave that flows through Lourdes, to the flowing spring-water in the Grotto, the dripping water on its rocks and the plumbed-in taps that deliver the water to visiting pilgrims.
The trade in Lourdes water was an important part of the economy of the early shrine. In 1899, 100,000 bottles of Lourdes water were sold by the Grotto administration for distribution around France, raising some sixty-thousand French francs (worth $420,000 today). (Suzanne Kaufman, Consuming Visions. Cornell University Press 2005: 31),
The water is no longer distributed on these terms. The water is free, and can be collected by any pilgrim to drink, wash and distribute as they see fit. There is, however, a lively trade in mostly plastic vessels that pilgrims can fill for themselves and take home for their own use, or to distribute to family and friends.