Coming as a sick or disabled pilgrim | Lourdes Coming as a sick or disabled pilgrim I would like to stay in the Accueil Notre-Dame... Click here for more informations Individual pilgrims Designed in the form of open arms like the Rosary Basilica the Accueil Notre-Dame reminds us that, in Lourdes, everyone is made welcome and cared for. The Accueil Notre-Dame is neither a hotel nor a hospital. It is exclusively reserved for the sick and disabled pilgrims as well as those who accompany them.Situated in the within the Sanctuary, the Accueil Notre-Dame has an atmosphere of peace and calm. All around is greenery, fountain and flowerbeds border the bank of the Gave In the Accueil Notre-Dame the meeting areas guarantee a peaceful and friendly stay. Many of the open areas are furnished. Two panoramic terraced- roof areas allow pilgrims to meet and to converse in a friendly atmosphere. The two chapels allow people to pray or hold liturgies. The spacious rooms that contain from one to six beds (with specially adapted toilets and showers) allow the sick or disabled every possible comfort. Each room has an oxygen supply and each bed is fitted with an alarm bell.

There is a bedroom reserved for the doctor on call in each unit as well as basic treatment rooms. Meals are varied and adapted to national tastes as well as special diets. They are served in the eight dining rooms of the Accueil or in the bedrooms for those who are unable to move. Accueil Notre-Dame Tél : +33 (0)5 62 42 80 61 Fax : +33 (0)5 62 42 79 48 Send an e-mail If you are a pilgrim ill or disabled You come alone or with family? The Disability Service welcomes you. This service is a space in the Sanctuary led by the OCH (Christian Board of disabled people), which provides: - A café, a moment of friendship - Listening, personalized support - Advice for your pilgrimage to Lourdes, taking into account the different disabilities (mental, physical, sensory or psychological) - Loans of wheelchairs - A weekly attendance of a person engaging in Sign Language (LSF). - A tactile model of the Sanctuary ... Some examples of questions you can ask yourself ... * My 44 years old husband is invalid. We want to come to Lourdes. How are things?

* We live in Canada. We have three days in Lourdes with family, my wife suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease. We want a personalized warm, and with a priest. * Our son goes to Lourdes schizophrenic. What can you offer him? * I accompanied a group of deaf people to Lourdes. What can we live? * I come to Lourdes with a young Down syndrome. How to teach him the message Bernadette?

Reception Centre for people with disabilities and their families - OCH Porte Saint-Michel 65100 Lourdes Tél : + 33 (0)05 62 42 79 92 Open : 9h30- 12h et 14h-18h (except Sunday and Monday morning) Full of Grace: A Pilgrimage to the Holy Waters of Lourdes, France Full of Grace: A Pilgrimage to the Holy Waters of Lourdes, France x Third party travel products and services published Full of Grace: A Pilgrimage to the Holy Waters of Lourdes, France Edward Readicker-Henderson Next Can a skeptic get beyond the kitsch and find the true miracle of Lourdes? TWO DAYS AFTER I GET SUED for unpaid hospital bills, I fly to Lourdes, France. I figure I have a better chance with a miracle cure than with lawyers. And really, shouldn’t I have gone to bathe in the waters of Lourdes years ago? When I first started having all those conversations with Doctors With Serious Faces?

Certainly by the time they became Doctors With Very Serious Faces saying I wouldn’t have much use for calendars. Because if you need a miracle cure, Lourdes, set in a deeply inconvenient corner of southwest France, is where you go. Since 1858, when Bernadette Soubirous saw an apparition of the Virgin Mary—actually, she saw a whole bunch of apparitions over several weeks—Lourdes has been the place to be when nothing else works, when medical science has failed and faith is all you have left. Never mind that I don’t have faith. Never mind how easy it is, without faith, to be cynical in a place guidebooks describe as “a religious theme park.” But what if I forget all the questions of belief or disbelief and simply go with the same open trust I feel on every trip? At the most fundamental level, surely whenever we leave home we do so in hope of transformation. To see ourselves differently in a different place and to be reminded of how amazingly common beauty is, if only we bother to look. Besides, it’s not as though I have anything more to lose.

The taxi driver drops me off, I check into the hotel, and before I’ve even set down my pack, I hear singing. The sound leads me through the warm night air to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes. And there, several thousand people—the line of wheelchairs alone is eight abreast and maybe 200 yards long—are carrying candles and raising their voices in a hymn. The front of the shrine is lit by gold mosaic tiles reflecting each individual flame, and the only sound besides the singing is marchers weeping in joy. Try being cynical in the face of that. IF IT WEREN’T FOR BERNADETTE and a few thousand claimed miracles, Lourdes would barely be a wide spot on the road. Away from the sanctuary, about the most interesting thing is the way the ducks float sideways in the swift current of the Gave de Pau, letting themselves be carried down the river for a couple hundred yards before flying back up to their starting point, as if it is a game.

But then there’s the sanctuary, built in three layers of chapels, spires pointing to the sky, walkways leading off the sides like wings, all balanced on sheer rock above the grotto where Bernadette saw the apparitions. Bernadette was only 14 years old when she beheld the first apparition, a lady smiling at her from the grotto. Her family, over the previous several years, had fallen from quite a prosperous position, running the best mill in town, to utter destitution, living in a converted prison cell in a condemned building. Parisians of African descent, members of the French National Pilgrimage (designated by pink lanyards), participate in the nightly torchlight procession to the grotto at Lourdes. On the day of the first apparition, Bernadette had gone out to gather firewood, something to warm the home in the cold February weather. With luck, maybe she’d find something the family could sell for a few cents to get some food. And then, by the side of this river where I’m now watching sideways ducks, she suddenly felt a gust of wind, and Mary appeared.

Because of my academic background—I have an MA in religious studies—it’s all too easy to fit this Bernadette story into standard tropes: the adolescent girl undergoing a crisis; the inevitable element of water, when the apparition tells Bernadette to dig and she strikes a spring; and on it goes. No different from the origin stories of thousands of other sacred sites. Even the gusting wind is as predictable as halftime commercials. Back when I started my MA, a friend in his first year of law school explained his career path: “I can take being disillusioned with the law,” he said. “I can’t take being disillusioned with God.” Me, I was already disillusioned with God, but I desperately didn’t want to be. “Free your ass and your mind will follow,” the liner notes on an old Shriekback album had said, but that hadn’t worked. So I was hoping school would free my mind and my ass would follow. Which didn’t happen either. My friend is now a very successful lawyer. I’m wandering around Lourdes, wishing as always that I could make that jump away from disillusionment and into faith and belief and comfort.

The first cure at Lourdes happened while Bernadette was still seeing the apparitions. A woman with a dislocated arm regained its use when she washed it in the new spring. And the spot where Bernadette struck that spring in a dry cave is still pouring out healing water into a bathhouse and to a long line of taps where pilgrims today fill five-gallon jugs with faith. People save for years to come here, travel past endless horizons for these waters. I see groups from Sri Lanka and from African countries I’m not entirely sure I can find on the map. Each morning, at the baths, at the taps, at the grotto itself, the lines begin to form, a testament to the hope that—what? Miracles happen? Belief is worth any effort, and that effort in itself is to be honored? That when you’re sick enough, you’ll grab at any straw? A mosaic on the Basilica of Immaculate Conception Simple truth: When people get to that point of sick, most turn to God. Or god. Or they turn away, profess atheism, which is nothing more than a different belief. Either way, they’re thinking about what’s next.

