Malades is the French word for the sick. They are the reason for procession at Lourdes and the reason for pilgrimage to Lourdes. If I am blessed to go to Lourdes again, I must visit the hospital at the shrine, where all the sick are given care during their pilgrimage to Lourdes. There would be great grace in that.
Can enough photos ever be enough? This is another of my favorites.
At Fatima, Lourdes and the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, my seminary days of chant paid off. At each place, when the “Salve Regina” was chanted, I could sing with gusto. It felt so good and so right!
Following the statue of Our Lady of Lourdes and the sick are the rest of us, raising our candles high at the singing of the “Glory be to the Father,” and for the frequent and moving singing of “Ave, ave, ave Maris,” each time getting louder and louder, it seems, as the procession moves on. Verses of the Lourdes hymn are sung in different languages, as people of all languages join in the common Latin, “Ave.” Want to hear it, go my YouTube channel’ MilfordAndrewPastor.”
First in the procession at Lourdes are the malades: the sick. We bring our own dis-ease, of course, but the main reason for the prayer and the procession is for the sick. In the rosary we pray for “all those tormented by life.”
In the evening candlelight procession, immediately following the crucifix flanked by lighted candles is the statue of “Our Lady of Lourdes.”
While filling the plastic jug with Lourdes water, it is easy to question the assurance of the shopkeeper that, of course, it will be just fine stories in your checked baggage.
This sculpture of station number 8 was striking: one mother holding up her infant to Jesus, another holding on to her child beside her while she herself is weeping. Women don’t often cry for themselves, but for their children, yes, often they cry, and they weep.
We prayed the stations at Lourdes. It was not a walk in the park, but up a challenging hill. Get over it, right? Jesus’ way of the cross was no walk in the park. Always I am anxious to see how any set of Stations portrays #5: Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus to carry his cross. That is what we are call to do: pick up their cross, put it on our back and help them carry it. I never see or pray the 5th station without thinking of my friends – our friends – in Beit Jala (Bethlehem) who are at station #12: the Crucifixion.
While filling bottoms with Lourdes water, I thought of letting the water of Lourdes to flow over the rosary of my mother.
With Open Doors 