Lourdes 2023

We recently returned from a five day visit to Lourdes, staying in a hotel we have used in the past but which had changed ownership since our last visit. Judging from their occupancy during the second week after Easter - ie very early in the pilgrimage season - Lourdes has bounced back reasonably well from the COVID pandemic.  The number of coaches parked also suggested healthy visitor numbers. The French version of the shrine website lists a full pilgrimage programme across the season, which is also an indication of a recovery in the fortunes of the town.  

During our five days in Lourdes, several large French pilgrimages were present. The International Mass on the Wednesday saw the underground basilica with standing room only. The celebrating bishop preached very ably on the pastoral theme of the shrine for this year: " ... that a chapel be built here ...". The video of the full celebration is on Youtube, with the homily beginning at 28:55 (only in French, but at the actual celebration itself, an English translation was shown on screens in the basilica). It was frustrating that the priests celebrating the daily Mass for English speaking pilgrims did not show any awareness of the pastoral theme.

The Eucharistic Procession is being introduced by the trumpet voluntary that I think was first used in Lourdes for the Jubilee of the Year 2000 - and it is followed by the invitation to those waiting at the altar on the prairie to kneel, if they are able, as the Eucharist is processed to the altar. The invitation is also repeated as the Eucharist arrives in the Underground Basilica for a time of silent adoration. I was reminded of an earlier post on this blog describing some of our other experiences of Eucharistic processions.

The torchlight procession on the Wednesday of our stay was as large as I have seen it on previous visits to Lourdes in July and August - though I must admit to finding the way in which the statue of Our Lady is wheeled up the ramps from the steps and into the Rosary Basilica at the end of the celebration a little comic.

On the Thursday of our stay, we walked up from Lourdes to Bartres, and sat for some time at the sheep fold. The skies alternated between A-400M military transport aircraft arriving and departing from the nearby airport and a pair of birds of prey circling - Gerard Manley Hopkins poem The Windhover came to mind as I watched the birds circle.

The Friday morning saw us pray the "high" Stations of the Cross, using the meditations of Benedict XVI for the Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum on Good Friday 2005. The way in which individuals, small groups and family groups can be seen visiting the Stations is an impressive witness to faith.

One of the consequences of Britain's departure from the European Union is that there is a (generous) limit to the number of days that British Citizens can spend in the EU without a visa. To audit a visitor's presence in the EU, British visitors now have their passports stamped by passport controls with the date of entry and again with date of departure. So our visit to Lourdes is now recorded by stamps in our passports.

The exposition of the Turin Shroud

Zero and I will have an opportunity in a few weeks time to visit the Turin Shroud, which has just gone on display in the Cathedral of Turin.

The official website for the Turin Shroud is here, from which it is possible to book tickets (free) for your visit:Holy Shroud

See also reporting as follows:

The Shroud of Turin has been put on display to the public until June 24

Pope Francis to visit Turin Shroud

During Turin Shroud display, archbishop offers absolution to women who have had abortions (A similar permission for priests to absolve those who have procured an abortion was given, if I recall correctly, on the occasion of the World Youth Day in Madrid - and, I would assume, on the occasion of the more recent WYD in Rio.)

It would be saintly to be able to say that we were going on pilgrimage especially for the visit to the Shroud, but that would be to be economical with the truth! We will be making a day visit to Turin during a holiday by Lake Como.... visiting the central part of the lake, one is put in mind of Romano Guardini's Letters from Lake Como, the reading of which is a very different experience when you can recognise the locations to which he refers and the unique combination of the lake and its ferries with the surrounding mountains.

Beautiful

Bloggers sometimes have to to the ordinary things of real life - like stripping wall paper and taking delivery of new furniture - so I didn't make it to Mass on Friday for St Scholastica or yesterday for the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. In Brentwood Diocese, Our Lady of Lourdes is a Feast, too, rather than a Memorial, as she is one of  the patrons of the Diocese.

In consequence, it was quite delightful to read this post at Tigerish Waters. I am not sure that I appreciate the musical setting of the audio/video clip as much as Rita (it seems a bit esoteric for my tastes), but the words are beautiful.

Having visited Subiaco, Monte Cassino and Lourdes there is a resonance to these celebrations that would not otherwise be there. Is this part of the sense of pilgrimage, and part of the mission of places of pilgrimage in the life of the Church?

La Salette: a different view

Zero and I recently visited the shrine at La Salette. Photographs give the impression that the site of the shrine is larger than it actually is. It is located a 15 minutes twisting, climb up into the mountains, in the French Alps south of Grenoble. On the morning of our first full day, we prayed the events of the apparition by the statues that recall the events (the photograph is not mine, but taken from the page of photographs linked to above).

The second photograph (below) shows the view from outside the shrine on the morning of our return. The movement of the clouds across the front of the mountain facing the shrine made this a fascinating view to watch, with its change of mood accompanying the changes in the clouds. Believe it or not, a small aeroplane had landed and taken off again from the slope that you can see left-of-centre in the photograph, and just above the trees on the slope. The third photograph should enable you to see the sloping landing strip more clearly - look just above the sloping tree line at centre-right in the photograph. The main shoulder of hillside that you can see was, for one day of our stay, home to a flock of sheep and goats - and their shepherd who lived in a house hidden from view.

This fourth photograph (below) was taken in the side valley to the right, where you can see thin cloud along the right hand edge of the photograph above. Two things do not show up well on the photograph. Spread across the near hillside is a flock of some 100 or so sheep and goats - you can see them if you look closely. They had been brought up the valley from their sheepfold (see above) by the shepherd and his three dogs, and they continued on towards the upper left corner of the photograph to spend a day grazing on the upper most part of the mountain. The second thing that does not show up well is the sound of the alpine bells attached to the flock which, literally, filled this valley with a steady musical sound. It could have been a different century!

At the foot of the mountain, in the village of La Salette itself, there is a cemetery containing the graves of some Canadian pilgrims and aircrew. The Canadians were returning from a pilgrimage to Rome in November 1950 when their DC 4 aircraft crashed into a nearby mountain called L'Obiou (I think it might be the mountain hidden behind cloud in the second photograph above). Most of the pilgrims were older in years, and many were married couples. One can just see them having saved up for a once in a lifetime trip shortly after the end of the Second World War. The ages of the aircrew are noticeably younger.

The representation of the apparition at the entrance to the cemetery was made by students from a school in the Vosges region of France, using wreckage of the crashed aeroplane recovered from the mountain side. It was constructed to mark the 60th anniversary of the accident in 2010.

As you will see from my photographs, we were at La Salette at a most beautiful time for colours. I think we were able to see just about every possible colour of leaf as autumn seemed almost frozen at its most colourful.

JOSP Fest: Journey of the Spirit Festival

Today's ZENIT news report has pointed me in the direction of this - the "First International Festival of Journeys of the Spirit". Below is the content of the page dedicated to the theme of this festival, which combines professional exhibition with a spiritual theme.

The Theme
“Sing also now, not just to enjoy the rest, as to relieve the fatigue. Sing as a traveller. Sing but walk. Sing to alleviate the difficulty of the march, but don’t indulge laziness singing. Sing and walk.” (Saint Augustine)



“Sing and walk” is the theme of the first edition of Josp Fest because it accurately describes the pilgrimage experience. Walking is a sphere of life, and together with song, it can help to overcome the obstacles faced during a journey, especially when shared with others.