Lourdes is a testimony of the existence of God, Christ and Our Lady and the promise of eternal life.
It is a spiritual clinic where you get the opportunity to recharge your batteries, where millions of souls are cured every year.
Lourdes is not a lazy holiday ... anything but.
It is a chance to come to terms with yourself, to see your life as it is, as you are, as you should be.
Without Lourdes, heaven would be less populated and the world a much colder and selfish place.
To understand Lourdes you have to go there, to touch with ones hands, to see with ones eyes, to feel with ones heart.
Joy cannot be explained ... it is felt.
You are about to experience the real meaning of joy and true happiness and love.
Lourdes is the precious fountain of joy between God and mankind and behind it lies the conversions, the cures, the hidden changes of heart that can only be found through God.
Our pilgrimage to Lourdes is an answer to Our Ladys request, her invitation to each person individually.
No one goes to Lourdes without this special personal invitation from Our Lady.
Think about it .... how is it you are going this year?
Once you have answered Our Ladys call she has this happy knack of drawing you back and back ... THAT IS if you responded openly and freely to her last time.
The greatest miracles of Lourdes are found in those who turn back to God in love.
St. Bernadette experienced sickness and pain in her life; you will see great sickness in Lourdes but you will realise that pain and suffering are a gift from God,
that the sick have a very important role to play in society,
that they are very close to God and have so much to teach us;
through their pain and suffering they reach out and touch our lives;
they bring out the best in people who perhaps were previously afraid of sickness.
Remember the message of Our Lady to St. Bernadette:
"I do not promise to
make you happy in this world but in the next".
In this pilgrimage to Lourdes let us ask Our Lady to give us the grace to become better people, to love God and serve others more willingly and cheerfully.
Let us come home with the will to accept whatever comes to us in life as Gods will for us and to make the most of every opportunity and the most of all we are and have.
Let us bring to our families and friends the blessings we receive through this visit to Lourdes.
Wishing you a very happy pilgrimage and hoping that you receive every blessing you desire for yourself and those you love.
.... and it was with this happy and thoughtful message from Miss Pat Folland, who devotes untold energies to her De La Salle Youth Club, that I joined the De La Salle Youth Club Pilgrimage to Lourdes ...
The young members of the club have been well trained and very well briefed before leaving for France.
The journey by Tagney's Tour Coaches and by Channel Ferry takes just under 24 hours, from the North East of England to Lourdes, France with comfort stops on the way.
The amount of organisation in taking two coaches is an onerous one for her, but she, I know loves it all - and it is all done for Our Lady herself.
Space does not allow to tell all, but the members help with the sick and the handicapped, and the elderly, and it seems, that wherever one is in Lourdes there is somone sporting the distinctive red T-shirt denoting De La Salle!
I can truly say that I was proud of these young folk and also of the youth from other parts of the Church.
In recognition of the status of the De La Salle Youth Club, Cardinal Basil Hume of Westminster, who hails from the North East, ( We are called "Geordies", and he supports Newcastle Football Club ) agreed to become their Patron,
He came up North to give out the very much deserved Duke of Edinburgh awards, in a year when the Club 'swept the board'.
The following lines caught my eye on our return ....
