Mass

Sunday at 11:00 a.m.

Summer masses are held in the Grotto

Memorial thru Labor Day weather permitting.

GROTTO OF OUR LADY OF LOURDES

ST. Mary’s Catholic Church
Two Inlets, Minnesota

 

Photos taken by the late Frank Haas, Haas Printing.

FATHER JOSEPH MOYLAN, after a trip to the Grotto of our Lady of Lourdes in France, was inspired to build a replica in Two Inlets, Minnesota, where he was pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church.

In 1959 , construction of the Grotto began and was made possible with the help of much prayer and the work of local parishioners of St. Mary’s and the community who offered their talents and financial assistance to see the project though. The extra care taken in construction of the Grotto proved to be worth the effort, and the finished Grotto remains today as a memorial dedicated to the pastors who have served the St. Mary’s community of the years.

 

A COMMUNITY EFFORT

When Fr. Moylan presented his proposal to build a replica of the Lourdes Grotto at Two Inlets, his parishioners enthusiastically approved the plan and offered their help.

They readily agreed upon the site for the grotto - the wooded hillside to the right of the church. In commemoration of the 101 st anniversary of the first Lourdes

apparition, ground breaking ceremonies were set for February 11, 1959.

Volunteers worked to clear the area of brush and unwanted trees. Two brothers hauled the logs to their mill and cut them into cement and other supplies, and brought the rest back to be used for construction of the grotto itself.

Another volunteer brought his bulldozer to hollow out the hillside to replicate the setting at Lourdes.

 

Convinced now that the parishioners were fully committed to seeing the project through, Fr. Moylan approached the late Bishop Francis J. Schenk, the Bishop of the Crookstron Diocese, to ask for his approval and suggestions. In deciding where to place the statue of Bernedette, fr. Moylan requested that they put it in the same location as the spring at the original grotto in France.

Upon hearing that Father also thought it would be nice to have a natural spring on the site. The man who had cleared the hillside for the grotto cut a divining road from a nearby willow. He located a water vein on the exact spot planned for the statue. Water from this spring was used to mix the concrete needed during construction of the Grotto at Two Inlets.

Construction of the Grotto would have been an impossible task were it not for the many volunteers from the parish and the community who offered their talents and financial assistance to see the project through.

Men, women, and children shared their talents-the men by supplying physical labor and tools, the women by fund raising and planning, and the young people by their fund raising to defray the cost of the statue of St. Bernadette, their patron.

Thanks to these joint efforts and prayers- and blessing of God through the intercession of our Blessed Mother, The Grotto of Our lady of Lourdes at Two Inlets stands today.

 

ADDITIONAL NOTES

The beautiful life-size statues of Our Lady of Lourdes and Bernadette at the Grotto made of blanco carrara marble, are the work of a renowned Italian sculptor.

Since the way of the Cross is such an integral part of the devotional seeing in France, the Stations of the Cross are also part of the Two Inlets’ Grotto.

In April, 1981, Fr. Alto Butkowski, OSB, then pastor at St. Mary’s, proposed expanding the Grotto to include a Rosary Shrine. Thus, the Rosary Shrine, with its large Rosary designed for Living Rosary devotions, was incorporated into the Grotto area and dedicated July 10, 1981.

 

THE STORY OF LOURDES

The story of Lourdes was a familiar one to Fr. Moylan. On February 11, 1958, a fourteen-year-old peasant girl names Bernadeete Soubirous had gone to the cave called Massabielle to gather firewood with her sister and a friend.

As she took off her stockings to cross the stream, a vision appeared. Bernadette reports. “I say a Lady dressed in white. She was wearing a white dress with a blue sash and had a yellow rose on each foot, the same color as the chain of her rosary.”

“I put my hand in my pocket and found my rosary. I wanted to make the Sign of the Cross, but I couldn’t life by hand to my forehead….The Lady took the rosary from her arm and made the Sign of the Cross. I got down on my knees and began to recite the Rosary with the beautiful Lady. When I had finished the Rosary, the vision suddenly disappeared.”

The vision appeared again on February 14 and 18. On the third visit, they Lady asked Bernadette to return daily for fifteen days. Over the next two weeks, the Lady appeared twelve more times, and also on March 25, April 7, and July 16 of that year-for a total of eighteen apparitions.

 

During the ninth apparition, they Lady directed Bernadette to place under a rock and told her to drink the water from the spring there. After digging in the sandy dirt with her hands. Bernadette discovered the famous spring which now supplies 42,000 liters of water a day to the Grotto at Lourdes.

On subsequent apparitions, the Lady revealed herself to be the Immaculate Conception, and she requested that a chapel be built the site of the visions.

After a lengthy official inquiry, on January 18, 1962, the Bishop of Tarbes declared that “the Immaculate Mary, Mother of Good, really appeared to Berndette.” Thus it was that the Shrine of Our Lake of Lourdes was built at the grotto.

 

A FINAL NOTE

A turn of events prevented Fr. Moylan from being present when the Grotto at Two Inlets was completed.

Fr. Moylan was assigned to other work for his congregation and returned to his congregation’s Provincial House in New Mexico. He subsequently died on February 15, 1985 without seeing the completed Our Lady of Lourdes grotto at Two inlets.

 

DIRECTIONS TO THE GROTTO

From Park Rapids:

Take Highway 71 north eleven miles to Two Inlets Road (County Road #41). Take a left on Two Inlets Road and continue three miles to Two Inlets. Grotto on right of St. Mary’s Church.