Our lady of Lourdes Part 1 26 July 2011

A pleasant meal with pleasant sleep in Bordeaux. We actually got another bottle of wine to take back to the hotel to drink. We weren't able to finish it as we were all quite tired! Quite unfortunate.
The next (late) morning we hopped onto a train on our way to the last stop in France, Lourdes.
At the train station, we met a Dutch nurse also on his way to Lourdes, his name was Marco and he assisted Martin with buying a lotto ticket. He was really nice guy, but he did add a lot of "interesting" adjective to all his sentences!
We arrived to yet another drizzling city. Lourdes is in the Pyrenees mountain region. Stepping outside our view was of lush green mountains ranges and low rain clouds covering their peaks.
Perhaps its just me, but I thought I just got closer to heaven. It's fitting as Lourdes is one of the most famous pilgrimage sites for Catholics in the world.

Here is a short overview for readers who do not know Lourdes' story.
Our Lady, Holy Mary first appeared to Bernadette in 1858 when she was 14 years of age. Mary appeared to Bernadette many times, often asking for prayers and penance. Two of the key event that changed Lourdes to become the pilgrimage site it is today one, the request of mary to have a chapel built at the apparition site, and two was the request of Mary to Bernadette in one of the apparitions to "kiss the earth, eat the grass and drink of the water" in the grotto which Mary showed her. There was no water there, only mud. At the time, it was difficult for her as the "grass was bitter and the water repugnant". However, over the next few days after Bernadette did as Mary requested, a spring of clear water appeared where there was none before, after which people following her also drank the water. It is claimed that the water has healing properties.

Following the call of Mary, we too come to this pilgrimage site.

We stayed at Hotel St Roch in Lourdes, nicely located between the sanctuary and the train station, everywhere was a close walking distance.
This hotel is an old hotel with a small cranky lift that could only fit Vincent and I with our backpacks, so Martin had to wait for the next one.

Our room

View from our room, looking down the path that leads to the sanctuary.



Although the Hotel was old, everything was clean and the room quite spacious compared to Paris.
I really looked forward to visiting this pilgrimage site, I have seen so many photos and heard so many stories of other people visiting Lourdes.
It was already late afternoon by the time we finally got down into the sanctuary. Its a beautiful sight to behold, to me the Basilica can be described as elegant and graceful.


At the entrance, to celebrate 2010 theme of "the sign of the cross", pilgrims were invited to put up their own cross.

This year's theme is "pray the The Lord's prayer with St Bernadette", so along the path towards the sanctuary are signs with The Lord's Prayer in 44 languages. Here is the one in Chinese.

As all the signs are photo replicas of plaques in an old church, this is the older version of the prayer.

We took a look around the sanctuary.

This is the Rosary Basilica,

All the motifs were masterpieces of mosaic works.

The Crowned Virgin Statue

This is the Crypt, next to this is the chapel of the Relics of St Bernadette.

We decided to join the Blessed Sacrament Procession which was held in the Underground Basilica of St Pius X.

We all thought this four sided alter was terrific.

Here is the fantastic organist, an amazing player, when he finished the Final hymn, everyone around him applaused.

During the procession, I stood on the side and I noticed these people pulling trolleys to park in an area on one of the sides of the alter. Inside the trolleys were the sick and the elderly. The love and care shown to the lesser among us deeply moved me. I later found out in fact many of these helpers are volunteers or pilgrims like myself.
When one goes on a pilgrimage, you go searching for God, looking to meet Jesus. I felt I found him in these people. Jesus asked us simply to love one another, and they have lived out this commandment.

After this procession we walked up the "souvenir street" as we have dubbed it, to find some dinner. We ate at a local bar and had some pizza and chips.

At 9pm, we got down to the sanctuary again to join the Torchlight Marian Procession. It was cold and raining miserably, but this did not seem to deter any of the visitors from joining in. The lighting of candles spread slowly across the esplanade until all the candles were lit. In the rain, the people around us said the rosary together in all our different languages. This is one of the reasons I love my Catholic faith, the continuity and union of the universal church allows me to know I'm part of a bigger whole under Christ in a very real and tangible way. There is no limits to language, age, or class, we are all in union with Christ. It is an awesome experience, I think everyone should have a chance to experience this at least once in their lifetime.

At the end of the procession, me being me I didn't stop singing, but I kinda ran out of anymore Latin songs so I switched to Chinese hymns. It is at moments like these that I know God is watching over me, because out of the hundreds of people there, some fellow pilgrims from HK heard me and came over for a chat! They were really nice, they have stayed in Lourdes for two days already and gave us some pointers for the next day.
They really encourages us to go experience the Lourdes Bath which we were not initially intending to visit. To be honest I was quite skeptical of the idea of stripping naked to dip into the freezing waters of the spring. Even if healing miracles is possible for those who seek it with faith and trust.
But since these new friends recommended it so strongly, we decided we will give it a go early tomorrow morning.

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