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The Lourdes Grotto in St. Michael Catholic Church is 150 years old this year. According to Fr. Frank Uter’s “Stones Beside a River,” the Grotto was designed by Florian Dicharry and constructed in 1876 by Christophe Colomb only 18 years after the apparition of the Blessed Virgin to Saint Bernadette Soubirous, who was still living in a convent at Nevers, France, at the time of the Grotto’s construction. The Blessed Mother (the Mother of Jesus) appeared for the first time to St. Bernadette on February 11, 1858. It is considered among the first, if not the first Lourdes Grotto to be constructed in America, built 18 years after the first apparition. twelve years after the apparitions were approved by the church and two years before St. Bernadette died. The rock-like structure is made from charred clinkers of sugar cane bagasse, a by-product of sugarcane processing. Clinkers were hard rock remnants of burnt bagasse (sugar cane pulp) that had been used as fuel. Made of varied sizes and shapes, it was cemented and artistically put together by Christophe Colomb, a skilled artist and stone mason from Convent. The dome over the altar recessed within the Grotto is made of a large sugar kettle, a testament to the sugar industry in St. James Parish and its environs. The base and side of the altar are decorated with hundreds of small clam shells from the Mississippi River. The many marble ex voto slabs, now anchored on the walls, indicate gratitude to God and the Blessed virgin for her intercession for favors granted. One of the largest is dated July 25, 1876, and was donated by the Vasseur Weber family for his being safely found after being lost four days in the swamps. Marist Father George Meiluta, a former pastor and Marist historian, recorded that on Easter Sunday, 1986, “St. Michael Church was filled to capacity, with extra seats for the Jefferson College Band, as Father John Grimes, S.M., rector of the college delivered the sermon. Father Bigot, S.M., Spiritual Director of the College, blessed the large Immaculate Conception statue, the same one that is there today, which was carried through the church on the shoulders of eight men and then hoisted to its present niche. In the 1940’s Father Constantin Chauve personally hand painted rock formations on the rear wall of the Grotto, and a recirculation fountain was installed. In the 2006 restoration of St. Michael Church, a mural was painted on the rear wall, the fountain was put back into working condition, and to celebrate the occasion, several liters of Lourdes water, brought from France by Father Frank Uter and Brennan Dicharry, a descendant of Florian Dicharry, were placed in the fountain.