France Pilgrimage log Sept. 25, Friday
It's evening of Friday, and the pilgrims from Spain, Poland, Italy, US, and France are participating in the nightly candlelight procession in front of the Basilica of Our Lady of Lourdes. Lines to the grotto and masses were long. It tells you how busy of a pilgrimage season this is. I celebrated a private mass at the crypt chapel with everyone's intetion in mind. I also took a plunge in the icy cold bath with Lourdes water that the shrine offers for all. Tomorrow morning I will be concelebratinng mass at the grotto early in the morning. Then, I'm off to Lyon to spend overnight there before heading to Ars.
The yesterday was a whirlwind of traveling inside Paris to visit St. Catherine Laboure and St. Vincent de Paul. I concelebrated mass in the main chapel of the Miraculous Medal in French (which I did not know) and met two other priests traveling to Ars for the retreat; one priest is from Quebec and another is from Arlington, Virginia.
A couple of hours later, I then took a train to Lisieux (an hour and a half west of Paris) to visit St. Therese of Lisieux. I celebrated a private mass at one of the altars and lit some candles for various intentions that people had. By 7PM, it was time to head to Paris to catch an overnight train to Lourdes. I chose 2nd class seating with reclining chair,but quickly found out that there were over 100 chairs arranged in sardine pack, and the train was full. For this 8hr ride to Lourdes, I may have gotten 2hrs of sleep. I was a grumpy priest when I landed in Lourdes, lugging on my large backpack nearly 40 pounds of weight. I don't think I can go backpacking in Europe in the future--the older I get the more unpleasant backpacking will be for my body. I guess that's part of a pilgrimage.
Au revoir till next update.
Fr Paul from Lourdes, France
