Memories of Lourdes -- 150 year Anniversary

We saw the river as we were pulling in to the little train station. It was Bernadette's river--rushing freshly, gray and blue, swirling in little rapids and waterfalls.

It looked, somehow, just how it seemed to me that it should -- full of strength, potency and fresh life.

It was evening on the 12th of May, 2004.

We were all tired from nearly two weeks of traveling -- trains and hostels, luggage and sightseeing, planning and walking . . . and cold. It had been so cold. Colder than we had planned, a wintry cold.

We stood in the small, unprepossessing station as dusk fell. And some of us wondered why we were here. This was just a little town, a quick stop on the way out of windy, cold France to warm and sunny Spain.

This was Lourdes. The little town in France that in 1858 suddenly became important.

But it didn't seem an important stop on our trip. Lourdes had been squeezed in between Paris and Barcelona as a way to appease one who refused to travel with us unless we stopped in Lourdes. Sighing, we had agreed. Some of us had already been, some of us just didn't care.

For me, however I had felt about Lourdes in the planning stages, I had found, as our trip went on, the thought of Lourdes more and more appealing to my weary heart and soul. I was feeling a tugging at my heart, soft and gentle -- a tugging that said, slow down, stop here, rest -- you are so near to the holiness that breathes in this ancient land.

And I think now, more than anything, that rest, that holiness, is what pulled me in about Lourdes. It was the message found in Bernadette's river, as well -- the river that was so broad and deep, cleansing as it flowed, full of power and vibrancy, gray on the surface, yet holding the promise of color in its depths.

That hidden color was part of the secret of the little town. Gray it was, and indeed the day we spent in its quiet peace was overcast, dripping with chill rain and moist with wet winds. The day was as gray as the stone of the town, hard icy gray. The cathedral itself, as we entered the place, rose into the sky, seeming as if it had grown out of the very rocky bones of the earth.

And yet, like the river, there was a color that shimmered beneath the gray. A color that shone steadily and clearly, that drew one imperceptibly to its heart until it seemed as if the quality of the air, the feel of the stone, the taste of the water, were all changed and deepened into a dimension un-glimpsed in other places. There was a cool, clear and crisp otherworldliness that filled the mind with clarity and the senses with pure and quiet light.

That day in Lourdes, was, for me, one of quiet and crystalline happiness. Tears came, from the joy, as well as the bittersweet sorrow, of being human, and being somehow allowed to approach what could not be fully understood.

Blessing followed blessing in calm serene succession:

Confession in a intimate warm room with a white bearded gentle priest who spoke of love.
The ascent of the strong sweeping arms of the cathedral.
Golden Stations in the hills on a backdrop of lush green and quiet stone.
The hush of murmured rosaries.
The people filling jugs and bottles and vases, washing, tasting, delighting in the water.
The bath house, reverent and hushed.
The words of the old woman, "You come, Mary does the rest."
The descent into the water, so cold you couldn't breathe, yet in its depths somehow a lingering warmth, a tingle of love.
The cleanliness of my body, my soul and my heart, as I emerged shivering into newness.
The smoothness of my hands, cool and clean so that I kept touching them together to feel the strange satiny freshness.
The two candles, burning before the shrine, tiny amid the masses.
The little red rose, red for my love, laid on the stones at the feet of the Lady.

And so, the secret of Lourdes, that secret that caught me off guard with its intensity and magnetism, amidst the distracting grandeur of Rome, the Alps and Paris, is the Lady. The beautiful, serene Lady in blue and white whose clear, crystal purity shines and cleanses. Her spirit is there, enveloping the river, filling the cathedral, blooming in the hills, the foundation of the rock. She is the source of the calm, the peace, the washing freshness the water, the glowing clarity of the hidden color in the gray.


It is her land, her rock, her river. There she dwells, quiet and still.  She calls to the weary traveler, whose mind is filled with little nothings, she calls as she did to me that May:
"Come to the water, drink, and wash yourself there."