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Lourdes: God Is Where The Poor Are
BY BEN ANTAO |
First published in the Goan Observer |
Dec 5th, 2009
A year after surviving cancer, the author and his wife
made a spiritual trip to Lourdes in France.
THE DOWNTOWN core of the town of Lourdes was packed
with pilgrims so much so that our coach had to crawl
around the block to find adequate parking space to
drop us off near the Grand Hotel Moderne, 21 Avenue B.
Soubirous. We spent two nights here. While on the way
to the foothills of the Pyrenees where Lourdes is
nestled in southwest France, our guide Filipe had
given us the background of the fourteen-year-old girl
Bernadette Soubirous who had witnessed the apparitions
of Mary Immaculate Conception in 1858, and the
subsequent development of the hilly pastoral place
around its fortified castle. Only four minutes from
the hotel stood the famous grotto of Our Lady of
Lourdes at the rear of the Basilica of the Rosary,
where a continuous line of pilgrims genuflected and
filed past the grotto, and walked towards a nearby
stand to purchase and light candles as offerings of
prayers for petitions made or granted. Filipe told us
that every evening at 9 pm there was a candlelit
rosary procession that we could join if we wished.
It was about 5:30 pm. Marinella and I stood briefly in
front of the Grotto of Massabielle (the security
attendants made sure the pilgrims were moving
silently, if slowly), made the sign of the Cross, and
offered candles in thanksgiving. A large number of
pilgrims were sitting on benches or standing in the
vicinity of the grotto, praying and meditating. On the
other side at a long wall fitted with water taps
connected to the springs welling up beside the grotto,
we drank some water. Then we climbed the long stairs
to enter the white Gothic-style church situated on top
of the rock above the grotto, called the Basilica of
the Immaculate Conception, built between 1866 and
1872. A mass was in progress while we picked up a
prayer book in English, and stood there for some time.
Marinella asked if I wanted to stay for the duration
of the mass. I said no as I was hungry for dinner.
Below and in front of this basilica is another church
called the Basilica of the Rosary. Together, the dual
basilicas look to the large Rosary square below and
make an impressive sight.
PARAPHERNALIA
AS we walked around the streets, I was blown away by
the crush of tourists in the boutiques, cafés,
restaurants and hotels. We entered a shop to pick up
some gifts. A variety of religious articles were on
sale such as medals, bracelets, necklaces, scapulars,
rosaries, candles, lace shawls and other paraphernalia
of Lourdes interest.
Practically every shop was given over to the sale of
religious items - the image of Bernadette in every
shape and size, adorning thermometers, plastic tree
trunks, key rings, empty bottles that you can fill
with holy Lourdes water, sweets and plastic grottoes.
We returned to the Rosary square a few minutes after
nine. A long and thick procession of men and women
holding candle sconces having already left the grotto
area was now proceeding east towards the crowned
statue of Virgin Mary, singing the familiar refrain of
Ave, Ave, Ave Maria that I used to sing in our parish
church in Velim, Goa. The Ave is sung after each
decade of the rosary. We didn’t join the procession
that would gradually come around the square to the
basilicas for the final benediction.
The next morning we had a local guide named François
who led us up the narrow streets to the steep
fortified castle that had survived centuries of wars
and assaults on Lourdes, beginning from the Saracens
and Moors in the eighth century to the Gauls, Romans,
Barbarians and the English invaders up to the early
17th century. The history of Lourdes is that of a
village captured and recaptured, sacked and pillaged
until its castle became a state prison in 1789 during
the French Revolution. In the 1850s, the 3300
inhabitants of the village were considered poor and
the family of Bernadette Soubirous the poorest of the
poor.
Until now, my knowledge of Lourdes and the apparitions
was formed from the novel The Song of Bernadette by
Franz Werfel that I’d read in Bombay in 1958 and the
film starring Jennifer Jones that I’d seen. However,
over the mists of 50 years, my impressions had grown
hazy, acquiring a patina of fascination that time and
age appears to add on memories.
‘VISION’
I was struck by the word ‘vision’ that François, a
tall, gaunt-looking Frenchman, repeatedly used to
describe and explain the history and culture of
Lourdes, saying fondly the vision of France, the
vision of history, the vision of Lourdes, as if the
events of 1858 were somehow an act of divine
Providence. To a nationalist and a believer, they
would be. God is where the poor are. The castle today
is converted into a Pyrenean Museum. To the east of
this castle stood the Church of the Sacred Heart, a
high and impressive edifice whose construction had
begun in 1869 and finished in 1946.
“The style of architecture is Romanesque of the 12th
century,” he said pointing to the semi-circular
arches. “Gothic is French.” In the Gothic style that
evolved from the Romanesque, the arches would be
pointed.
Inside the church we saw a magnificent stained glass
window showing the girl Bernadette with Father
Peyramale, with the inscription “I am the Immaculate
Conception, Mars 25, 1858.” The window, completed in
1921, celebrates the name of the ‘vision’ that Father
Peyramale, the parish priest, had requested Bernadette
to ask of the Apparition.
