The History of Belmont Abbey’s Lourdes Grotto

(From Fr. Paschal Baumstein’s My Lord of Belmont)

In June of 1890, Father Francis Meyer, O.S.B., a young priest of the abbey, contracted typhoid fever. As the disease lingered into its second month, (Abbot Leo) Haid wrote, “I am afraid he will die, [although] we have prayed and still pray for his recovery.” Father Felix (Hintemeyer), who had organized these prayers, appended to the pious petitions the promise that should Father Francis be cured, the monks would build a grotto in honor of the Virgin, whose apparition before (St.) Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes in 1858, had sparked great interest and devotion throughout the Catholic world. Meyer recovered, and Father Felix set the brothers to hauling granite boulders, while he searched for donors to finance the work.

The Grotto of Maria Lourdes was a tasteful, period creation in a cove just northeast and below where the monastery then extended. There was a niche for the statue of the Blessed Mother, an altar of wood, granite, and marble, with brass accessories…The grotto was typical of the Hintemeyer flair. Of itself it was simple, attractive; it exuded peace, piety, and prayer. But Father Felix, as usual, stepped back from the monument he had erected and allowed it to frame the gifts of Leo Haid. At the prior’s suggestion, Abbot Leo agreed to bless the Lourdes Grotto as a Pilgrimage Shrine—the only one in the state. Hintemeyer then planned the festivities, arranged press coverage from as far away as Baltimore, and of course ordained that the highlight of the ceremony would be an address by the Right Reverend Bishop (Haid). 

Interest had been encouraged by Father Felix’s announcement that the grotto was to be, above all else, “The Southern shrine of the Queen of the Clergy for Priestly Vocations”…The bishop pontificated at the High Mass in the Abbey Church at nine o’clock on May seventh (1891). Professor F. Mutter of Richmond composed a special Mass for the occasion, and Father Bernard led the students’ choir and orchestra in performance… 

To this day, students can be seen praying at the Grotto shrine with pious frequency, either individually or together, as in our campus Saints Group. Many visitors also come to the Grotto to pray and to venerate Our Lady. But it is the monastic community that can be found there every May evening, in Mary’s month, entering spiritually into the peaceful sanctity of the place and its miraculous beginnings.