I wish I had written about Lourdes sooner than this, although it is nice to be forced to look back.
My first impression upon arriving? "I have ended up in Catholic Vegas." When I got there, it was night, and so all of the hotels and restaurants had their neon lights lit up, screaming for attention from the crowds of feast-day tourists. There are two rivers going through Lourdes, and my hotel was on this one. This creates the kind of Catholic resort-town feel, because all you see are rows of blocks of hotels that back up to the sanctuary.
And, of course, there is tack. 100% pure, unrefined, leaves-a-bitter-aftertaste tack. Some tack can be kute or kitschy. Heck, I couldn't get enough of the humorously ugly yet well-intentioned sparkly Our Lady of Guadalupe things in Mexico. But Lourdes takes tackiness to the next level.
Of course, most prominent are the holy water containers, which, mysteriously, are different prices all around town. At first I started to bargain hunt and then my brain melted from all the different numbers. In the end I didn't care whether I was getting 3 for 2 or 1 for 1 or 2 for 4.And then there is pretty much anything else you could ever not need. What? You didn't need the Our Lady of Lourdes pencil I got you? Figurine? Necklace?
Poncho? Umbrella? Candle? Scarf?
Cuckoo clock?
But as I made my way past the garish displays of opportunistic capitalism, I eventually arrived at the Sanctuary. And it was this that made it all worth it.
Since the apparitions themselves are not that old (1854), neither is the Basilica, which was constructed around the turn of the last century. But it has a timeless feel to it, and is certainly picturesque. At first when I went to the Grotto I was wandering around by myself at night, so there was no one there and I was wondering if I had found the right spot. It was nice, though, to get some solo time here, since later it would be filled to capacity with Italians.
The candlelight procession and Rosary was a very interesting thing to take part in. There was a huge crowd since I was there on Feb. 10th, the eve of the official feast day of Our Lady of Lourdes. It was nice to see all the people, especially the entire families.
The next day I woke up bright and early and had a very pleasant discovery at breakfast: all you can eat croissants + as much as you want café au lait/hot chocolate machine. You can just imagine my face when I saw this. Go ahead, imagine it. I made sure to eat as much as I possibly could. Croissants, baguettes, jam, butter, cheese, ham, yogurt, cereal...mmmmmm....
It was POURING down rain all day on the 11th. Not being the brightest crayon in the box, I had decided that I'd rather not carry around an umbrella all day. Then by the time I stepped outside and got completely soaked I decided that since I was already wet it wasn't really worth it to go back up and get it. So I spent most of the day trying not to get poked in the eye by middle-aged Italian women with heavy-duty umbrellas that were trying to protect their fur coats.
Since it was the feast day, there was a ton of stuff going on. I started at the "International Mass" which was amazing in terms of sheer numbers.
Were there any priests left in the rest of Europe?
There was an official welcoming and many of the pilgrim groups marched in with their own banners.
After the Mass I jetted over to the baths, following my mom's advice to make that the first thing on my list. My not having an umbrella gave me a boost of agility and I managed to get in line just outside the shelter, which soon I would be allowed under. I was next to a French woman who said I sounded Canadian when I spoke French and a lively group of Italian women. Most of the women, in fact, were Italian.
They were, on the whole, pretty rowdy. About every 5 minutes someone would accuse someone else of having cut in line, or ask if they could cut since they were sick, yell at someone for having let someone else cut, or yell at someone for not squeezing in as close as they could so that so-and-so didn't have to be in the rain. To pacify them all there was someone constantly saying the rosary and/or singing songs in Italian, but that would only work for about 10 minutes. On the bright side, they were hilarious and I almost completely learned the Hail Mary in Italian. It was much more fun than waiting for a ride at a theme park.
I was a bit nervous for the baths, since I didn't know at all what to expect. In fact, I had been quite skeptical and when I was planning my trip to Lourdes was considering not even doing them. I thought that since I didn't really have any physical infirmities that I should give my spot to someone else.
"What?!?", my mom had exclaimed, "you CAN'T go to Lourdes and not do the BATHS! Promise me that you'll do them!" So, of course, I had to fulfill my promise to my mom.
I'm so glad I did! Yes, it was still a little overwhelming. When I went into the changing room the woman assumed I was Italian and must have thought either I was very stubborn or really stupid since she had to keep repeating directions to me. Not wanting to reveal myself as American, I finally broke down and asked if she spoke Spanish, and then I had to tell her that no, I wasn't actually Spanish...and then we spoke in English.
When you go into the baths you are supposed to have an intention. To their credit, the people running the baths have everything so streamlined that things go fast while still doing their best to remind people that the water is not magical. They hand out little brochures about the symbolism of the water, the history of the baths, and why we shouldn't look to the water at Lourdes as a cure-all elixir. And, if you approach the atmosphere in a spirit of prayer, there is a lot you can get out of it.
I thought that since I was already soaked through to the bone that it wouldn't really be a big deal, but the water was shocking. Not necessarily shockingly cold, but it was indeed frigid. It was even more shocking than a trough of water in the Pyrenees in February should be. It was the kind of shocking that took away all of my abilities to do anything other than be led by the ladies working there. For about 10 seconds, I became an almost-invalid whose body barely responded to the signals to move and speak sent by her brain.
But afterwards I was even dryer than I had been before, and I also felt like my soul had received a jolt of expresso. There was no way I couldn't stop smiling. I wanted to dance on the rooftops, even though my clothes were wet and it was raining. I didn't care! I got a candle to light and then ran into some Americans from the Oblates of Mary Immaculate near St. Louis (Cardinal George's order!) who were filming one of their priests delivering a candle that had been made from lots of little candles people had sent in. One woman interviewed me and another took pictures of the priest giving me a blessing for their newsletter.
And then I scurried around earning my plenary indulgence (ha!). Since it was the feast day, the Jubilee way was open. You could follow a path painted on the sidewalk and go into the places where St. Bernadette had lived. It was fascinating to see what a mid-19th century farming home was like, including some of the tools they used, and then being able to see the placed the whole family lived after losing everything, which had previously been a jail cell. I also saw their parish church and the place where she was baptized.
I also saw the convent where St. Bernadette became a religious. I loved seeing her prayer book, the handkerchief she used to wear with some of her hair which had been cut off. It was just really interesting.
The thing that struck me the most in seeing all of these things was that she had really been just a little girl. There was a sign in the Cachot, the jail-cell house, saying that she said that all of these crazy things happened to her only because she was the most ignorant. And she did have a simple life, but the pictures of her reflect such beauty and innocence.
