Lourdes - Day Three

If Day Two was leisurely, Day Three was the opposite. Morning prayers were scheduled to begin at 7.15am but when I arrived at 7.18am they were already in progress so I retreated. After breakfast we were on the road at 8.15am. Fortunately, it had rained heavily during the night and temperatures had fallen.

First stop was the Saint Pius X Basilica – the underground one – for International Mass. This massive basilica reopened yesterday after the floods and has a capacity of 25,000 people. A&B’s bishop, Kieran Conry, was lead celebrant so we could hardly be late! 

 

 This basilica is my favourite church in Lourdes. Completed in 1958 the huge concrete space has been unkindly compared to a vast car park. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder and every time I enter it, my heart leaps and I am in awe of its vastness, its symmetry and how the space has been made to serve so well for worship. I’m told it is cold in winter and certainly the acoustics are a bit patchy, but given the gargantuan scale of the building, it is easy to forgive a few imperfections!

We were in place one hour before the service was due to start at 9.30am so we had time to view the different national, diocesan and parish pilgrims filing in, many parading with banners – I counted 59. There was a long line of wheelchairs and the opening words of greeting made special mention of the sick and their helpers.

There was a large choir and professional-sounding cantors to lead the congregation. The church was packed, I obviously could not count them but ‘many thousands’ is my best guess. The Arundel & Brighton pilgrims were seated together with the redshirts at the back, several of them using the free time to practise their signing.

Bishop Kieran – demonstrating perfect fluency in French and Italian – was the main celebrant, assisted by six other bishops. The mass was mostly in Latin, the language of the worldwide catholic church, with parts in French, Italian and English (and possibly other tongues my cloth ears did not recognise).

In his homily Bishop Kieran reminded us of how we typically pray, prioritising our wants/needs. We should recognise that our requests are always heeded as mentioned in today’s gospel (Luke 11:9-10), and it is time to focus on gratitude and thanksgiving instead of endlessly focusing on our desires.    

After lunch (chicken with onion and French fries), we returned to the Saint Pius X Basilica for a Service of Reconciliation. Following a brief introduction and reading of scripture, the A&B Lourdes Pilgrimage choir and soloists sang hymns for an hour while priests, about 15 of them, heard confessions, first the wheelchair-bound, then the rest of us. This is a time for sombre reflection, confession, forgiveness, penance, resolution and hope, and today was no different.

We emerged, blinking, into the daylight and made a rapid decision. We would forego the upcoming Stations of the Cross scheduled for the ‘low stations’ (level ground) and have a rest - promising ourselves that we would do the ‘high stations' (steep rocky ground) tomorrow.


After dinner (trout), we took part in the Marian Torchlight Procession, beginning at 9.00pm. As the procession of several thousand pilgrims began, led by A&B Diocese, the two groups of A&B pilgrims, the wheelchair-bound/stretchered and the able bodied joined together behind the A&B banner.

 

We walked slowly with lit candles - a reminder of our baptism when we first received the gift of faith - and prayed the rosary in a variety of languages, saying the Glory Be in Latin, and singing hymns in praise of Mary.   

 

 

We processed right round the Esplanade ending in front of the Rosary Basilica. The sick pilgrims were then moved to the front and all the other pilgrims fell in behind them, facing the Basilica, a sea of flickering lights, as we sang the final hymn of the evening ‘Salve Regina’ and offered each other the Sign of Peace.