Pope Leo XIV traveled over the weekend to Lourdes, France, one of Christianity’s most famous pilgrimage sites, where he prayed for the sick and suffering and met people connected to extraordinary healings that have puzzled doctors.

Leo arrived in Lourdes Saturday evening during his apostolic visit to France and went to the Grotto of Massabielle, where 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous reported apparitions of the Virgin Mary in 1858. Lourdes has since become a major destination for Christians seeking healing.

At the grotto, Leo prayed silently, touched the rock and drank water from the spring before praying for France and those who are sick and suffering.

The pope returned Sunday to celebrate an outdoor Mass before approximately 150,000 people, many of whom were sick or using wheelchairs. He told pilgrims that Lourdes offers hope even amid suffering.

“You will not leave Lourdes as you arrived,” Leo told pilgrims. “You will leave as missionaries of hope.”

Lourdes is perhaps best known for reports of medically unexplained cures. The Catholic Church has recognized only a small number of reported healings as miracles after extensive medical and religious investigations.

Dr. Alessandro de Franciscis, who spent 17 years leading the Lourdes Office of Medical Observation, said the pope’s visit included encounters with people associated with some of those extraordinary cases.

Among them was Sister Bernadette Moriau, whose recovery from a severe spinal condition was officially recognized by the Catholic Church as a miracle. Other cases highlighted included Antonietta Raco, who reported recovering from primary lateral sclerosis after visiting Lourdes in 2009, and Delizia Cirolli, whose recovery from Ewing sarcoma as a child was later recognized by the Church.

But de Franciscis said Lourdes cannot be measured only by physical cures.

“These so-called spiritual cures are so, so much more numerous than the physical ones that we know,” he said.

That message was also reflected in Leo’s time with sick and disabled pilgrims on Sunday afternoon. The pope visited the Accueil Notre-Dame, a facility that welcomes people with illnesses and disabilities who make pilgrimages to Lourdes.

“Fragility is not hidden here,” Leo told those gathered. “Instead, it becomes the place of a sacred encounter.” The visit also carried a difficult call for healing within the Catholic Church itself. Leo addressed the Church’s failures surrounding clergy sexual abuse and called for repentance, humility and acknowledgment of its “deep wounds, infidelities and painful errors,” linking the Church’s own healing to Lourdes’s message.

For millions who have traveled to Lourdes seeking answers, the message extends beyond whether a physical cure occurs.

As Leo put it during his visit, “The miracle of Lourdes” can be found in awakening hope in the midst of suffering.