The Euclid Shrine With 100 Years of Stories of Healing Waters and Marian Apparitions

Water trickles from a spout into a small pool under a sculpture of the Virgin Mary, with the phrase “I Am The Immaculate Conception” surrounding her head in a halo. Potted flowers and greenery frame the sculpture on stone steps of the lush grotto, set into a Euclid hillside. Cicadas’ hums fill the secluded park. Nearby, a member of the Sisters of the Most Holy Trinity trims a tree’s branches; another sits at a bench in the shade.

It’s this serenity that visitors of Euclid’s Our Lady of Lourdes National Shrine have sought for the past 100 years. Built in 1926, the grounds were modeled after its namesake shrine in Lourdes, France. There, Marian apparitions — reported supernatural appearances of the Virgin Mary — were reported by Saint Bernadette Soubirous and later confirmed by the Catholic Church in the 1800s.

Like its counterpart in France, Euclid’s shrine has reportedly been the setting of Marian apparitions, too, according to author Jennifer Boresz Engelking. In 1870, Julia Harms, a member of the family which owned the land at the time, said that a vision of Mary appeared to her while she was praying. Later, in 1912, writer Joseph Geisler visited the area and also said that Mary appeared to him, leading him to convert to Catholicism. Both stories are recounted in the book Our Lady of Lourdes National Shrine of Euclid, which Boresz Engelking wrote with her mother Joanne Boresz this year, in honor of the Euclid shrine’s 100th anniversary.

Jennifer and Joanne have strong family ties to the shrine, tracing back to Joanne’s grandparents' visits. Now a grandmother herself, Joanne often goes to the shrine with Jen and her children, Joanne’s grandchildren — marking the fifth generation of one family’s dedication. 

“I hope it continues well into the future,” Joanne says.

While the Lady of Lourdes National Shrine of Euclid is not a church, it holds daily masses, in a chapel during the winter and in the grotto during warm summer months. Its pathway around a hillside reveals an outdoor Stations of the Cross, and a candle room glows with rows of flickering flames. Numerous statues are scattered near the parking lot, pathways and on Rosary Hill. The Sisters of the Most Holy Trinity’s motherhouse stands nearby, on the shrine’s grounds.

Several significant religious relics can be found on the property, including stones from the original shrine in Lourdes, where Mary is said to have stood when appearing to Saint Bernadette. There is also a piece of Saint Bernadette’s bone in the Euclid shrine’s gift shop, according to Boresz Engelking.

The shrine in Europe has famously drawn millions of visitors for its reported healings and miracles that have occurred there, and 72 cases are considered officially miraculous by the Catholic Church.

Like in Lourdes, France, some believe that the shrine in Euclid also has healing waters. To the right of the statue of Mary, a small glass-fronted room gathers printed testimonies, newspaper clippings and items left at the Northeast Ohio grotto.

There are typewritten notes accompanying a wrist brace, back brace and leg brace, all of which were reportedly no longer needed from their previous owners after visiting the shrine. There’s a custom T-shirt, alongside a letter from proud parents who had previously struggled to conceive children. There’s a six-month sobriety medal, left by an anonymous visitor beneath the statue of the Virgin Mary.

“There are people who've driven from all over, from other states, who've heard about it and have had experiences where they feel they were healed from various illnesses or afflictions,” Jennifer says. “The sisters say, so often, that they don't know how many people have had these experiences there, because sometimes they come back and tell them, and sometimes they don't.”

Yet, many visitors come to Lady of Lourdes shrine in Euclid not for these stories of healing, but for gatherings of peace and togetherness. Jennifer and Joanne have visited the shrine to celebrate before marriages and births, and to grieve after family members’ deaths.

“It’s a place that we feel drawn to, like a lot of people,” Jennifer says, “and we feel like we’re blessed and lucky to have it so close by.”

“To this day I find great peace the moment I walk up the driveway to the shrine,” Joanne says. “I do think it is a little bit of heaven right here on earth.”

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