Personally, I wish I could believe nothing came next, because I am very, very tired. Yet I can’t quite believe that either, and by the time I know, it’ll be too late to do anything about it. So meanwhile, I suppose, the only true worry is what’s going to happen in the final moment. A gasp, a sigh, a thank-you? Or only shaking fear? But what if what we feel is the comfort of a welcome? “She talked to me like a person talking to a person,” Bernadette later said of her time with the Lady. I WAIT IN LINE for nearly an hour to see the grotto up close. From a distance, it’s not all that impressive: a niche in the rock, the church towering above it, a cliff of carefully laid stone. The grotto itself isn’t even big enough for a Boy Scout troop to camp in, yet so many people are coming through, leaving candles—some so large it takes two people to carry them—that scraping old wax off the tree-size candelabra seems to be a full-time job.

Tiny flowers grow on the walls of the grotto, 15, 20 feet up, an unread Morse code of red and blue and purple. Maybe they were planted there, or maybe they just grow there because life looks for places to be. Who knows. As soon as we near the entrance to the grotto, people reach out to touch the walls; a dark stain shows where hands have gone for the past 150 years. Grandmothers touch children’s T-shirts to the grotto stone, fathers bow their babies’ heads to it. Everybody who was whispering goes suddenly silent. Plexiglass and a rope keep you from getting too close to the spring—the source of all the water for the taps and the baths, the source of all the miracles—which is about the size of a kitchen sink and covered in flowers. A tap yields water from the holy spring to fill bottles shaped in the likeness of the Virgin Mary. But the grotto offers water elsewhere, oozy wet spots on the wall, and since I’m tall, I reach one that’s far over the heads of the others, where it can be nobody’s prayer but mine.

I feel the water, think about it, put my wet fingers over my heart. Above me, the statue of Mary, carved while Bernadette was still alive (when Bernadette saw it, she said, “That isn’t her”), gazes down and seems completely beside the point. The candelabra is so full it’s like walking past a fireplace. And that’s it. That’s what you come to Lourdes for. To touch the point that the sacred once touched. I stand, looking back for a minute, then cross the bridge to watch the sideways ducks again. I KNOW I SHOULD BE talking to pilgrims, finding out why they’re here, what they’re hoping will happen, how they made their own leap of faith, but I just can’t bring myself to interrupt anybody’s reverie. Not that I’d be the only distraction. Using methods absolutely no statistician would accept, I work out a formula for separating the pilgrims from the tourists: Cut-off shorts, bad English T-shirts (there goes one depicting a Penthouse magazine cover), and talking about soccer (always in Italian) during hymns and prayers = tourist.

Intent expression, kneeling in one of the many, many chapels—there’s the plain one at the top of the sanctuary, with the bright windows; or the ornate one at grotto level where they got seriously carried away with gold paint; or one of the dozens stuffed in the nooks and crannies of the grounds—not saying a word, frequently making the sign of the cross = pilgrim. I figure the ratio of tourists to pilgrims works out pretty close to 50-50. Both stand in queues at the mile of religious kitsch stores that line the road to the shrine. The shops have very possibly the ugliest souvenirs I have ever seen, anywhere in the world. I start to buy a rosary for a friend, but the wood feels so greasy I just put it back and return to the sanctuary itself, where the air smells like candles and nothing is for sale. I’m also going to admit that I don’t know which side of the tourist-pilgrim line I fall on. I know I would rather be a pilgrim, but I have done the pilgrimage rodeo so many times before, I don’t know that my preference alone is enough to qualify.

Society Of Our Lady Of Lourdes - Home Home Society Of Our Lady Of Lourdes Welcome to our website Organisers of Pilgrimages to Lourdes for the Sick IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COME ON PILGRIMAGE WITH US NEXT YEAR PLEASE SEE OUR HELPERS PAGE OR CONTACT THE OFFICE TO FIND OUT HOW TO MAKE IT POSSIBLE ON TELEPHONE: 020 8848 9833 Our Latest Photos Cathedral of the Trees Welcome to our website The objective of the Society is to enable and encourage pilgrims, mainly from England, to visit Lourdes, minimising barriers of cost and disability. Originally formed in 1912 by the Catholic Association to care for the sick on the English National Pilgrimage to Lourdes, the Society of Our Lady of Lourdes took over running the whole pilgrimage in 1922 and exists solely on voluntary help and donations. Formerly the prime annual pilgrimage from England to Lourdes the role of this pilgrimage has evolved to focus more on the sick as individual diocesan pilgrimages were created. pilgrimage - Lourdes pilgrimage Lourdes What world religion is this pilgrimage a part of?

Lourdes is considered a Catholic Pilgrimage which began with the appearance of the Virgin Mary to a young peasant girl named Bernadette Soubirous in 1858. The Catholic Church accepted Lourdes as an official Catholic pilgrimage site in 1862. In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI visited the shrine at Lourdes to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the appearance of Mary. What is the history of the pilgrimage? Based on the apparitions a fourteen year old girl named Bernadette Soubiroux had of the Virgin Mary First Apparition happened on February 11,1858 ; eighteen occurred The vision was being a mysterious vision in the rock of Massabielle Bernadette describes the lady in her apparition as being “lovelier than I have ever seen” Bernadette was the only one to see and hear the vision speak to her even when she was in a crowd of people One day, the apparition told her to drink from a mysterious fountain in the grotto by the rock but there was no fountain available. When Bernadette went there and saw that there was no grotto, a gush of water appeared.

On another incident, the apparition told Bernadette to go tell priests that a chapel should be built on the rock of Masabielle. At first the priests were hesitant but four year later, a basilica was built upon the rock in 1862. Because the original basilica wasn’t large enough to house all the visitors, another church was built in 1901 and called the Church of Rosary. Pope Leo XIII declared a special mass in commemoration of the mass and in 1907, observance of this feast was decaled on February 11th Who goes on it?

People from all different backgrounds, and beliefs that believe in the apparitions Priests, nurses, doctors, bring Malades (French for “the sick”) to Lourdes to be healed People that wish to find the same spirituality that Bernadette embraced while having the noted apparitions Some people even believe and sometimes hope that they will receive an apparition from the Virgin Mary which will give guidance to their lives People that go to Lourdes also seek miracles to happen in their favor A British study concluded that miracle-seekers that come to Lourdes usually are significantly less anxious and depressed after they have left Statistics From the year 1867, 5297 pilgrimages had occurred and 4,919,000 pilgrimages had come to Lourdes through these pilgrimage Keep in mind that there are also other visitors who are not registered with the pilgrimages that visit Lourdes as well Out of the total 5297 pilgrimages, 464 have come from countries other than France such as United States, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Hungary, Spain and England.

