This past August, Canterbury students, faculty and alumni joined a pilgrimage to Lourdes, France. Once a small town of just over 4,000 residents, the eighteen visions of the Virgin Mary, by a sickly and illiterate 14-year-old girl, Bernadette Soubirous, transformed this scenic location in the foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains into a massive site for pilgrimage and tourism. Today, over 5,000,000 malades (the sick and disabled) volunteers and tourists from around the world make the journey to bathe and drink the water from the famous spring, praise and glorify God with Catholics from around the globe, and help infirm individuals who seek God’s grace.
The eight Canterbury students, the other teenagers on the pilgrimage, and Mrs. LaVigne, who were all arriving in Lourdes for the first time, had only heard stories about what Lourdes was like and did not really know what to expect. For Mr. Omaña, however, who was returning for the fifth time, he couldn’t wait to return.
“In Lourdes, I feel God’s presence in the throes of people there for the same purpose. I love talking to the ‘strangers’ that I meet because my interactions with them make me feel connected to the human race,” he said.
Those who were new quickly had the opportunity to personally experience what Mr. Omaña meant, as they worked in and around the baths of Lourdes for the next two days. People both sick and healthy bathe in water from the spring uncovered by Bernadette for its spiritual and physical healing powers. Visitors pray to Mary and then bathe in faith of her powers of intercession, and occasionally people’s prayers are answered in dramatic ways. Many people have reportedly been miraculously cured after bathing in the water from the spring, and 69 official miracles are recognized by the Medical Bureau of the Sanctuary of Lourdes. Thousands of others, however, have also experienced extraordinary healing.
Will Ondrey ’19 met one such woman while helping her off a train. Her name was Anna, and at age fifteen she was effectively given a death sentence by medical
professionals after they discovered that she had developed a brain tumor. Anna then told Will that she went to Lourdes, and was apparently healed shortly after her first visit. Over the last fifty years, she has returned many times.
Working in an environment where most of the people who are instructing you, or the people who you yourself are directing, do not speak your language can be intimidating. Through practicing patience and humility, however, volunteers realize that it can be a joyous and heartwarming experience.
Nowhere is that more evident than in the cubicles where the faithful undress and are dunked in the cold spring water. Eli Taylor ‘19 and Greg McKenna ’19 had the opportunity of participating in this intimate procedure. Both were impressed by the patience of the other male volunteers who demonstrated the procedures as well as the gratitude of the visitors they prayed with. Even when the boys made mistakes wrapping towels around people or not dunking them properly, the older men (who all spoke little to no English) did not just assign them to welcome visitors into the cubicle. Instead, they continued to let the Canterbury students do the more exciting work as they continued to supervise.
After three days of working in and around baths, the group transitioned into mostly working at masses, eucharistic adorations, candlelight processions, and the train station. The candlelight procession is one of Lourdes’ defining features. Every night around 8:45 p.m., thousands of people gather to walk behind a statue of the Virgin Mary before filling up the square in front of the Lower Basilica. Most nights the group held ropes for crowd control purposes as they had done at some large masses.
Taking part in this procession four evenings meant that days in Lourdes usually ended fairly late, but the group sometimes had to wake up before six. This was required when the group worked at the train station on their last full day in Lourdes. After unloading malades from all parts of France and many French-speaking African countries earlier in the week (this was the week of the Feast of the Assumption of Mary, the busiest week in Lourdes), the group helped load them back on the different trains that would bring them home.
After the group had waved goodbye to the last train, Jean, one of the head volunteers, made a point to say goodbye to the whole group. He exchanged pins with them as a token of his gratitude for the group’s work, and a friendship that probably wouldn’t have been formed anywhere else was cemented. This is one of Mr. Omaña’s great pleasures in coming to Lourdes annually.
“I love seeing the same people year after year, the other volunteers, and catching-up with them, learning about what is going on in their families…it is a magical moment of connectedness and interaction,” he said.
While hiking the picturesque Pic-du-Jer, walking through a medieval fortress, and looking out over the domain from the elevated upper basilica, the volunteers noted that Lourdes was indeed physically beautiful. Experiencing God’s grace through interacting with others and doing their own extensive prayer and self-reflection, however, helped the group realize why Lourdes is truly such a unique and special place.
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