It does not seem like seven years .....

... since Pope Benedict XVI was elected to the See of St Peter.

The homily that Pope Benedict preached at a Mass celebrating together his 85th birthday and the start of the 8th year of his pontificate represents personal testimony to three key"signs" that have given a guide to his life of faith: the witness of the saints Bernadette of Lourdes and Benedict Joseph Labre, and the Paschal mystery. In the year of his birth, and according to the then-current calendar of the Church, the feast days of these saints and Holy Saturday coincided. The Italian text of the full homily is here, with a summary in English here. I trust that a full English translation will be available in due course, because it is worth reading the full homily. Referring to a particularity of the former liturgy, Pope Benedict observed:

The day I was baptised ... was Easter Saturday. At the time it was still customary to hold the Easter vigil in the morning, followed by the darkness of Easter Saturday without a Hallelujah. This singular paradox, this anticipation of light in a day of darkness, can almost be seen as an image of the history of our own times. On the one hand there is the silence of God and His absence, yet the resurrection of Christ contains an anticipation of God's 'yes'. We live in this anticipation, through the silence of God we hear His words, and through the darkness of His absence we glimpse His light. The anticipation of the resurrection in the midst of evolving history indicates the path we must follow and helps us to continue the journey.

He began the concluding paragraph of his homily with the words (my own adaptation of the English translation based on the Italian original):

I find myself before the final stage of my life journey and I do not know what awaits me ...

This prompted in my mind two thoughts. I do from time to time meet people who, either through age or because of illness, are coming to the end of their lives and recognise that this is the case. Spending time with such people is very moving, particularly when one can see that they have come to terms with their situation and are able to live it in a positive way rather than just suffer it. I usually come away from such a visit wondering just how I will react when I reach that time in my life - not that I am expecting to soon. And not that I am expecting Pope Benedict to die soon, though he is now less strong than in the past.

The other thing it reminded me of was a story of the day of Pope Benedict's election as Pope. So the story goes, and I do not know how true it is having just heard it from somenone else, Joseph Ratzinger was trying to contact Georg Ratzinger by telephone just after his election. No answer. And this continued for most of the day. Joseph Ratzinger became very worried, and put out an urgent call to find Georg Ratzinger, who he thought must be ill. It transpired instead that Georg Ratzinger had heard the news of Joseph Ratzinger's election to the See of St Peter, and was extremely annoyed. The plan had been that the two brothers would retire together, and the white smoke emerging from the Sistine Chapel had just put paid to that plan. Georg Ratzinger was so annoyed he was refusing to pick up the telephone to take Joseph Ratzinger's call.

A nice logo

The shrine at Lourdes are currently living a series of three pastoral themes. The first, "With Bernadette, let us pray the sign of the Cross" was the theme of the pilgrimage season that has just ended. The next season will be dedicated to the Our Father, and the one after that to the Hail Mary.

The logo encompassing these three pastoral themes is shown above. The graphic represents the first of the meetings between Bernadette and the Blessed Virgin, where they pray the Rosary together. It is only when the lady lifts her hand to pray the Rosary that Bernadette is able to do so.

Lourdes 2: in the footsteps of Bernadette

On the Thursday of our stay in Lourdes, the planned activity was to walk the "Path of Bernadette" from Lourdes to the village of Bartres. The idea had been to walk up, visit Bartres with a picnic, and then return to Lourdes.

As it turned out, that particular day was untypically warm, even for August. The Haut-Pyrenees enjoyed record high temperatures, with the thermometer reaching 39 Celsius. Walking any distance was not recommended!

Plan B involved driving up to Bartres instead, and, after visiting the parish Church of St John the Baptist, spending quite a bit of time under the trees in the sheepfold, reading and eating our picnic.

Later in the week, we visited the other places associated with Bernadette's life in Lourdes. Pages on the website of the shrine about each of these places can be accessed from the interactive map here. We enjoyed a particularly good visit to the Hospice, where Bernadette made her first Communion. Our timing meant that, for each of our visits, we avoided large crowds and so were able to make peaceful visits.

This page summarises the 16 apparitions of the Virgin Mary to St Bernadette. Bernadette responds, in the case of each apparition, to an invitation from the "Lady" to visit her at the grotto. It is, I think, the last of the apparitions that appeals to me most: "I saw only the Blessed Virgin, and she was more beautiful than ever!"

Chemin du Jubile at Lourdes

As part of the celebrations for the 150th anniversary of the apparitions, and as the devotion to be undertaken to gain the indulgence attached to the pilgrimage for the anniversary, there is a "jubilee way". I was lucky enough to follow this way all in one go, one afternoon, with relatively little difficulty. Others, particularly those trying to undertake it as a group, encountered waits and crowds at each of the four "stations" on the way.

The first station on the way is the parish Church of Lourdes, dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This is where St Bernadette was baptised, and it is the baptismal font that is the focus of this visit. My photo, above, shows the Blessed Sacrament altar. When I visited, every chapel in the church was decorated with flowers like this.

The second station is the "cachot", the disused prison where Bernadette and her family lived in poverty. I have no photo because, at the time of my visit, other people were making their visit and I thought it better not to disturb them. This is just five minutes walk from the parish church.