About a million pilgrims travel to Lourdes per year with 15,000 being sick or ill Pilgrims come in massive amounts during Easter ; one pilgrimage counted over 5,000 pilgrims during one Easter A study done in 1978 showed that, during that time, pilgrims had come from 111 countries with females accounting for 69% of the pilgrims meaning that the other 31% were male Why do they go on the pilgrimage? What are the historical and contemporary reasons? Millions of people from almost every country in the world chose to go on the pilgrimage to Lourdes at times because of curiosity about the appearance of Mary and its affect on the millions of others that have gone on the pilgrimage, a desire for a cure for a physical aliment, an opportunity for self and religious discovery, or to volunteer and to be of service to those who suffer. Many people believe that the spring waters that flow from the fountains at Lourdes bring miraculous healing from God due to Mary’s presence there. What does the pilgrimage entail? Where do they go? What do they do?

The schedule of the Volunteers who travel to Lourdes: May 12-19, 2010 Day 1: Volunteers will arrive at the Pau Pyrénées airport and then taken by bus to Lourdes. After arriving at Hotel D’Espagne, there will be a brief orientation which will be followed by “In the Footsteps of Bernadette”. This will give everyone a better understanding about the life of Bernadette. At night, everyone will attend the Candlelight Procession and then head back to the hotel for evening reflection. Day 2: Morning Prayer will be at 7 a.m. followed by breakfast. Volunteers will work from 8:30-12:30 in their assigned locations. These locations will vary from the baths, trains, gates, or being a malades personal assistant. In the afternoon there will be mass, confessions and then the evening reflection. At 11 p.m. there will be a group going to grotto, this is optional. Day 3: Prayer will be at 7 a.m. followed by breakfast. Volunteers will work from 8:30-12:30 in their assigned locations.

The jobs will be switched around so no one repeats a job unless it is requested. Afternoon schedule will contain mass, helping with the malades, and doing a walk through of the Stations of the Cross. Day 4: A selected few will wake up at 4:30 a.m. to walk to the trains to help the arriving malades. This will go on until 9 a.m. The rest of the volunteers will work in the baths area until 12:30. After all the malades have all received their turn, volunteers will be offered to take advantage of this great opportunity. Day 5: Another group will be selected to wake up at 4:30 a.m. to walk to the trains to help the arriving malades. This will go on until 9 a.m. The rest of the volunteers will take the malades back and forth from mass to their hotels. This will go on from 9-3 which will then be followed by an assembly in front of the Statue of the Crowned Mary. Around 6:30 everyone will walk to the trains to help assemble malades onto the trains to go back home. Day 6: Morning Prayer will be at 9 a.m.

followed by breakfast. Volunteers will be able to have the afternoon to do whatever they may please. In previous years, volunteers have bought gifts to bring back to their family and/or climbed the mountain. The mountain is an uplifting experience and the view at the top is breathtaking. Mass will be held at 7 p.m. along with reflections. Day 7: Volunteers are encouraged to obtain and drink water from grotto. Also in the many years that the volunteers have been coming to Lourdes, many will light a candle for someone before they leave. A flight back to the United States will depart at 8 p.m. Schedule of the Malades: May 12-19, 2010 Day 1: Will arrive by train to Lourdes where you will be welcomed by a volunteer who will take you to your hotel. Once you are settled in you will join the rest of the malades to observe the candlelight procession. Day 2: Daily mass in the Basicalla will be held at 9 a.m. A volunteer will take you there and back from your hotel room. After you will go to the first destination of your visit, which will be the grotto.

You will be able to go through the grotto and touch the walls. A mass will be held outside of the grotto at 3:30. After your trip to the grotto you will be able to go to confessions before returning to your hotel room. Day 3: Daily mass in the Basicalla will be held at 9 a.m. After you will go to the see the golden Stations of the Cross. Many malades if they are able to will climb the stairs with their knees as a sign of respect. Once the Stations of the Cross is completed, a volunteer will take you around the area of Lourdes to anywhere you would like to go. This can include special sites you would like to visit, shopping, a mass, and even to get food before you return back to your hotel. Day 4: Depending on how early you would like to wake up, you will be able to visit the baths today! Some people arrive at the baths at 6 a.m. even though it does not open until 9. This is because the lines fill up quickly and then the volunteers have to stop accepting the malades because there are to many. While waiting on life, someone will lead the saying the rosary.

After the baths (it will take up to nearly 4 hours of just waiting) you will be taken to the candlelight procession. Day 5: Today in groups the malades will travel to go and drink the blessed water. This usually takes a whole morning because many like to fill up their containers with water, so they are able to take it home. After going to get the water we will be going down for anyone who would like to light a candle for someone. This experience is very personal and is very heartfelt. Day 6: Daily mass in the Basicalla will be held at 9 a.m. After mass, the malades are given another volunteer because today is the last day. It is your opportunity to go anywhere you have not gone yet or would like to visit for a second time. Many like to take a picture of the Statue of the Crowned Mary, visit shops to pick up rosaries and even walk around the beautiful grounds of Lourdes! Day 7: Departure—volunteers will arrive to take you to the train station where they will then load you onto the train so you can return home At the baths How does it connect to the faith? What important beliefs does it express?

Many travel to Lourdes because of what it is meant to represent. It is known throughout the world that miracles have occurred there. Many have visited with the deadliest of sicknesses yet once they arrived in Lourdes they were healed. Lourdes connects to faith because of how strongly people believe in this one place. Their faith is shown through the faces of the malades and the volunteers. People from different religions and backgrounds come because of the spirituality and hope it contains. After visiting Lourdes, many believe that their faith has grown stronger because of what they have witnessed while they were there. The beliefs that Lourdes itself expresses is that of unity. Unity is what connects everyone when they are there. No one is different because everyone is there for the same reason. Prayer to Our Lady of Lourdes: O ever-Immaculate Virgin, Mother of Mercy, health of the sick, refuge of sinners, comforter of the afflicted, you know my wants, my troubles, my sufferings; look with mercy on me.

By appearing in the Grotto of Lourdes, you were pleased to make it a privileged sanctuary, whence you dispense your favors; and already many sufferers have obtained the cure of their infirmities, both spiritual and corporal. I come, therefore, with complete confidence to implore your maternal intercession. Obtain, O loving Mother, the grant of my requests. Through gratitude for your favors, I will endeavor to imitate your virtues, that I may one day share your glory. Amen. Sources: Orientation for the Sanctuary of Lourdes | Lourdes Orientation for the Sanctuary of Lourdes Facebook Actualité Mgr Brouwet : "In these pages I would like to give some guidelines for the future, so that together, chaplains and employees of the Sanctuary, hospitality members and pilgrimage directors, volunteers and partners of the Sanctuary, can work to better fulfill the mission entrusted to us." Orientation for the Sanctuary of Lourdes : "Serving the joy of the guests" Orientation for the Sanctuary of Lourdes : "Serving the joy of the guests" “On the third day there was a wedding in Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.

Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding. When the wine ran short, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." Jesus said to her, "Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come." His mother said to the servers, "Do whatever he tells you." Now there were six stone water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washings, each holding twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus told them, "Fill the jars with water." So they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, "Draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter." So they took it.

