When I was little my brother was diagnosed with a lazy eye. As little kids we had no idea what this meant. We knew what lazy was, but we had no idea how your eye could be lazy. The doctor gave him glasses, and he had to wear a patch over his strong eye. To tell you the truth, I was a little jealous. Anyway, my mom went down to St. Louis Bertrand Church in Louisville and came home with a small bottle of holy water with the Blessed Mother and a young girl imprinted on the bottle. Mom put that holy water on Kerry’s bad eye until one day he didn’t have to wear the glasses or the patch anymore. Mom told us that the holy water was extra special. It was from Lourdes and we believed that this holy water, and prayers to the Blessed Mother, could perform a miracle on my brother’s eye. And it did.
A few years later we were watching TV and The Song of Bernadette came on. Bernadette was a little girl in Lourdes, France and the Blessed Mother appeared to her. Her companions were with her. Bernadette was the oldest and she was determined to do all that the Blessed Lady asked of her. Mary appeared to Bernadette 18 times. As a little girl I went outside and looked to the sky to see if Mary would appear to me. She never did.
Fast forward to adulthood and all the things that life puts you through and I went to St. Louis Bertrand many times. Sometimes I would buy holy water for me and sometimes for those I knew needed it.
My sister got sick years ago and if I had had the money, I would have packed her up and taken her to Lourdes. Of course, she was too sick to go even if I had the money. I knew if she went to Lourdes she would be healed. That’s a little bit of “because Mom said so” and a lot about the faith I have today. The doctors finally figured her out and she got better but never back to normal.
I’ve had a relationship with Mary my whole life. Another “Mom said so”. Mom had such a devotion to the Blessed Mother, we really had no choice. But my love and adoration for her finally came to fruition in Fancy Farm. When I left Louisville, I left my mother’s grave. I used to go to check in quite frequently. I didn’t have that in western Kentucky. So, I would walk around the cemetery in Fancy Farm and talk to the mothers that no one talked to or prayed to anymore. I borrowed their grave to talk to my mother. Then I started lingering at the Blessed Mother statue behind Father’s garage. He always plants Black-eyed Susans there. Mom used to call me her “little black-eyed pea”. That setting always brought me peace. Then I thought if I was going to talk to Mom at the Blessed Mother statue maybe I needed to go to the grotto, right down from church. I think it was there that Mom gave me the greatest gift. I know that she told me I could continue to talk to her, but why didn’t I talk to the Blessed Mother. She promised me that Mary was a very good listener.
So, I did. And because of that I became adoringly devoted to the Blessed Mother. I have received guidance I didn’t know I needed; I have developed relationships I didn’t know I needed; and she has sparked a pilgrimage I didn’t even know I was on. But the gift that that Mary gave to me, that I had never had was the relationship I now have with her Son, Jesus Christ. I always had a relationship with God and with the Holy Spirit, but Mary gave me her Son and many wants of my life have been fulfilled; things I never knew I needed or wanted.
Last year my daughter, Katie, hosted a foreign exchange student from France. I had been to France when I was in high school. I went to all of the landmarks in Paris. I went to Versailles and the Loire Valley. I did not get to go to Lourdes. My new “granddaughter” promised me if I came to France with Katie we could go to Lourdes. I was all about it.
When Katie began planning her trip, I kept telling her I didn’t know. I told her I was old and was out of shape and I didn’t think I would survive a flight over the ocean. She kept on me. I kept saying “we’ll see”. Then she put on the pressure: “we can go to Lourdes”. Yes, I know. That was the promise. That Lourdes “carrot” was staring me down. I finally agreed.
It was not an easy trip. I had an anxiety attack over the Atlantic. The meds my doctor gave me to make me sleep on the flight didn’t work. The seat was very uncomfortable, and I did not sleep 5 minutes. Once we got to Paris, we found that our hotel was about 40 minutes outside of the city. What I saved on hotel costs I had to spend on taxis and Ubers. However, the area was not the least bit touristy and there was this great Caribbean restaurant right across the street from the hotel.
We got up at 4AM to catch our 6AM train to Lourdes. The ride was 7 hours because we had to change trains. I’ve always loved the train. When we got to town we decided to walk to our hotel. We really didn’t have a plan. We really didn’t have any expectations. We wanted to see the grotto, and we wanted to experience the water of Lourdes.
Did I mention that Europe, especially France, was under a heat dome? Did I also mention that the French do not have air conditioning? And the places that do have it don’t have air conditioning like we do. For instance, if it’s 80 degrees outside, at home we have our AC set on 70. Y’all seriously, on days I work from home I have to wear a sweatshirt. Most nights in France we had to have a cool shower before bed just so we could sleep.
By the time we got to the hotel it was very hot and we were dripping with sweat. Fortunately, we got into our room early and could rest for a while. But we were starving. We did take a nap, thank goodness, and then we went out looking for something to eat. If you know me at all, and know of my travels, you’ll know that I stop at all kinds of places, all over the country. I’ve been to Mark Twain’s house. I’ve been to Emily Dickinson’s home. I’ve been to the settlements at Jamestown and Williamsburg and Plymouth. I’ve been to Gettysburg and to Valley Forge and Monticello. I have been to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But, if you know me, you know I go to those places, but I don’t go through those places. I go to their gift shops. I love gift shops. And, whenever or wherever I go I have to buy something. It’s usually a trinket or a sticker. But sometimes. . .
Anyway, Lourdes is full of gift shops. Tons. Beaucoup. All up and down the road to the sanctuary. They have rosaries and fans and statues. But the main thing they have are candles and empty bottles. We could understand the empty bottles but what’s with the candles?
