February 11: Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes

I wanted to post this yesterday, the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes but I was indisposed the whole day and could not do it. Anyway, I would just like to share the experience Thelma and I had during our trip to Lourdes in the year 2000.

It was the 6^th day of our European tour by train that started in Portugal (Porto, Lisbon, and Fatima); Spain (Madrid and Barcelona); then France (Lourdes was our first stop). We arrived at Lourdes that noon, 13 September 2000.

Lourdes is a pretty little town with about 15,000 inhabitants in the southwest of France near the Spanish border. It was made famous by the appearance in 1858 by Our Lady to St. Bernadette. Today, some 5 million pilgrims and visitors come to Lourdes each year to “visit” a place described in tourist brochures, usually out of curiosity only. But strangely, they come away healed – if not physically, then spiritually.

And it happened to Thelma and me. We had routinely included Lourdes as part of our itinerary. (Doesn’t every Catholic who has the chance to travel to France do so?) We originally intended to stay only for a day and then go on to our next tourist destination. But somehow an article in a book (Needlepoint by Mrs. Lourdes Bautista given to us by another Lourdes Bautista, the author’s daughter and our friend) we were reading on the train inspired us to extend our stay for another day.

After lunch, we easily found our way through the main street going to the Grotto. The commercialism along the way (hotels, restaurants, religious stores, souvenirs, etc.) sort of turned us off at first, but the feeling soon vanished as we entered the shrine proper. The feeling became surreal as we walked through the grounds. We saw an Information Center and went there to ask questions and to plan our activities. We first visited the main shrine and prayed the rosary. We then went to the Chapel of Reconciliation, sought an English-speaking Oblate priest, and joined the long queue to make a general confession. We spent the rest of the afternoon just walking around and simply basking in the whole atmosphere of prayer around us as we watched people in long orderly queues pass through the Grotto, kiss the rock, drink the water from the Spring, or light a candle. We noticed that there was no queue in the fountains from where water from the Spring flows freely. We drank the cool water and washed our face remembering Our Lady’s instruction to Bernadette: “Go, drink at the spring and wash yourself there”. After another leisurely walk in the area, we went back to our hotel to rest, have dinner and prepare for that evening’s activity.

The torchlight Marian procession that evening fittingly capped our first day in this hallowed town. Imagine thousands of people of different races, from different countries, each holding a candle singing “Ave Maria” and praying the rosary in different languages while walking in procession. It was a spectacle we would always remember. Thelma and I prayed for peace in our country, for ourselves, for our children who were left at home, and for the intentions of all our relatives and friends.

We were at the Shrine by 9 AM the next day in time for the International Mass held at the cavernous underground Basilica of Pius X. There, nearly 30,000 pilgrims including hundreds of priests and bishops offered the Mass in several languages commemorating the Feast of Solemnity of the Holy Cross. It was another unforgettable spectacle of people, sick as well as healthy, white and colored, in prayer quietly affirming their unity in faith. We were simply astonished at this atmosphere of prayer and faith so different from our usual daily experience of the mass.

Our next stop after the mass was the Grotto of Massabielle where now stands a statue of Our Lady on the same spot where Bernadette saw her. We patiently stood and lined up in prayer just like the rest until we first reached the spring now covered with glass showing how clear the water is. We touched and kissed the rock where Our Lady stood and prayed to her to keep our faith as solid as the Rock. We then looked up at the statue of Our Lady with her eyes raised towards heaven as described by Bernadette and we felt peace we have never experienced before.

From the grotto we went to the nearby fountains to drink and wash ourselves once more. This time we also brought with us the bottles we had purchased earlier for this purpose and filled them with the Spring water to bring back to the Philippines. We remember St. Bernadette’s warning: “The water is taken as a medicine… You must have faith, you must pray; this water has no effect without faith.”

In the afternoon after lunch, we visited Bernadette’s well-preserved ancestral home in the old town. We then walked back to the Shrine, shopped for souvenirs along the way, and proceeded straight to the Baths where we lined up once more (the men were separated from the women at this point), and prepared for the experience of the baths.

We were told that this process of bathing is a response to the invitation of the Virgin to Bernadette on 25^th February 1858, ”Go drink of the spring and wash yourself there”…As I entered the Baths, I was invited to the dressing room by one of many volunteers. I undressed except for my underwear and I was then covered with a robe. At the bath cubicle, I was asked to remember my prayer intentions while I prayed the Salve Regina. The volunteers then gradually and gently immersed me in the water up to my neck. We ended with the invocations: “Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us. St. Bernadette, pray for us.” The washing was completed! I felt wholly cleansed as I left the Baths with teary eyes and waited for Thelma to finish hers.

Our last activity was something we did not plan at all. But we now believe it was the Lord who had done the planning, because, as we would realized later, our visit to Lourdes would not have been complete without going through His Way of the Cross…

Feeling light after the baths, we decided to walk up to the top of the Basilica where we had a good view of the whole Shrine area. We went down on the other side, decided we had enough for the day, then took what we thought at first was a road leading to town only to find out that it was actually the start of the ascent towards the 1,500 meters Hill of the Espeluges where the 15 Stations were laid out along the winding and uneven path! As if pulled by an unknown force, we continued the climb and followed each station as we prayed and meditated on the pains and sufferings of our Lord and of His absolute love for all of us that led Him to death on the Cross. What is unusual, however, is the addition of the Fifteenth Station (The Empty Tomb) which makes the Way of the Cross no longer a “Via Dolorosa”, no more one of despair, but of hope. Optimism and joy prevailed in our hearts as we reached the end of the stations and as we started to descend, aptly ending our short sojourn at Lourdes, the town of all hopes.