And when the headwaiter tasted the water that had become wine, without knowing where it came from (although the servers who had drawn the water knew), the headwaiter called the bridegroom and said to him, "Everyone serves good wine first, and then when people have drunk freely, an inferior one; but you have kept the good wine until now." Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs in Cana in Galilee and so revealed his glory, and his disciples began to believe in him.” [Gospel according to Saint John 2:1-11] “Go and tell the priests that people should come here in procession, and that a chapel should be built here.” In the Sanctuary of Lourdes we are servants of the request made by the Virgin Mary to Bernadette on Tuesday 2 March 1858, during the thirteenth apparition. What, therefore, is our mission? To welcome pilgrims by providing access to the Grotto and the spring, and accompanying them in the footsteps of Bernadette under the guidance of Our Lady. To build a Church by preaching the Gospel, and by celebrating the Sacraments of the Eucharist and Reconciliation.

In this poor Grotto of Massabielle a corner of heaven touched the earth so that we may experience the closeness, tenderness, and joy of God, of which Mary is the face and the servant. Our mission is to ensure that all those who come to Sanctuary are touched, before the Grotto, by the unconditional love of Jesus. Our preaching, our projects, our initiatives, and our work should lead to that. This is the greatness of our responsibility: as at Cana, serving the joy of the guests under the guidance of Mary, to let the Lord do His work in our hearts; a work of mercy. Our Sanctuary must be a place where men and women who come to the Grotto understand how much they are loved by God. We should always return to this mission; deepening it, developing it, and adapting it to current circumstances. Successive Bishops, rectors, chaplains and their collaborators have learned, since the apparitions, to serve pilgrims and understand their expectations, their thirst, their aspirations. They were able to explain the messages of Our Lady and understand the scope and urgency for their time. We inherit a long history of celebrating the grace of God and preaching the Gospel.

The 2008 Jubilee of the 150th anniversary of the apparitions of Mary to Bernadette showed the commitment of Catholics to the Sanctuary and its reputation in the world. It also showed vitality. We have gained our experience in particular by working with pilgrimage organizations, whether diocesan or associations. Each year more than 600 of these groups come to Lourdes. They represent the "backbone" of our pilgrimage season and dictate the rhythm. It is thanks to them that hundreds of thousands of Christians come to the Grotto of Massabielle each year, often accompanied by their bishops. In these pages I would like to give some guidelines for the future, so that together, chaplains and employees of the Sanctuary, hospitality members and pilgrimage directors, volunteers and partners of the Sanctuary, can work to better fulfill the mission entrusted to us. My goal is to give a general direction to help in the discernment of our future plans and in the decisions that we make. Do not hesitate to raise these issues, not only at meetings in the Sanctuary, but also at pilgrimage conventions and Hospitality meetings!

These guidelines are the fruit of two year’s work with the Council of Lourdes, comprised of chaplains and senior members of staff of the Sanctuary, who meet together every month. 1. Reception facilities and proclamation of the Gospel During the coming years it is my wish that we focus our efforts on welcoming individual pilgrims, sick or disabled people, families and youth. Individual pilgrims We know well that the greater number of pilgrims who come are not in pilgrimages organised by a diocese or association, but make their own arrangements. They are individuals, families, groups of friends. They come to Lourdes for one or more days. Their pilgrimage is sometimes part of a larger trip: a holiday in the Pyrenees, in France or Europe. Many already know the Sanctuary. But there are many people who come for the first time and who do not know the message of Lourdes. Among them some are baptized but know little about the Christian faith. Some are not Christians, belonging to other religions or have no beliefs. We have a special responsibility vis-à-vis these pilgrims. We must continue to welcome those who come on organized pilgrimages.

But we need to think in new ways to welcome those who come individually, especially those who come to Lourdes without knowing what they will find or how they will experience those few hours or few days at the Grotto of Massabielle. Let us start with an assumption: all those who enter the gates of Sanctuary have an expectation, a spiritual anticipation, because they know that in this place of apparitions heaven somehow touched the earth. But it is also a very real expectation vis-à-vis us, because they need to be supported in their approach. I wish that in the coming months, we think about this: how to welcome, support and provide the newness of the Gospel to those who come on pilgrimage without knowing what Lourdes is about, without landmarks in the Christian faith, sometimes without even knowing how to make the sign of the cross or pray the Our Father. How are we going to meet them as they are, respecting their own rhythm, without fear of announcing Christ? This is a true work of evangelization which requires availability, listening, patience and a pastoral sense. It will obviously involve guiding the pilgrims to existing facilities such as the "day pilgrim" service or films presenting the message of Lourdes.

But, above all, it will also be necessary to take time with only a few people, without seeking effectiveness or return. “I dream of a ‘missionary option’, that is, a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything”, wrote Pope Francis in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, “so that the Church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channeled for the evangelization of today’s world rather than for her self-preservation. The renewal of structures demanded by pastoral conversion can only be understood in this light: as part of an effort to make them more mission-oriented, to make ordinary pastoral activity on every level more inclusive and open, to inspire in pastoral workers a constant desire to go forth and in this way to elicit a positive response from all those whom Jesus summons to friendship with himself.” Evangelii Gaudium, 27. This welcome, this evangelization, is certainly first and foremost the work of chaplains and religious Brothers and Sisters. But it may also be that of volunteers, of young people who have the desire to proclaim Christ by offering a true Christian initiation.

I wish, in this regard, that we propose fundamental catechesis in the Sanctuary, to give an education in the faith to those who seek to advance in the Christian life. The Sanctuary of Lourdes is an ideal place to encourage and strengthen our relationship with Christ. It is essential also that chaplains continue in the dynamism of the Year of Faith, to ensure the presence and catechesis in the Grotto, the baths and the spring, with the desire to make known to the pilgrims how much they are loved by God. During the apparitions the Virgin Mary presented to Bernadette the face of God's tenderness for humanity. This tenderness, this concern, is particularly visible in the sacrament of confession and reconciliation which is primordial in the pilgrimage to Lourdes. In his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis gives us the key catechesis to all our teaching: “we have rediscovered the fundamental role of the first announcement or kerygma, which needs to be the centre of all evangelizing activity and all efforts at Church renewal. The kerygma is Trinitarian.

The fire of the Spirit is given in the form of tongues and leads us to believe in Jesus Christ who, by his death and resurrection, reveals and communicates to us the Father’s infinite mercy. On the lips of the catechist the first proclamation must ring out over and over: ‘Jesus Christ loves you; he gave his life to save you; and now he is living at your side every day to enlighten, strengthen and free you.’ ”Evangelii Gaudium, 164. Our objective is that each pilgrim should leave Lourdes with this message of hope in the heart. Sick and disabled people In Lourdes they have pride of place. I think we can be proud of the manner in which they are welcomed, in particular at the Accueil Notre-Dame, by the Sisters of Saint-Frai, and at the Salus Infirmorum of UNITALSI. Why do the sick or disabled come to Lourdes? To make a pilgrimage in faith. Our mission is to make this pilgrimage possible and fruitful.

It is essential that each of them is involved, as far as possible, in the preparation of the pilgrimage, and that we know how to listen to them before, during and after the journey: attentive to their projects, their desires and expectations. Do not forget that often these are sick or disabled people who evangelize the "able-bodied" people by their commitment to Christ in their prayer, their joy and trust in the Lord. They strengthen our hope. We have much evidence of this, very often from younger pilgrims. In this regard, some pilgrimages seek to promote greater autonomy for the sick or disabled. It is true that Lourdes has a long history of supporting these pilgrims, especially through the Brancardiers and all those who assist the residents of the different Accueils. But new initiatives emerge to give the sick people the greatest possible autonomy. Some groups offer them the possibility, for example, of staying in the hotel with valid pilgrims. I think we need to reflect, with all those who are engaged in these services, on these initiatives and our way of being present to the sick pilgrims. Finally, we know that the number of sick people is decreasing slightly, especially those who are most severely afflicted.