All together Bernadette saw 18 apparitions at the cave
of Massabielle, a walking distance of about 15 minutes
from her home Le Cachot, beginning from February 11,
1858 to July 16, 1858. Along with her sister Toinette
and a friend Jeanne Abadie, she had gone to gather
firewood and driftwood that usually washed up at the
rocky recess called ‘pig-sty’ on the banks of the
River Gave. Here, for the first time, the apparition
of the Lady appeared only to Bernadette.
It happened at the 16th Apparition (March 25, 1858)
when Bernadette asked, “Mademoiselle, would you please
be kind enough to tell me who you are?”
The Lady of the Apparition slipped her rosary on to
her right arm, and with her hands joined she raised
her eyes to heaven and said, “I am the Immaculate
Conception.”
When the girl arrived at the rectory and blurted out
the name, Father Peyramale said to her. “A woman
cannot have a name like that. Do you know what that
means?”
Bernadette shook her head. “Go home, I’ll see you
another day,” said the priest. That same evening he
wrote to his bishop, “She could never have invented
this.”
And so the message of Lourdes was signed.
Interestingly enough, four years earlier on December
8, 1854, Pope Pius IX had proclaimed the Immaculate
Conception of Mary as the dogma of the Catholic faith.
HUMAN INTEREST
IT’S a human interest story of Bernadette Soubirous,
who was born on January 7, 1844 and died on April 16,
1879. François gave us a tour of the Boly Mill where
she lived first with her parents (her father was a
miller) and the Le Cachot, the hovel of a place, now a
tourist attraction said to be visited by over 400,000
pilgrims annually.
Le Cachot was a jail cell until 1824. This room was
given free to her family by their cousin in 1857
because they had no place to live, having been forced
to leave the mill because they couldn’t afford to pay
the rent. The room of 3.72 x 4.40 m served as a
kitchen, dining room, bedroom and a place of prayer
for six people. It was restored in 1996 and looked
after by the Sisters of Charity of Nevers, the
religious institution that Bernadette had joined to
become a nun.
The family pictures on the walls of both places convey
a sense that the family learned to make do with
whatever little they had, anchored by their faith in
God, love and prayer. Even as a girl, Bernadette
seemed fond of wearing a head covering and a shawl
over her shoulders, an image glimpsed today by
millions across the globe.
We walked back west towards the Rosary square for a
break and use of facilities. At this stop about 200
metres from the dual Basilicas stood a set of stunning
sculptures of the Calvary scene. A tall, monumental
crucifix is set up from a large raised square base,
with the statues of Mary and Magdalene in the front
corners and two apostles at the back corners, who
witnessed the Crucifixion. It was created by the
father-and-son sculptors Yves Hernot in 1900 as a gift
to Lourdes from the main Breton dioceses. The monument
represents Breton Catholicism and similar calvaires (Calvaries)
are reportedly found throughout Brittany in France.
François then led us to the nearby Basilica of St.
Pius X, called the Underground Basilica, built in 1958
in anticipation of the enormous crowds expected in
Lourdes for the centenary of the Apparitions. A
modern, concrete building, it is almost entirely
underground and forms part of the sanctuary of Our
Lady of Lourdes. The basilica was designed by the
architect Pierre Vago. The nave is oval, 191m long and
61m wide, and slopes gently upwards from the centre,
where the sanctuary is situated on a raised platform.
BASILICA
WHEN we entered it around 11 am, there was a mass in
progress. The ceiling is low but the basilica looked
very spacious with room for 25,000 worshippers. The
walls are decorated with the Stations of the Cross and
a depiction of the Apparitions.
“The basilica has given shelter to many pilgrims when
it rains,” said our guide. In answer to my question,
he said, “Last year being the 150th anniversary, we
had eight million pilgrims. Normally we get between
five and six million visitors a year.”
“At this rate, Lourdes will never see any recession,”
I said. He smiled knowingly.
Today Lourdes has a population of about 15,000 but is
able to take in all those millions of pilgrims and
tourists every year because it has some 270 hotels,
second highest number only to Paris.
It was a pleasant, sunny day. After François finished
his guided tour, Marinella and I walked back to the
grotto for another look and reflection. The lines of
pilgrims were thinner but moving in an orderly
fashion. We sat down on a bench looking at the statue
of Our Lady of Lourdes erected into the grotto in
1864. I couldn’t believe I was sitting there in
September 2009 because we had planned to visit France
and this shrine last year in September 2008. But we
had to cancel that trip because I was diagnosed with
colon cancer and had surgery done in September 2008.
Luckily, the cancer did not spread to the lymph nodes
and I got a second chance, the cat’s proverbial ninth
life, I called it.
“How special it is for me to sit here after one year,”
I said to Marinella. She was looking at the statue but
nodded briefly as I saw her eyes brimming with tears.
The story of Bernadette has been told by many in many
different languages over the past 150 years. It’s a
story too deep for tears and won’t go away as can be
testified by the many miracles attributed to her
intercession. She was canonised a saint by Pope Pius
XI on December 8, 1933, two years before I was born.
Her feast day is February 18 in France, and April 16
everywhere else. She is a patroness of the sick, the
family, the poor and shepherds.
The above essay is from the author’s travelogue Tour
de France. Ben Antao, who lives in Toronto, Canada, is
a journalist and novelist whose last novel is titled
"The Priest and His Karma" published by
Publish America of Baltimore, MD in 2009. His email:
ben.antao@rogers.com
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