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Lourdes - Where God Lifts Up the Lowly

Lourdes - Where God Lifts Up the Lowly by Carlos Londono

Lourdes 1     Lourdes 2     Lourdes 3

As some of you may know already, I had the gift to work for our Lady of Lourdes Shrine, France this past month of July.

The summer between first and second Theology at the seminary, the students are usually sent to one Spanish speaking country to learn the language. Being Spanish my first language, this meant I had a free summer ahead!  While living in Spain, I had visited the Shrine in Lourdes a few times and knew about a summer program for seminarians. This is how, last winter, I decided to apply for volunteer work at the shrine as a seminarian, and thus have an enriching experience before entering my second year of Theology, fourth in the seminary.

Truly, it was a great experience, beyond my own expectations. The Shrine divides its pastoral work into chaplaincies. They have the Italian chaplaincy, the Spanish, French, German, and English one. I worked for the English chaplaincy.

Each chaplaincy offers what is called the “Day Pilgrim Service” program. Crowds visit Lourdes every year. Some go there as part of an organized pilgrimage, and others prefer visiting by themselves, with their families or even individually. Our work targeted these pilgrims that went to Lourdes without an organized pilgrimage, offering them a day of organized activities.

Our schedule as seminarians (we were 4) working for the English chaplaincy was as follows:

7.00 a.m. Breakfast.

7.45 a.m. Morning Prayer.

9.00 a.m. Mass in English.

10.30 a.m. We prayed the “Way of the Cross” with pilgrims that wished to join us after mass.

12.00 m. Lunch.

2.00 p.m. A guided tour through Lourdes. We visited three places: the museum of Bernadette which explained the life of Saint Bernadette in detail. Then the Bolly Mill, which is the mill where she lived until she was 10. And finally “le Cachot”, or the former town’s prison where she lived at the time of the apparitions.

5.00 p.m. Eucharistic Procession.

7.00 p.m. Evening prayer followed by dinner.

9.00 p.m. Rosary procession around the Shrines’ esplanade.

There were two things that I would call the major graces of my work in Lourdes. First, learning about the message of Lourdes.

The message of Lourdes I would summarize it as God lifting up the lowly. The grotto where the Mother of God appeared to Bernadette on February 11th, 1858 was outside the town of Lourdes. It used to be a place where people took their animals to rest after a day of labor and therefore got the name of a “pigsty”. It also had a bad reputation. And such was the place that the Mother of God chose to appear: God is not afraid of our misery!

Also, Saint Bernadette was a poor girl, illiterate at the time of the apparitions and part of a family that went from the upper-middle class of Lourdes to a state of complete misery. After her dad, a miller, lost his job, the only place they could find to live in was the former town’s prison. It had been abandoned by the prisoners since it had been deemed too unhealthy for them to live in.   Bernadette’s family ended up living there, in complete misery and at the verge of starvation, just a few months before the first apparition. Bernadette used to say jokingly: “had our Blessed Mother found a poorer, more ignorant girl in town, she would have probably appeared to her, but she could not find one!” God lifts up the lowly!

During my first days of service I started asking in prayer: Lourdes is a place where a lot of people come seeking for healing. A lot of people receive the grace of a miraculous healing but others don’t. What does the message of Lourdes have to say to these ones that were not healed, at least miraculously? The Mother of God told Bernadette during the third apparition: I promise to make you happy not on earth but in heaven. Then I understood that God also lifts up the lowly by teaching us how to endure well our sufferings: with hope! Hope that “All shall be well” as saint Julian of Norwich said; hope that at the end “there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain” (Revelations 4:21).

The second main gift I received while in Lourdes was understanding a little more the particular and peculiar ways of God. Some people are truly healed in Lourdes through the intercession of the Mother of God. God operates in particular circumstances: He chose a group of people, Israel, to reveal Himself. Jesus, His Son, was born of a family, spoke a language, and was part of a community. Why did He not choose to reveal Himself to the whole universe without going through having to be born in a particular place and time? Why does He not heal all the people that go to Lourdes asking for a miracle and instead heals only some of them? These are his ways, and to this we say in faith: your will be done.

Lourdes, in a word was a gift. As I have told some of our parishioners: I am spoiled. May the Mother of God that appeared to Bernadette in 1858 and that we venerate at our Parish as Queen of the Apostles intercede for us as we make our Journey towards that heavenly happiness promised by Mary to saint Bernadette and through her to us all.  

 

Lourdes 4     Lourdes 5     Lourdes 6

 

Comments

  • ShirleyPosted on 9/05/17

    I have had many sad things happen in my life, I believe God does not always "fix them" but he gives us the strength to get through them. My 1st husband dies young of alcoholism and heart disease. 2 of my 3 boys are recovering addicts. One of them spend 5 years in prison. My grandson is now serving 5 years in prison because of heroin. If it wasn't for my trust in God and Mary I could be a very bitter person. But i do know that God is with us through everything.

 

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