This is partly due to the increasing difficulty in transporting them to the Sanctuary by rail. But there is another, deeper, reason: we hesitate to invite people, whose health is fragile, to Lourdes. In hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, the management is reluctant, in principle, to allow residents to travel. That is why it is families, visitors, and chaplaincy teams who, in an act of trust in God, must encourage them to go to Lourdes; not to expect a miracle, but to strengthen their faith, their hope, and their personal roots in the life of grace. In collaboration with Hospitalities and directors of pilgrimages, we shall put forward proposals to dioceses and chaplaincies to facilitate the journey to Lourdes by the most vulnerable people. Families Families especially need to be supported and helped. Many of them seek places of healing in faith where everyone, parents and children, may be encouraged in their Christian life. Bernadette’s personality, her humble spiritual journey under the guidance of Mary, the life of faith and prayer of the Soubirous family at the Boly Mill and the Cachot, the climate of affection that reigned within it, are all subjects of meditation for families.

In cooperation with all the departments of the Sanctuary, the Cité Saint-Pierre, religious communities of Lourdes, guest houses and hotels, we shall see how we may accommodate families, particularly those who lack financial resources to undertake such a journey. We should also work towards providing facilities for caring for young children to give parents the opportunity to take time for themselves. Note that many grandparents take their grandchildren to Lourdes to help them discover this place of grace and healing during the holidays. We would also like to encourage and help organize such visits. Young people The Sanctuary is a real school of life for young people: through the liturgy, the service to the sick and disabled, the experience of the universal Church. Lourdes is an ideal place to discover, implement or develop the foundations of the Christian life: praising God, the sacramental life, the service to others - especially the most fragile – opening to catholicity, meeting Christian communities in all their diversity, proximity to all states of life, fraternal meetings with priests and bishops - pastors of the Church. With the "Youth Service" of the Sanctuary, we will see how to develop new proposals, especially so that young people may be ardent witnesses of the faith in Christ among their peers.

Understanding the needs of pilgrims It seems necessary to develop a survey tool to know how pilgrims judge the quality of our reception and facilities. It is very difficult to make decisions if we have no objective way of knowing those who come to the Sanctuary and whether we are meeting their expectations. Without these investigative means our reasoning is based on impressions or feelings that do not always correspond to reality. It is true that the pilgrimage directors are valuable colleagues, but we also have to collect the opinions of those who do not come in organized groups. We should also expand our dialogue space on the internet to keep in touch with pilgrims, and to note carefully their questions and suggestions, including those of a spiritual nature. 2. Internationalisation The pilgrims from other continents are more and more numerous. They come in small groups or in families; sometimes with sick people, and often with young children. They come from India, Sri Lanka, Australia, the USA, Brazil, the Middle East, China, Korea, Japan, Africa… Many of them come in contact with friends who live in religious communities in Lourdes (I am thinking here of the Korean, Lebanese and Chinese Sisters) and are thus introduced to the Sanctuary.

We must continue this effort to make the Sanctuary accessible and welcoming to pilgrims from all continents. It is through our website that the message of Lourdes will be better understand, and also the opportunities for coming here on pilgrimage. I would like us to develop this site with versions in Arabic, Chinese and Portuguese. With our online TV our site can also be a help, a support, for those who cannot come to Lourdes and yet want to be in communion with those who pray at the Grotto. We need to rework the signage in the Sanctuary. To simplify it and indicate very clearly the most important places connected with the pilgrimage. We should also consider the new languages ​​so that all the pilgrims feel welcome. It will also be necessary to have leaflets containing a summary of the message of Lourdes available in these languages. We must also continue the work that has been done to integrate the diversity of languages ​​in the liturgy and in processions. Besides the French, Italian, English and Spanish, we should always be attentive to majority groups present, to provide a reading, prayer intentions or part of the Rosary in their language. However care must be taken not to prolong the ceremonies by repeated readings in the Mass.

Translation of texts on screen may suffice. Generally speaking different languages ​​must be welcomed to the extent of our ability. But the use of these languages ​​should never take precedence over the proper conduct of the liturgy, its beauty, its simplicity or its compliance with the rituals. Be attentive, moreover, that languages ​​do not come into competition with each other. I ask everyone to be understanding about this and not to develop a spirit of discontent and division. It is the Spirit of Pentecost which should animate us and not the dispersion of Babel. (Gen. 11:1-9). 3. The development of the area of the Grotto The area of the Grotto – from the Rosary Esplanade to the bridge beyond the baths – is the heart of our Sanctuary. There are so many pilgrims precisely because the place lends itself to receiving the grace of Lourdes. The place of the Apparitions is easily accessible; it is open to the heavens (in every sense of the word!). The pilgrims are welcomed onto the Esplanade as if into a mother’s arms. There is no door to cross, no stairs to climb. They are there, immediately, on the spot where Bernadette stood before Mary.

And with all those present, irrespective of their condition, they can offer up their prayers as poor people before God. We must take care of this place of grace. In the coming three years we would like to develop it in order to: render the pilgrims’ path more coherent, promote silence and meditation at the Grotto, find solutions to the flow of groups during the season, give more harmony to the entire site. Working with an architectural firm it seemed wise to rethink this whole space even if the work will take several years for financial reasons. The area between the esplanade of the Rosary and the Grotto will be designed as a preparatory space for contemplation and silent prayer. We will not only remove medal distributors and candle kiosks, but also the taps, to avoid distractions and noise. This area will be planted with trees and invite silence. The area in front of the Grotto will remain open to the sky. The layout of the ground will indicate this place of prayer and meditation. The furniture will be renewed as will the lighting of the Grotto.

The area currently reserved for candles will be devoted to the gesture of drinking and washing that Mary asked of Bernadette, and which is part of the tradition of the pilgrimage to Lourdes. Pilgrims will therefore access the taps after their visit to the Grotto, which is more coherent. These new taps will not be designed to fill containers with Lourdes water. This area must be reserved for the gesture asked of Bernadette. Filling bottles and containers with water is not an act of prayer. It causes a lot of noise and movement. It may be done elsewhere; it remains for us to find a favourable place. The current storage place for candles will be replaced by a secondary sacristy for the Grotto. Indeed the current sacristy is too small for a large number of concelebrants. The new building, equal in area to the former, will also contain a rest area for Hospitality members. The sacristy will be refitted with a chapel for the Blessed Sacrament. The baths will remain where they are and will therefore not be moved to the other side of the Gave. We shall review their interior design. We are also working on restructuring the waiting area in front of the baths.

