Why Go To Lourdes?
Fr. J. Patrick Gaffney, SMM
Why Go To Lourdes?
You’re going to Lourdes?
What a waste of time, energy, and especially money! After all, you can just as well pray to Mary in your own home. No need to travel thousands of’ miles. A trip to Lourdes! Honestly, isn’t that a little old-fashioned? And it’s so pre-Vatican II! Are you forgetting that the Eucharist is the center of all our devotion and not Mary? And admit it, Lourdes is now just another French tourist trap, with store after store selling nothing but religious kitsch. Remember, that’s the place where they want you to bathe in water filled with millions of germs from incurable sick people. Let’s face it, you’re not too healthy now – only God knows what you’ll come home with . . . And if you have to make a trip, why not go to some newer place where there’s more going on?
Note:
As readers of The Queen will know, Fr. Gaffney contributed articles and Editorials for many years. In late 1989 he assumed the role of Editor. This was his first Editorial that appeared in the November 1989 publication.
Why Go To Lourdes?
A few months ago, it was my privilege to make a ten-day retreat at Lourdes in France.
A privilege, for no one is worthy of such a blessing. There were those who discouraged me from going to any shrine of Our Lady or who encouraged me to go else-where “where the action really is”. As I vacillated, there were only a few who urged me to visit the Lady of the Grotto at Lourdes. How fortunate that I listened to them.
Why a pilgrimage to Lourdes? Let’s not squabble about the fittingness of countless religious-goods vendors (but thank God people are buying rosaries, medals and icons!), or the quality of the food and lodging (ranges from fair to good), or the magnificent beauty of the Pyrenees Mountains surrounding Lourdes (the Rockies are even more breathtaking). By the second day, all that became no more than peripheral at best. Only one thing captured me.
The Presence
There is a Presence at Lourdes. Indefinable. Personal. Mysterious. Loving. Peaceful. Luring. It is a Power radiating from a center, from a living, beating heart.
The Presence is all-pervasive at Lourdes. Yet, we can refuse to encounter it. It we are at Lourdes only to gawk, criticize or on a “tourist trip,” chances are that even the powerful Presence will not be able to penetrate. But the Presence will always be experienced in some way. It is then that everything else must be pushed aside, so that the Presence can enter so deeply into the core of our being. Sadly, it is always possible to dread the transforming power of the Presence and instead of walking like a child into its light, huddle in the shadow of our fears.
The Presence? Kneel at the Grotto – with the childlikeness of Bernadette – and the peace becomes in strange ways so over-whelming, the call to new life in Christ so overpowering, that you know that you are face to face with someone unseen yet who is really there. Is it the statue or Our Lady tucked away in the niche of a gaping grotto? No, it is something far more.
The Presence? Mary. Mary Immaculate. Luring us by an indescribable, empowering love to total, joyful abandonment to her Son. And with Mary Immaculate, the depth of the heart finds at last the courage to murmur: “Behold the loving slave of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your word”. And the Word becomes ever more intensely alive within us.
Mary Lures Her Children
Slowly, the reality of the immense crowds comes back to sight. But everything is different now. A few moments ago – or was it hours? – they were individuals, foreigners, a contemporary Babel of tongues. Now they are sisters, brothers, all enveloped by the same maternal Presence, lured to the one Lord of all, Jesus. The sick, nailed to the cross of a stretcher or wheelchair, now radiate the glory of God. We are all one family, encountering the Mother of us all, the God-Bearer, the Immaculate Mother of Jesus our Redeemer.
Editorial
From time to time, The Queen will republish Editorials or create new Editorials on various topics.
Mary Immaculate urges all to bathe in the pool, renewing our baptism into her Son. She lures her children to the House of Reconciliation to know the embrace of Infinite, Forgiving Love. She leads all the pilgrims with an almost irresistible force to the Eucharist of her Son.
Read more about this Great Discovery here.
Mary Immaculate urges all to bathe in the pool, renewing our baptism into her Son. She lures her children to the House of Reconciliation to know the embrace of Infinite, Forgiving Love. She leads all the pilgrims with an almost irresistible force to the Eucharist of her Son.
Lourdes is a sacred place. The Presence of the Immaculate Mother of God is so intense. The “Lady of the Grotto” has never left. She 1s still there. There is nothing ominous about her. Nothing “spectacular”. She is pure simplicity, pure Mother, pure Presence of the Savior’s saving grace. No wonder Lourdes is a favorite of the Popes; it is no wonder the Church has so often drawn attention to the Grotto; no wonder that every year about five to six million pilgrims flock to the little village in the Pyrenees!
Why go to Lourdes? To experience that radical conversion the Presence of the Mother of the Church causes. But even more so, to rejoice the heart of Mary Immaculate who yearns that all her children be renewed in her Son, Christ Jesus the Lord.
