John Arnold: Reflections on my December pilgrimage to Lourdes

On my way to Lourdes last week, I was thinking about the ‘great debate’ at the Council of Trent, 1545-1563 and later the ‘theological disagreement’ between the Franciscans and the Dominicans. The cause of all their consternation was the question of the Immaculate Conception. According to the Bible, Joachim and Anne were the parents of Mary who gave birth to Jesus. The theologians and Doctors of the Church argued and debated for centuries as to whether Mary was conceived and born with no ‘stain of sin’ on her -a fairly lively subject without a doubt. Eventually and finally in the Year of Our Lord 1854 Pope Pius the Ninth decided that enough was enough and he made a pronouncement on the subject. On December 8 of that year the Pope, through the medium of the Papal Bull ‘Ineffalibis Deus’ ,declared that the Immaculate Conception was now and forever more ‘official’ Church policy. So the Dogma of the infallible Immaculate Conception of Mary was promulgated by the Vatican. Whew! - try explain all that mystical and previously mythical theological position to the Catholic population on a worldwide basis in 1854.

Fast forward four years later when a young, sickly, illiterate and uneducated 14 year-old girl started seeing ‘a Lady’ in a rocky hollow near a stream in a boggy French valley. The visions began on February 11 at Massabiele in the little town of Lourdes. Few thought that Bernadette Soubirous was telling the truth. They said she was mad, sad or just bad! Yet day after day the girl was seemingly drawn back to the spot where she knelt when she first saw the Lady. Day after day she went back and soon news of her supposed ‘visions’ was the only item of conversation in the sleepy little town of Lourdes. The Police and Church authorities tried to persuade her from gong to the isolated place. Jacomet, the Police Commissioner, attempted to barricade the area and keep away the ever-increasing crowds coming each day. In response to a request from the Lady, young Bernadette goes on her knees and eats grass and then washes her face in a muddy pool. The onlookers laugh and shake their heads thinking that truly the little girl is mentally ill or unwell in some other manner. But when the muddy pool turns into a spring of clean bubbling water they are amazed and astounded. Eventually a local priest tells Bernadette to ‘ask her to tell you her name’ In reply to the question the Lady replies ‘I am the Immaculate Conception’ -these were strange and unintelligible words to Bernadette, she had never heard this phrase before. She went back to the presbytery whilst all the time repeating ‘I am the Immaculate Conception’. She met Fr. Peyramale and on listening to her telling what the Lady had said the priest was now convinced that Bernadette was not a liar, a cheat or practical joker but had indeed seen and talked to Our Lady.

That was 167 years ago. Since then hundreds of millions of people-sceptics, believers and curious observers have visited Lourdes. I am just one of that multitudinous throng that has gone back again and again.

In June each year when I go to the Village of St. Bernadette with the Cloyne Diocesan Pilgrimage, the place is thronged and it’s busy, busy, busy with queues for everything – from confessions to cafes, churches to Stations of the Cross. It’s so different in December. It was cold and dry for the early part of last week in the South of France and then it lashed rain for two days but the weather makes little difference in Lourdes. It was ‘busier’ than normal for early December with several small parish pilgrimages -many from faraway places like Indonesia, Sri Lanka and the Philippines.

I flew from Cork to Stanstead early on the Monday morning. I must be getting ‘shook’ because two Ryanair crew members asked ‘sir, do you need assistance?’ when I was leaving the plane! After a two-hour stopover in London I arrived in Tarbes airport, outside Lourdes, in mid-afternoon. A bus trip for €1 took me into the town centre. It was 4.30pm, French time, so I headed up Rue de Grotte to the Poor Clare Convent. The doorkeeper, Sr. Fatima, was outside fixing up Christmas lights. She seemed a bit aloof when I first met her nearly 20 years ago but now we‘re great friends. A greeting and warm handshake and soon I was in the tiny beautiful convent Church awaiting 5pm evening Mass. Maybe a dozen or so attended -always beautiful, delicate and heavenly singing. You go into the Church in daylight and come out in darkness.

After I checked into the San Saveur Hotel I headed for the Grotto. A cold breeze was blowing up from the river Gave but the sight of the Crowned Virgin statue brings a warm and welcoming feeling. Though December, some of the hundreds of lovely white roses are still clinging to their vines. I followed the ‘silver lines’ on the ground to the Grotto-the lines indicate the course of the original stream in 1858. And there it is -the statue of Our Lady high up on the rocky niche where Bernadette first saw ‘the Lady’ all those days, months, years and decades ago. A tile marks the spot where she knelt on February 11 and I kneel there on December 1. There were maybe 25 others at the Grotto that Monday evening.

I cross the river then to the ‘lumiere’ - the Chapel of Light across from the Grotto. 

So many have asked for prayers and to ‘light a candle for me’. I think of them all as I watch the candles I lit send their flame and smoke upwards. I know one prayer is as good as another and I don’t feel proud or smug to be here on this special night- just lucky and privileged.

My prayers have no more ‘power’ than those of anyone else yet I am thankful to be here in this special place. For awhile across the river I am all alone but not lonesome.

For the next four days I had a kind of ‘pattern’ 9.30am mass in the Rosary Basilica, followed by the water gesture at the Baths, then the lower Stations. At Mass each morning I meet Frances from Dublin. She has lived here in Lourdes with many years and takes charge of the singing and the hymn books daily. She always addresses me with ‘hello my young man from Cork’ which makes me feel years younger! I was staying in the hotel on a bed and breakfast basis so most days I had a bite to eat in the middle of the day at The Little Flower- a great haunt of Irish pilgrims in Lourdes over the years. On Tuesday I sent postcards, got Masses said, more candles. I visited the old disused prison- the cachot where Bernadette and her family lived in 1858. I helped Sr Fatima take in eight heavy boxes of groceries from a delivery van. She gave me the key to the Community Cemetery. As I promised I would I sang ‘ The Banks’ by the grave of the Irish nun Sr Marie Terese O’ Connell.

By the Grotto on Wednesday morning, I hear ‘Hello John, how’re you? It was Frank Lynch from Dublin. He has a house near Lourdes and I’d met him a few years back. Joined a mother and daughter from Sri Lanka and two Filipinos now living in America for the Rosary in English at 3pm at the Grotto. On Thursday, wasn’t I glad I’d brought a plastic poncho with me -it bucketed all day but I still managed to get my ‘rounds’ done. From Thursday on, more and more hotels, shops, bars and cafes were opening in anticipation of a huge weekend influx before December 8 last Monday.

Friday afternoon, I said goodbye at the Grotto and waved farewell to the Crowned Virgin. I walked the mile to the Bus Station en route to Tarbes Airport, Stanstead, Cork and Bartlemy.

Great to have been in Lourdes in December and great to be home.