A new bridge will be built in front of the baths. After this bridge, on the opposite bank of the Gave leading towards the Church of St. Bernadette, we will have the candle holders. They will form a chapel of light and allow pilgrims to place their individual candles (the larger candles will remain at their current location). The new bridge will therefore give pilgrims access to the chapel of light and allow them to return to the esplanade or exits without passing in front of the Grotto. This gateway will also allow all pilgrims residing Accueil Notre-Dame to go to the pool without having to go to the Grotto. Another bridge will be built later in front of the entrance to the Accueil Notre Dame, near the statue of St. John Mary Vianney. So that the residents of the Accueil will not have to go under the arches to get to their accommodation. All this of course must be done in collaboration with the State departments responsible for protective measures against flooding. In this regard studies are underway to examine ways in which to protect the most vulnerable areas in the case of future flooding. 4.

A place for the Church In the longer term, it seems necessary to rethink the area of the pavilions, the Chapelle Notre Dame and the building housing the Bernadette museum and Communication Services. This area is located in a flood zone. We shall of course here also collaborate with the municipality of Lourdes and the services of the Prefecture. We shall also work with officials of the Hospitality of Our Lady of Lourdes and the Pavilions to redevelop this area into a place where meetings, parties, and picnics can take place; in short, a living space for all pilgrims. The Sanctuary itself is more reserved for prayer and liturgy. We lack a place of conviviality which could include rooms available to Church Movements and Services during the season, and also facilities for informal meetings, and group or family celebrations or meals. 5. The Structures of the Sanctuary General organisation In 2013 two projects were completed: We regrouped the Services within the Sanctuary by sector. It became urgent to find a coherent organization to facilitate the work and collaboration of the twenty-two Services within the Sanctuary.

The creation of these sectors allows greater autonomy, better coordination between them, and ease of communication, thanks to the Council of the Sanctuary which brings together the heads of each sector together with the Rector and the Financial Controller. The communication services were consolidated and an audit was carried out to clarify the objectives and organization of this department. In the coming years we shall be working towards further collaboration between the sectors and the services on the one hand, and also between the chaplains and heads of sectors. Development Department We shall create a Department in the Sanctuary responsible for Development. This is a new function. The mission of this new service will to raise awareness of the Sanctuary to the outside world, to work more closely with the economic players of the Region, and seek new revenue for the Sanctuary. Raise awareness of the Sanctuary: to establish contacts with travel agencies to arrange visits to Lourdes by Christians from other continents. To work more closely with the economic players of the Region means to develop the necessary collaboration with Lourdes and its neighbouring towns, tourist offices, hotels, airport and tourist sites to coordinate our efforts to serve pilgrims.

Finding new sources of revenue means not only seeking funds from French and foreign benefactors but also to develop, from the current bookshop, a small commercial business to ensure the financial stability of our Sanctuary. We shall therefore be employing a new director for this Development department this year. A balanced budget Even if the economic situation is fragile and the number of pilgrims is decreasing, we must imperatively achieve a balanced budget in 2015. We are therefore looking for new sources of income. We also expect the organized pilgrimages to assume their responsibilities by paying the participation required of them. We shall also be vigilant about our spending, trying to rationalize our purchases and services for pilgrimages. As we have done in 2013, some people retiring will not be replaced. Perhaps we shall also, in the coming years, slightly reduce the number of seasonal positions. This will always be done with great attention to individuals and their particular circumstances. I would like to thank all the staff and volunteers of the Sanctuary. After almost two years with you, I salute both your professionalism and availability in accommodating all the pilgrims.

The economic crisis and floods on the one hand, the crisis of the Christian faith on the other hand, contributed to the decrease in the number of pilgrims. This does not prevent us from making plans and being inventive. Our Sanctuary has a future if it is faithful to the mission entrusted to it and if it understands the thirst of those who come to drink at the spring. It is precisely in times of crisis, doubt, and trials that we must welcome those who come to seek light and hope in the Sanctuary of Lourdes. I would also like to thank all those who are our partners: the Hospitality of Our Lady of Lourdes and all the other Hospitalities, Associations and Pilgrimage Directors, Religious congregations, our generous donors, the city of Lourdes, the Hautes Pyrenees and the Midi-Pyrenees. It is thanks to your cooperation, your efforts, your confidence and your love for Lourdes that we can accommodate so many pilgrims every year. We are happy to cooperate with you and we confirm our continued availability to you. Finally I thank the Rector and all the Chaplains of the Grotto. Thank you for your ministry of preaching and reconciliation!

Thank you for the hope you give to the pilgrims by the celebration of the sacraments, by your words, by your presence, for your prayers! For you all I invoke the blessing of the Lord through the intercession of Our Lady of Lourdes and St. Bernadette. In conclusion, for your reflection, I would like to leave you with the words of Pope Francis in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium : "There is a Marian ‘style’ to the Church’s work of evangelization. Whenever we look to Mary, we come to believe once again in the revolutionary nature of love and tenderness (…) This interplay of justice and tenderness, of contemplation and concern for others, is what makes the ecclesial community look to Mary as a model of evangelization. We implore her maternal intercession that the Church may become a home for many peoples, a mother for all peoples, and that the way may be opened to the birth of a new world.” The French Pilgrimage - Why We Love The French Why We Love The French Photo Credit:l-b-y Where is the French Pilgrimage? The main place to travel on a pilgrimage in France is Lourdes.

It is a town in southwest France at the Pyrenean foothills. Photo Credit: libertaker Why do people go on the pilgrimage? Often times, those who visit Lourdes are in need of healing. Its waters are known to be responsible for many medical miracles. Many people travel in groups of those who are similar to them. They are seeking healing or simply a stronger connection with God. What do people do on the pilgrimage? On the pilgrimage, travelers attend one of the three chapels available for mass. After mass, they process from the underground basilica to the grotto. One of the main components is taking the holy water available here. The water comes from a tap. The visitors drink the blessed water and are even allowed to bottle it to bring home to share with family and friends after their pilgrimage. To become one with God, some people will bathe in the holy water of the grotto. The water at the grotto is an essential component that one is expected to partake in at Lourdes. It is also expected to take a walking tour that traces the life of St. Bernadette.

A few other activities available at Lourdes include praying at the stations of the cross, candlelight processions, and attending the blessing of the sick. What are the requirements to attend a pilgrimage? Anyone can participate in a pilgrimage in France! The French are mainly Catholic and encourage others to become a part of or more in touch with their Catholic faith. The average age of those who make pilgrimages is in the late teens. Though anyone can make a pilgrimage, it is primarily meant for those who are of age where they can understand and appreciate their religion as opposed to younger children. What area of France does the French pilgrimage span over? The French pilgrimage spans over Lourdes, Paris (Miraculous Medal, St Catherine Laboure), Lisieux, Nevers, Ars, La Salette, Paray le Monial, Chartres, Mount Saint Michael En Français... Où est le pèlerinage français? L'endroit principal à voyager sur un pèlerinage en France est à Lourdes. C'est une ville dans le sud-ouest de la France aux pyrénées. Pourquoi les gens vont-ils sur le pèlerinage?

