In the Middle Ages, Christians travelled for months at a time on pilgrimages to faraway places such as Rome, Santiago de Compostela and Jerusalem. These far-flung pilgrimages were gradually reserved for the privileged, who sought honour, exoticism and adventure as well as spiritual rewards.

From the 16th century onwards, local pilgrimages, known as substitution pilgrimages, began to develop. Some sites reproduced a shrine of great prestige or a Way of the Cross that allowed pilgrims to relive the sacred story.

While the Protestant reformers condemned the practice of pilgrimages, the Catholic Reformation supported these initiatives, which were intended to strengthen the faithful in their faith. The cult of the Virgin Mary was encouraged. Marian chapels proliferated as proof of loyalty to the Catholic faith.
From 1850, under the long pontificate of Pius IX (1846-1878), Marian devotion was renewed with the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854, the apparitions of the Virgin at La Salette in 1846, at Lourdes in 1858 and at Fatima in 1917.

The proclamation of the dogma of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in 1950 confirmed the importance of the Virgin Mary in the truths of the Catholic faith.

Numerous pilgrimages are made to these apparition sites. As in the 16th century, many priests and faithful gave their parishes a place of devotion to the Virgin of Lourdes, as an alternative to the Pyrenean pilgrimage. Charmey, Grandvillard, Jaun and many other parishes in Gruyère and the canton created a devotional grotto in the first half of the 20th century.

The Lourdes caves in Charmey, Grandvillard and Jaun are open at all times.