Our Lady of Lourdes Basilica, also popularly called Poondi Madha Basilica, is a Catholic pilgrimage centre located in Tamil Nadu . Poondi is a small village located in Thiruvaiyaru Taluk , about 35-km away from Thanjavur and . People from various parts of the country pour in to this Basilca throughout the year to witness the blessings of Poondimadha.
History
In the beginning of the eighteenth century (1714–1718) a great Italian Jesuit missionary named Rev. Fr. Constantine Joseph Beschi S.J., popularly known as Veeramamunivar, built a church and named it as the church of "Mary Queen of Immaculate Conception".
Rev. Fr. Lourdes Xavier, Parish Priest of the church in 1955 noticed the bad shape of the roof and consulted an engineer who told that except for the central roof, the rest of the structure was quite strong. He recommended that it was enough to demolish only the roof. After a while on one rainy night, the roof of the church collapsed, leaving everything else intact, thus saving the cost of demolishing. Shortly after this, the number of pilgrims to the Shrine was on the rise and kept increasing as accounts of miracles and cures started to spread. And people gave Her the name Poondi Matha. Matha means Mother in Tamil. Then onwards, the shrine was popularly known as Poondi Matha shrine.Poondi Madha Shrine has been raised to the level of Minor Basilica by Pope John Paul II on 3 August 1999.