Souvent ceux qui visitent Lourdes ont besoin de la guérison. Les eaux sont connues pour être responsables de beaucoup de miracles médicaux. Les gens voyagent dans les groupes de ceux qui ont des intérêts semblables. Ils cherchent à être guéris ou simplement un raccordement fort avec Dieu. Que les gens font-ils sur le pèlerinage? Pendant le pèlerinage, les voyageurs assistent à une des trois chapelles disponibles pour la messe. Après la messe, ils vont de la basilique souterraine à la grotte. Un des aspects les plus importants du pèlerinage, c’est de prendre l'eau sainte ici. L'eau vient d'un robinet. Les visiteurs boivent de l'eau bénie et peuvent la mettre en bouteille pour apporter à la maison pour partager avec la famille et les amis après leur pèlerinage. Pour devenir un avec Dieu, certains se baigneront dans l'eau sainte de la grotte.

Il est également entendu qu’on prenne une excursion à pied qui trace la vie de la sainte Bernadette. Quelques autres activités à Lourdes incluent, de prier aux stations de la croix, des cortèges de lueur de chandelle, et d'assister à la bénédiction des malades. Quelles sont les conditions d'assister à un pèlerinage? N'importe qui peut participer à un pèlerinage en France! Les Français sont principalement Catholiques et encouragent les autres à devenir plus proches à leur foi Catholique. L'âge moyen de ceux qui font des pèlerinages est vers la fin des années de l'adolescence. Bien que n'importe qui puisse faire un pèlerinage, c’est visé principalement pour ceux qui sont d'un âge où ils peuvent comprendre et apprécier leur religion (pas tellement pour les enfants.) Quelle région de la France est-ce que les pèlerinages croisent?

Les pèlerinages en France, c’est à Lourdes, Paris (Miraculous Medal, St Catherine Laboure), Lisieux, Nevers, Ars, La Salette, Paray le Monial, Chartres, et Mont Saint Michel A Sign of Contradiction: At Lourdes, the Sick Are the Church’s ‘Treasure’ | ncregister.com Knights and dames with malades at the shrine. (Charlotte Kiesel) May. 15, 2013 A Sign of Contradiction: At Lourdes, the Sick Are the Church’s ‘Treasure’ Knights and dames of the Order of Malta served the sick and suffering on their 55th pilgrimage to the Marian shrine in southern France. JOAN FRAWLEY DESMOND LOURDES, France — Charlotte Kiesel just completed her 27th pilgrimage to Lourdes — the Marian shrine in France where the Virgin Mary first appeared to Bernadette Soubirous in 1858 and where the sick still flock to obtain a reprieve from chronic disease, a handicap or terminal cancer.

Desperation brought Kiesel to Lourdes for her first visit in 1987, after failing to locate a bone-marrow match for her daughter, Katie, a cancer patient. Decades later, Katie is still healthy, and Kiesel, now a member of the Order of Malta, returns every year to serve in the baths at the grotto, where many miracles have been recorded since the Virgin first appeared to St. Bernadette. Kiesel greets a stream of pilgrims, some of whom arrive by wheelchairs or stretchers. She tenderly helps women and girls modestly disrobe and prays with them as their bodies are dipped into the spring-fed waters. She draws them close, as they often weep and sometimes cling to her afterward. At Lourdes, the sick, traditionally referred to by the French word malades, receive the honor and service the world accords the powerful. They are transported in carts that are pushed and pulled by knights and dames of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Malta , which completed its 55th international pilgrimage to Lourdes May 3-7.

Care for the Sick A sign of contradiction in the West, where the chronically sick and disabled are often pushed to the sidelines and even exterminated in the womb, Lourdes is a place where the sick are embraced as the Church’s “greatest treasure.” “The ruler of this world … charges us with foolishness in spending our time and resources on the sick and suffering,” said Bishop Larry Silva of Honolulu, a chaplain of the Western Association of the Order of Malta , based in California, during a May 7 homily. “Yet because we believe in Jesus, we instead push and pull our beloved malades in a triumphal procession, parading them as the greatest treasures of our Church,” said the bishop. The Western Association of the Order of Malta, one of three U.S.-based associations, brings about 250-300 pilgrims to Lourdes each spring, including 50 malades. The rest are knights, dames, volunteers and companions of the sick, such as spouses or parents. Malade candidates are practicing Catholics who have submitted an application to the order, which reviews their medical diagnosis, invites suitable candidates to join the pilgrimage and covers all their travel and hotel expenses.

The annual Lourdes pilgrimage involves months of planning by members of the order, who also serve the sick and the poor through prison ministry, at maternity homes for unwed mothers, with literacy programs, as well as through hospital visitation and at homeless shelters. Knights and dames include physicians and nurses who volunteer at medical clinics in low-income areas, join medical missions to Third World nations like Haiti and participate on the Lourdes pilgrimage, supervising the care of the malades. Every July, the Western Association also sponsors a Young Adults Summer Pilgrimage , providing service opportunities at the shrine. Tradition of Noble Service The 2013 pilgrimage came as the international Rome-based order , formally titled the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta, marks the 900th anniversary of its founding by Blessed Gérard Thom, dating back to 1048. At that time, the Order of St. John of Jerusalem — the monastic community that opened a convent, church and hospital, which served all religious believers in Jerusalem — became independent under the direction of its founder. Msgr.

Steven Otellini, a chaplain in the Western Association of the Order of Malta and the pastor of the Church of the Nativity in Menlo Park, Calif., told the Register that the unique, countercultural traditions of the Lourdes pilgrimage arise from Gérard’s original charism of hospitality for the poor and the sick. “It was always Gérard’s intention to treat the poor and the sick as ‘betters.’ People looked down on them, but Gérard wanted them to be treated as Our Lord's poor and sick,” said Msgr. Otellini. “In the hospitals and infirmaries, they served the sick on silver and had individual feather beds — very unusual for the time,” explained the chaplain. “With the order made up of nobles, it was a reverse of society: the top taking care of the bottom,” he added, referring to the tradition of European Catholic nobles and aristocrats joining the order after its founding, and, beginning in the 20th century, taking part in the annual Lourdes pilgrimage. U.S.

members of the order do not share this noble lineage — though they aspire to live a “nobility of spirit.” Many are successful business leaders and professionals, and they already played an active role in their parishes and local communities before joining the order. At Lourdes, members and volunteers wear “service uniforms” that add to the religious pageantry distinctive of this French shrine and hark back to the founding of the order, which was connected to a Benedictine abbey in Jerusalem, where the monks wore black robes. “It was natural for our founder and his brethren to wear black robes in their religious fraternity. When the crusaders arrived in the area, most of them wore a white cross on their clothing as a symbol of their mission, and the term ‘crusader’ came from that custom — the word itself stems from the Latin word crux, meaning ‘cross,’” Fra’ James-Michael von Stroebel, one of a small number of professed members of the order, told the Register. “In 1130, the Pope granted our order a coat of arms, red with a white cross on it. This became the official flag of the order as well.

So the order since then has three colors: black, white and red.” Those colors are on display during the pilgrimage, as members imitate Gérard’s own practice of celebrating the dignity of the sick throughout a week filled with liturgical celebrations, Marian processions and time for visiting the baths at the grotto. Body and Soul Refreshed On their first day in Lourdes, the malades’ feet are washed by members of the Western Association and volunteers, a reminder of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet and his admonition in John 13:12-17 that those who believe in him must follow his path of humble service. One malade, a U.S. veteran who lost both of his legs, asked that his two stumps be washed. Meanwhile, as the pilgrims prayed the Litany of Saints, another volunteer, Mother Assumpta Long of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist , washed, dried and then kissed the feat of the malade before her.

