BY BEN ANTAO

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