April 27, Lourdes and Drive Over Pyranees

Bernadette at the Time of the Apparitions

Statue of Our Lady in the Grotto

We are all very excited about today. Not only are we on our way to visit Lourdes, one of the most famous and important shrines honoring the Virgin Mary, but it is also a beautiful clear day as we start our drive north to travel through the Pyrenees (unfortunately Lourdes was a bit cloudy and rainy). We are surprised at the height and ruggedness of the mountains. At the higher elevations, we even passed through some snow. The mountains and small towns here were beautiful. 

Dan Paulonis, Randy Scholl, Deirdre McKay, and Mary and Phil Kellerhals.

Just before we left Spain, we stopped for a break and a few of us decided to try some herb liquor - not bad!




We arrived  at Lourdes at around 3:00, dropped our bags at the Astoria Vatican Hotel, and immediately went on a walking tour to learn more about Bernadette Soubirous and get our first glimpse of the amazing Lourdes shrine. 

Granite Baptismal Font Used to Baptize Bernadette

Bernadette was a peasant girl born in 1844. She was the first child of her parents Francois and Louise, who ran the Boly Mill. She was baptized on Jan 9 in a Parish Church in Lourdes. That Church no longer exists, but the baptismal font is now in the Church of the Sacred heart, which we visited. We were also able to visit the restored Boly Mill and adjacent visitor center.

Room in Cachot. 

Their family life was loving but became difficult when her father lost the mill due to an economic downturn when she was about 10. They had to leave the Mill and eventually were offered the ground floor of an old prison (The Cachot), a miserable and unhealthy place for a family of six to live. We saw this building as well, and it was hard to believe that they lived there. Living conditions here contributed significantly to the deterioration of Bernadette's health.They were quite impoverished, so Bernadette, when she was 13, went to a nearby farm, the Burg farm in Bartres where she worked as a shepherdess and took care of the owner's young children . It was here that she started her study of catechism and how to write. We had a chance to visit Bartres and the Burg farm the next day. Bernadette went back to Lourdes in Jan 1858.

Bernadette's Marian apparitions began Feb 11, 1858 when she was 14 years old and ended July 16 of that year, in a grotto near a small river. It was on Feb 25th when the apparition (she still did not know who this beautiful Lady was) told Bernadette to dig for a spring in the back of the grotto, and thus the spring of Lourdes with its healing waters was discovered. 

Our First View of the Impressive Lourdes Shrine. 

Then it was finally time to walk to the shrine - and it is fair to say that we were awed by its majesty. 

Basilica of the Holy Rosary (upper) and 
Basilica St. Pius X (lower)

Upper Basilica of the
Immaculate Conception

There are now three basilicas at the Shrine - the Upper Basilica of the Immaculate Conception (the most prominent and the one built directly over the grotto), the Basilica of the Holy Rosary (in front of and below the Upper Basilica) and the new (and largest) underground Basilica St Pius X.  



After briefly visiting this latter Basilica, we left to have Mass in the very small Chapel of St. Gabriel in the Crypt. What a beautiful chapel and intimate (some might say tight) setting.

Jan Brady Doing the Reading

After Mass we had a few minutes to get a brief look at the grotto, but as it had started to rain and was already well after 6:00 pm, we all walked back to the hotel for dinner and our daily get-together for discussion and reflection. We didn't have much time for rest, since most of us wanted to get back to the shrine for the candlelight procession, which started around 9:00 pm. As with Fatima, this part of the day was most moving and inspirational.