The third station comprised together St Michael's gate to the shrine, the Jubilee icon and the grotto itself. There are a number of identical copies of the icon under the arches as you approach the grotto (photo above), and the intention of this station is that the pilgrim venerate the icon on their way to visit the grotto. The photo of the grotto below shows the inclement nature of the weather on the day I did the Jubilee Way (see the umbrellas!).

The fourth station was the oratory of the Hospice. This is now the local hospital; in St Bernadette's time it was a convent, and was where she went to school soon after the apparitions. It is where Bernadette received Holy Communion for the first time. This was the only one of the stations where I encountered a queue or delay, because I arrived at about the same time as three large groups of pilgrims. Again, I didn't feel able to take a photo inside the oratory because of the other visitors, so the photo below is of the outside of the present hospital chapel which is adjacent to the oratory as it was in Bernadette's time.

At each station, there was sticker to be collected and added to your pilgrim card. My completed card is shown below. The stickers start at the top left, showing Bernadette's baptism, then follow round in an anticlockwise direction towards her first Holy Communion by way of her stay in the cachot and the apparitions at the grotto. In a nice touch, the words of the Virgin Mary to Bernadette on the reverse of the card are not in French but, as they were related by Bernadette herself, in the local Lourdes dialect: "Que soy era Immaculada Councepciou".

A meme about saints

I have been tagged for this by la mamma. I am going to start responding now, but I think you will need to check back for updates to the post ... it is going to take me a while to answer every question!



1. First Saint you "met"?

I realise I am answering this in a slightly different way than the question intended, but I think it has to be my Mother. Though I only really found out after she had died. I did some research on her trade union activities in the 1940's, activities inspired by her membership of Young Christian Workers. When I read about how much Catholic leadership she had given to others at that time, and how it had stayed with those she knew then for all their lives, it made quite an impression. It gave me some insight into how, without seeming to do anything special to achieve it, she brought up three children who all still practice and are active in the life of the Church. [I will have to post on this at some point.]



2. Favourite Saint?

St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein). She completely fascinates me, and I find her personality rather like my own (in human terms, that is .... I don't think I score on the "saint" bit like she did!). This is my favourite picture of Edith, with one of her nephews. [Where an individual saint has a particular charism, and expresses an aspect or aspects of the holiness of the whole Church, the Virgin Mary expresses the holiness of the Church in its completeness. The holiness of an individual "favourite saint" therefore has a Marian character to it - this is my way of saying "Mary and ...]


3. Patron saint for the year?

Will have to be St Bernadette of Lourdes, because of the 150th anniversay of the apparitions. She expresses both poverty and complete faithfulness in witnessing to the grace of the apparitions. I regularly quote her answer when she was asked, on the day she received Holy Communion for the first time, which pleased her most, the apparitions or receiving Jesus in Holy Communion. "I cannot say. They go together. I am very happy with both of them" [quotation from memory, so I know I haven't got it exactly right, but the idea is right].


4. Favourite book by a saint?


I have a problem here. In conversation with a friend, I once claimed to have read most of the books on my shelves. I duly pulled one off the shelves, with a plentiful number of slips of paper in it acting as book marks, to make the point. My friend then asked me what was on the first page (which I hadn't read) and what was on the last page (which I had also not read). I had used the book when I was studying up on something (hence the bookmarks) but I hadn't read it end to end. I was duly deemed to have "not read the book". As far as books by saints go, I have recently read a section of Edith Stein's "Finite and Eternal Being" - chapter VII n.5 - which is about angels. I have also read some of St Bernadette's accounts of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes, in "les ecrits de sainte Bernadette et sa voie spirituelle". Both more for reasons of study than of devotion, though one should not perhaps oppose study to devotion.

5. Saint book you are reading now?
See 4 above! I find myself dipping into different books as needed ...

6. Favourite movie of a saint?
"A man for all seasons" - by a long way!

7. Favourite biography/autobiography of a saint?
Jean-Jacques Antier's life of Charles de Foucauld, published in English translation by Ignatius Press. I found this a very exciting book. It tells the story of de Foucauld's last day alive - but at each point in the day then takes you back to tell the story of his earlier life. As you progress through the chapters, each of which begins by describing the next part of de Foucauld's last day, the tension builds quite tangibly. Extremely well written.

Clara Lejeune's biography of her father, Jerome Lejeune, called "Life is a Blessing" comes second. I am sure the cause for Jerome Lejeune's canonisation is already opened or soon will be.

8. Favourite novel/book by a saint?
Stumped completely by this one.

9. Saints (besides your favourite's) you'd want to meet
St Thomas More, because my trade union activity gives me some part in political life, and he is a patron saint for those in public life. Meeting St Robert Bellarmine might also be rather like meeting Pope Benedict XVI - some years ago now, I had occasion to describe Bellarmine as being the "Cardinal Ratzinger of his day". By which I meant that they are both people of deep faith, powerful intellect and whose lives demonstrate an encounter between their faith and contemporary culture. Nearly forgot St Joseph ... but I am not sure I have any idea what it would be like to meet him.