Strange and wonderful things always happen in Lourdes...

‘TELL me John why isn’t there a statue of Bernadette anywhere near the Grotto?’ I was asked that question in Lourdes last week! We are all familiar with replica Lourdes Grottos all over the country with the statue of Our Lady on a height, often on a rock or a rocky outcrop with the statue of a kneeling young Bernadette Soubirous below. Not so in Lourdes.

Yes there a few images of Bernadette within the domain, including two across the Gave river, but none at all anywhere near the Grotto itself where the first Apparition happened on February 11, 1858. Bernadette herself wanted it this way. She always contended that Lourdes and the Grotto were all about the Virgin Mary and her messages of prayer, penance, healing and renewal. 

Bernadette always felt she was just the means by which the special messages of Our Lady were made known and passed on to all who listened and came in procession to Lourdes.

“The Virgin used me as a broom to remove the dust. When the work is done, the broom is put behind the door again,” was a phrase she often used.

I was telling people recently about a week I spent in Lourdes in December 2012. It was beautiful weather and I nearly had the place to myself! As I walked along Rue de Grotte I noticed posters relating to a Public Meeting which was to be held the following week. Even with my limited knowledge of French I understood the gathering was part of a ‘campaign’ to bring the incorrupt body of St Bernadette back ‘home’ to Lourdes. I presume tourism promoters were behind the move thinking ‘twould bring more visitors and more revenue to the town at the foot of the Pyrenees. It never happened and the remains of St. Bernadette remain in the Sisters of Charity Convent in Nevers which is 310 miles north of Lourdes.

It was in July 1866, eight years after the First apparition that 21 year old Bernadette bade farewell to Lourdes for the last time -never to return. She stood across the river Gave and looked at the Grotto for the final time. On the Monday of our Pilgrimage a group of us gathered on that very spot for a special event. Back in June 2011 I brought a stone from Jim Conway’s grave in Ballinacourty cemetery in the Glen of Aherlow to Lourdes. We all know that lovely reading from the Book of Eccliastes that speaks of time.. a time to love, to hate, for war, for peace, to build up, to break down and so on. I thought by bringing a stone from a grave at home over to Lourdes and putting it into the river across from the Grotto we were uniting the memory of those gone before us who loved Lourdes with this special place. So on that Monday night we put stones from five graves in the river ‘a time to gather stones together and a time to cast stones away’.

Like last year the Pilgrimage from the Diocese of Kilmore was with us and Bishop Martin Hayes and retired Bishop Leo O’Reilly concelebrated several of the masses with our own Bishop William Crean. Bishop Crean always has a lovely comment at our Opening Mass ‘It’s good to be here’ and for all of us it was great to be there. After the hiccups, delays and postponements of last year this year’s trip was just so peaceful, serene, happy and above all so friendly.

We packed a lot into our first day, 10 o clock Mass to open and welcome everyone, some were regulars and for many this year it was their first time in Lourdes. 

The joy on faces that first morning was a sight to behold. 

That same day we also we had the Reconciliation Service - you might say Confession is not ‘fashionable’ but the sense of ease, contentment and spiritual ‘uplifting’ gained from the Sacrament is deeply appreciated and valued.

The Passage through the Grotto is very special as one goes in under the rock overhang and touches the black surface, ‘ polished’ by the hands of millions. Our Lady told Bernadette to ‘go and drink in the spring’. The young girl was confused but she eventually knelt and found a muddy spring oozing up. The water was dirty as she drank but soon it ran clean. 

That was in March 1858 and today, 166 years later, that little spring still yields thousands of gallons of water each daily.

Amongst my ‘favourite’ places in Lourdes are two very special spots. One is the actual place where young Bernadette knelt when she heard a rustling up on the rock and then saw ‘the lady’ for the first time. An inscribed tile marked ‘Fevrier 1858’ is set in the ground slightly to the left under the sets before the Grotto. That morning the young girl and her friends had come here to this boggy, marshy, bleak spot looking for firewood. Bernadette had left her home in the Rue de Petits Fosses that February morning. Her father Francois had been a successful miller but by the start of 1858 he had spent time in prison-wrongfully accused, and he was out of work. The family were destitute and homeless. A relative offered them the cachot, a dingy building which had once been the town jail. Today the cachot is as it was the same as it was that fateful morning, bare, austere and sparsely furnished. Over the years I’ve spent hours sitting there on a little three-legged stool, we were so busy this year I never got to go ‘up the town’. Being busy in Lourdes is not a task or a burden, it’s truly a privilege and in reality an honour.

When I went in 2008 Tom Fitzgibbon of Killeagh asked me to come over the bridge to the Acceuiel (Guest House/Hospital) , I knew Tom from GAA activity. He said to me that evening ‘You’ll keep coming back here’, how right he was!

Each year many of the same men and women helpers return to Lourdes to help with the Pilgrimage. Each year also we take a number of Youth Helpers, all from secondary schools at home. It’ a unique experience for these teenagers and this year we had an outstanding group. They probably travelled to Lourdes thinking it would be all about prayer and sure enough prayers, processions and Masses are central to the Pilgrimage and are at the heart of the Lourdes experience. What our young people do each year is simply amazing. They are there for our Assisted Pilgrims to push a wheelchair or a voiture, to walk and talk, laugh, sing and dance with everyone. 

Truly they are taken from their ‘comfort zone’ and they love it, hopefully we will see many of them back in years to come as adult helpers.

For our Healing Mass on the Tuesday we were in the Notre Dame Chapel, outside the main Domain and a new ‘venue’ for all of us. It’s ever and always such an emotional and powerful celebration. Truly I cannot describe the feeling of strength and warmth which flows from the priests hands when the Holy Oils are put on the palms and forehead. This year it was especially powerful and tearful for me as Mgr. Ned Goold was the priest who administered the Sacrament to me. He was one of my teachers in St Colman’s half a century ago and for five years from 1927 his mother, then Johanna Kelleher, taught in Bartlemy National School.

I love a sing song and so on a few evenings we gathered in The Little Flower for a lovely social gathering. In Lourdes on a Pilgrimage time flies, the days are long from before 8 in the morning til late but no one complains.

I paid a brief visit to the grave of Sister Marie Terese O Connell ‘the Irish Poor Clare’ nun who died her in 2015 and, as I had promised her, sang a verse of ‘The Banks’ for her.

Strange and wonderful things always happen in Lourdes and 2024 was no different. I was often asked to a meeting, a party or a wedding but invitations to funerals are rare enough! On the Monday afternoon we had the High and Low Stations of the Cross. I was in a group of about 20, young and old, healthy and ill, some in wheelchairs. Led by one of our priests we followed the Journey of Jesus from when he was condemned to death right through until the very end. At each Station our Spiritual ‘Leader’ gave a unique insight into the mystery of life, suffering, pain, death and resurrection. At the 14th Station where Jesus Is Laid In The Tomb he took us aback ‘I want ye all to come to my funeral’ he told us ‘and let ye all take a hand at shovelling in the earth and if anyone questions ye tell ’em ye were invited to the funeral in Lourdes in June 2024’. That’s Lourdes for you-what a place!