For the remainder of the week, the malades, always accompanied by members of the order and volunteers, are the center of splendid liturgies and Eucharistic processions that celebrate the love and hope that Jesus Christ extends to “the least of these.” Friendships are forged among pilgrims who began the week as strangers, and the faith of spouses and family members, who accompany the sick to Lourdes, is revived and deepened as they prepare for an uncertain future back home. “It is very difficult for God to get our attention and speak to us directly. We need to lead a life that more resembles Our Lord’s life: Jesus withdrew and stepped away,” observed Wade Hughan, the regent of the sub-priory of Our Lady of Philermo, a community for members of the Western Association who seek a more disciplined spiritual life and a deeper involvement in the order. The joy-filled spiritual rhythms of Lourdes, where Mary’s “gentle breeze” — first described by St. Bernadette — continues to animate the soul in fresh, unexpected ways, lead many members of the order to return year after year.

Yet chaplains of the Order of Malta who joined the 2013 pilgrimage, including Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York and Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, who recently completed cancer treatment, reminded their fellow pilgrims that most of the spiritual treasures offered here — like daily Mass and Eucharistic adoration — are available back home and should be incorporated into weekly routines. One malade on the pilgrimage — Greg Spitz, a father of six and a construction inspector from California — accepted the order’s invitation to come to Lourdes with some trepidation. “I didn’t feel I was worthy to come. In comparison to other malades, my condition wasn’t critical: I am still in the early stages of a disease. After I got to Lourdes, one knight told me, ‘You are going to be a tough nut, but you will be okay.’” Recalled Spitz: “My moment came when my wife, Celeste, and I had a difficult talk, and she helped me dig into my soul. I uncovered the feeling of rejection I had received from my father long ago.

I had spent my life not wanting to be close to anybody because of that.” Husband and wife went to the baths at the grotto, and Spitz emerged with a deep sense of peace, a reminder that every miracle of Lourdes involves the healing of the soul. He called Lourdes “a piece of heaven on earth. I didn’t see any harsh interactions, but a sense of joy and helpfulness,” he said. Back home now, Spitz hopes to share the gifts he received at Lourdes with others who might be carrying the same burdens he shouldered for decades. But his first priority is his wife. “We’re here to take care of one another,” said Spitz, “and get each of us to heaven.” Charlotte Kiesel, during her years ministering to malades at the grotto, has witnessed a multitude of spiritual epiphanies that testify to the abundant graces available at Lourdes. “When you work in the baths, it puts it all in perspective,” Kiesel told the Register. “Everyone suffers, and everyone needs Our Lord.” Joan Frawley Desmond is the Register’s senior editor. She is a member of the Order of Malta.

View Comments Pilgrimage to Lourdes Traveler's Aid | Library | Host's View Every Easter sees the start of the annual pilgrimage season in the little town of Lourdes in the French Pyranees. Over the next seven months, five million visitors will flock to the town to drink or bathe in the spring water there. It's famous for its miracle cures. Most of the pilgrims are Catholics, many are ill and disabled. The Savvy Traveler's Martin Stott joined a group heading out from London with Tangney Tours. Pilgrimage to Lourdes Need audio help? I'm sitting in the airport lounge surrounded by wheelchairs. Some of my fellow passengers look so ill you wonder if they'll survive the effort of getting to Lourdes. It's amazing that so many people can still be taken in by the idea of miracle water. The Lourdes story begins in 1858, when a poor 14-year-old French girl saw a ghostly woman in white, in a shallow cave near the town. Over a month, Bernadette Soubirous saw the woman eight times.

The vision said she was the Virgin Mary, she said she wanted a chapel built on the site and for people to come in procession, and she revealed that spring. From the very early days, the spring water showed miraculous qualities. First, a woman with a paralyzed hand was healed. More cures followed and the crowds haven't stopped since. Today they come by train, as well as plane and coach, on pilgrimage to Bernadette's grotto. So many are ill they've had to build several hospitals to help care for them while they're here. Lourdes is a strange place. The narrow, windy streets leading to the grotto area are packed with gift shops full of religious rubbish: plastic water bottles in the shape of Mary, pictures of Christ being crucified with eyes that blink, and religious alarm clocks. Even descendants of Bernadette's family own a gift shop here. It seems obscene, but Phillipe Nierdoll, president of the Religious Retailers Association in Lourdes, denies the shops are in bad taste. Nierdoll: We would not have these shops, and so many, if there were not a need, as we say, un besoin de consumateur.

The only explanation is the size of the crowds becoming to Lourdes four and a half to five million visitors this represents so many persons, which is why we see so many shops. And he's right, there is a need. Pilgrims crowd 'round the shelves buying the stuff. Maybe the miracle of Lourdes is that it sells. But once you get near the grotto, the shops end. The area feels and is sacred. There are now three chapels here and a huge underground basilica where up to 25,000 people can take mass. Afterwards, processions are led from the basilica to the grotto at night by candlelight. It's an impressive sight. The spring water has been put on tap so people can drink and bottle it. They also queue to bathe in it. Seventeen special baths have been built near the grotto. Volunteers lead you in, help you undress, throw a cold wet towel over you to hide your modesty, and then it's a quick chilly dunk. You freeze to death. You wish to God, Our Lady took you there and then.

But then, when you come out and you're dry, you don't look for a towel. You just get dressed after being in the bath of ice water and you say to yourself, definitely there's something here. It's brilliant. I'm afraid I wasn't persuaded! Officially, the Catholic Church says there have been only 65 miracles at Lourdes. Hundreds of unrecognized, unexplained cures have happened here too, but that must still mean millions go away disappointed. How do they cope? I asked Stephen Fethney. He has muscular dystrophy. It killed his brother and sister and now confines him to a wheelchair. This is his fourteenth visit and over time, he's come to genuinely appreciate the meaning of the place. Fethney: I got to understand it isn't necessarily the physical thing that's being healed, it's actually coming to terms with your disability. Stott: So that's what's happened to you that has been your miracle? Fethney: That's what's happened to me.

And when I come to Lourdes now I actually see the joy in other pilgrims' eyes who have come for the first time and go away not being physically cured or throwing away crutches or anything like that, but they have more of an understanding of their disability and can cope with their disability. It's nearly one o'clock in the morning in the Carrefour Café in Lourdes and these volunteers are relaxing and they deserve to. They give up six days each year to come and help disabled and chronically ill pilgrims and they come back each year. The café's run by the Guinguene family, who also own one of the best hotels in Lourdes, the Grand Hotel de la Grotte. Olivia Guingeune says she feels privileged to witness the mini-miracles that happen here. Guingeune: I think when they've left Lourdes even if they are dying people, they know they won't be cured but I think they're very happy to have been in Lourdes and they go back happy that they have been here, they go back satisfied, that's absolutely certain. You can't help but be moved by the courage, by the caring, sharing and joy you witness here.

I'm not dying, I'm not disabled but I had a miracle experience too somewhere near that grotto I lost a great big chunk of cynicism. From Lourdes in France, this is Martin Stott for The Savvy Traveler. Lourdes Web Sites

Question: To where in France do the sick make pilgrimages?
Answer: Lourdes