Mary leads pilgrims to Christ, says pope at Lourdes Mass

Multitudes gather to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Mary's visits with Bernadette

By JOHN THAVIS
Catholic News Service
Lourdes, France

A pilgrimmage to Lourdes leads one to a spiritual place “between heaven and earth,” Pope Benedict said Sept. 14.

Pilgrims may come to the French Marian shrine secretly hoping to receive some miracle, the pope said, but more often they leave with a different kind of spiritual experience and a changed outlook.

“A small flame called hope, compassion, tenderness now dwells within them. A quiet encounter with Bernadette and the Virgin Mary can change a person’s life,” he said during a Sept. 13 candlelight procession.

The pope’s visit to Lourdes, which this year marks the 150th anniversary of Mary’s 18 appearances to St. Bernadette Soubirous, was the highlight of his Sept. 12-15 visit to France.

Humble prayer to Mary is a true path to Christ, Pope Benedict said in his homily at a Sept. 14 Mass for 150,000 pilgrims from around the world.

The pope said Mary had appeared at Lourdes to invite everyone who suffers, physically or spiritually, to “raise their eyes toward the cross of Jesus” and recognize a love that is stronger than death or sin.

Love vs evil

“The power of love is stronger than the evil that threatens us,” he said.

In his sermon, the pope placed himself among the pilgrim population, saying he too had come to pray at the feet of Mary, “eager to learn from her alongside little Bernadette.”

Then he made a point he has consistently emphasized when speaking of Marian devotion: that Mary turns one’s gaze to Christ.

He noted that Mary’s first gesture to St. Bernadette was to make the sign of the cross — an initiation into the mysteries of faith in Christ, he said.

“Mary comes to remind us that prayer which is humble and intense, trusting and persevering, must have a central place in our Christian lives,” the pope said.

At Lourdes, he said, Mary also revealed herself as the Immaculate Conception, a person conceived without sin. In this way, she is “beauty transfigured, the image of the new humanity,” he said.

Many came to the papal Mass in wheelchairs or on stretchers, part of a perennial pilgrimage of the sick who travel to Lourdes for spiritual or physical healing.

The assembly was multicultural and multilingual, and the liturgy featured readings, prayers and responses in 10 languages, including Chinese.

Faithful travellers

Two young Catholic pilgrims from Myanmar said they had travelled halfway around the world to experience the “spirit of Lourdes” that they had heard about for years.

Zen Huai Mang, 23, said she was also seeking a personal turning point.

“I heard that Mary has done some wonderful things for sick people. I’m hoping for something positive in my own life, too,” she said. Like many other pilgrims, she bathed in Lourdes water during her stay and said she felt “newborn” afterward.

Arriving in Lourdes Sept. 13 following a two-day stopover in Paris, the pope immediately joined in the pilgrimage.

Cheered by tens of thousands who packed the streets of the town in the Pyrenees Mountains, the pope first stopped at the parish church where St. Bernadette was baptized, then visited the small house -- a former prison not much bigger than a cell -- where the girl and her family lived in the mid-19th century. There, he kissed her rosary and said a prayer.

Next, the pope went to the grotto at the base of a rocky cliff, where Bernadette experienced 18 apparitions of Mary from Feb. 11 to July 16, 1858. Like millions of pilgrims each year, he paused to take a drink of water from the spring she discovered there, a spring said to have miraculous powers. Later, the pope closed a torchlight evening procession in Rosary Square. Addressing the crowd of pilgrims, he paid tribute to simple devotion.

Our vocation

“In this shrine at Lourdes . . . we are invited to discover the simplicity of our vocation: It is enough to love,” he said.

The traditional nighttime procession stems from St. Bernadette’s habit of lighting a candle when Mary would appear to her. Today, the pope said, the light from pilgrims’ torches represents a powerful symbol against the darkness of sin.

The procession expresses the mystery of prayer in a form that everyone can grasp, like a luminous path in the dark, he said. It should also remind Christians of those who suffer.

Suffering remembered

The pope remembered those experiencing family problems, illness, unemployment or loneliness, as well as difficulties related to immigration. Those who have suffered or died for Christ must not be forgotten, either, he said.

On the plane carrying him to France, the pope told journalists his April 16 birthday fell on the feast of St. Bernadette, and for that reason he felt very close to her.

At Lourdes, he said, people encounter Mary and find that “the mother’s love” is what provides true healing for all sickness and suffering.

“I think this is a very important sign for our era,” he said.

The pope returned to the Lourdes Mass site in the evening of Sept. 14 to close a eucharistic procession. After kneeling and praying in silent adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, he told pilgrims that the respect Catholics show the Eucharist reflects the awareness that Christ is truly present.

Those who, for some reason, cannot receive Communion may find special meaning in adoration, he said.

At a Mass Sept. 15, Pope Benedict encouraged thousands of sick people to seek solace in Mary’s smile and maternal love.

Their devotion to Mary at a time of need is not “pious infantilism” but a sign of the highest spiritual maturity, the pope said Sept. 15 from an altar ringed with wheelchairs and stretchers.

The pope administered the sacrament of the anointing of the sick to 10 people during the liturgy. Addressing each by name, he gently anointed their foreheads and hands with oil and invoked the mercy of the Lord.

Behind the group receiving the sacrament stretched hundreds of the distinctive covered blue wheelchairs used to transport many of the sick at Lourdes. Most were there for the pope, but all had come to pray to Mary.

Irish faith

“I get a great feeling of well-being here. I’m in touch with God through Mary, right here in Lourdes,” said Frank Nelson, a 72-year-old Irishman, who has been coming to the sanctuary since 1948.

Seated in a wheelchair next to others in his pilgrim group, he added that he also has come for “some healing,” after undergoing two hip operations, stomach surgery and treatment for prostate cancer.

In his sermon, the pope said devotion to Mary is not an act of “outmoded sentimentality.” Rather, turning to Mary demonstrates that people “know precisely how to acknowledge their weakness and their poverty before God.”

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