When we got into the sanctuary (I would call it a shrine or a compound) we started walking around scoping things out. At one point Katie punched me and pointed to this wall. “The water” she said. There was this entire wall with water faucets every 2-3 feet. They were on a sensor and if you stood in front of one the water would come on. People were filling water bottles, using the water to bless themselves and drinking the water. What? What I failed to remember was that the Blessed Mother told Bernadette to use the water to drink and wash. I immediately took my handkerchief and wet it. Then I filled my hands with water and splashed my face. I’ll tell you if it wasn’t for that water I would have had a heat stroke. It was so much more than that. And it wasn’t long before my tears mixed with the water from Lourdes to wash my face and my heart and my soul.
That was my first “I could die right here” moment.
Remember I mentioned the candles at the gift shops? We couldn’t figure those out. But then we did. Every night at 9PM there is a procession and a rosary around the courtyard in front of the Basilica. It is a parade of the old and the ill and all those who have come to Lourdes desperate for a miracle. There are pilgrimages from all over the world. There are pilgrims and believers and spectators. And they’re all carrying candles. The rosary is said in at least 3 languages, maybe more. During the rosary they sing the “Ave Maria” and during that the candles are held high over our heads as we sing to Mary. Katie and I were right in the middle of all of this, doing what we came for, adoring Mary and through Mary her Son.
That was the second “I could die right here” moment.
The next morning, we got up and went to find a croissant. I’m sorry those of you who think you know where to get a good croissant. Unless it’s in France, you don’t. Oh, and fresh squeezed orange juice. I didn’t even ask how much it was. Then we headed down to the Lourdes shrine. We went to information because we did not have a plan. We got a schedule and a map. We knew what we wanted to do. I wanted to go to confession, see the grotto, light candles, buy lots of bottles to fill with water and go into the church of Notre Dame de la Rosary. There were some things Katie wanted to do but she was really giving this day to me.
I went to confession. I’m not a “running the church door down” confessor. I wish I was. I want to be. But I could have been there all day. I almost was with the line for those who spoke English. But they had 3 priests, they kept saying. The priest I got did speak English and was American. He asked me how long I was staying in Lourdes. I told him we were leaving later that day. He said he wished I was staying longer. And then he gave me a lot to think about, to consider. I don’t want to tell you that I came out of there a changed woman but I came out of there a changed woman.
That was the third “I can die right here” moment.
When I recovered from confession and went to get more water to drink and wash my face we headed down to the grotto. I thought we’d have to climb up a mountain, but we were on level ground. There was a line. I had no idea how far the line went or even where we were going. We got in line anyway.
Just around the corner it was there. It was the grotto. Everyone was hugging the rocks of the cave. These rocks were so smooth. But the crowd would touch the rocks as a sort of blessing. The rocks weren’t wet, but they were damp. We went a little further and there she was. The statue of our lady was right there, right in front of me. She was too high to touch but she was not too high that I couldn’t just stop and stare, which is what I did. I was immediately transported back on the couch watching “The Song of Bernadette” with Mom. I began to cry, to talk with Mom, to tell her I was so lucky to be there, with my own daughter. It was something we would always have together, something she would always remember about me. They were praying the rosary again, in French maybe, so I just prayed along in English. When we got away from the grotto we could go back and sit with the Blessed Lady for a while. This was where Katie was so good. She hung with me and took a ton of pictures of me and for me.
This was the fourth “I can die right here” moment.
When we left the grotto, we went to some outbuildings on the property. They looked like tents. You could see them from the grotto. They were open-ended and there were candles everywhere. I love prayer candles, but I wanted to go to church to light them for those in my life who needed my prayers. Katie led me that way so we could look. Y’all, these tents were full of candles. There were large ones, there were really large ones, like Christ candles. The last enclosure (really not tents) was a place you could “buy” candles for a donation and light them. Of course I had to get an armload. They had a credit card machine, but I had dollars I had been saving for this. Katie scolded me telling me they only took euros. I told her they would take anything and I added extra dollars to consider for the exchange rate. I might have lit a candle for you; it was hard to keep up.
I still wanted to go to the church and I’m so glad we did. Let me tell you, it was Notre Dame de la Rosary. There were mosaics of the mysteries of the rosary all around the church. There was an altar for each decade of the mystery. The mosaic that intrigued me was of Mary and it said, “Par Marie a Jesus” which means “By Mary to Jesus”, which is how I developed my intense love of Jesus.
Then it was time to shop. I do not know how many rosaries and medals and bottles I bought but we had to have the large shopping bag. Thank goodness everything was small. The bag was pretty light but then we had to fill all of those bottles with water. On our way back over to the “water wall” Katie asked if I wanted to walk up to the original church which is built directly on top of the grotto. It was on an incline so that wheelchairs could go up there. It seemed steep to me. I wasn’t sure about it. I declined. I told her I would fill up the water bottles. A simple enough task, you would think. She took off up to the church.
Filling water bottles would be a simple enough task, if I had done it systematically, a fact I only thought of in hindsight. I was twisting off caps, filling bottles, putting caps back on, one at a time. All the time the water was running. I was stressing about wasting water, not looking for a solution. It looked like an episode from “I Love Lucy”.
Katie seemed to be taking longer than I thought coming back. I found out that she was helping these two older women navigate coming down the incline, in a wheelchair. Her comment was how hard it was to help. And, of course, the heat. Proud Mom moment.
So, our excursion was complete. We had made up our mind to take an Uber to the train station. We had about an hour before our train would arrive. Of course, when we got there, we found that we had a 2-hour delay.
We considered going back to the shrine and going to the baths. These have been known to provide healing and health. But before we had headed out we stopped by there, but they were closed for lunch and would open again at 2PM. By the time we went back over there the lines were way too long. Remember all of those people in the processions from our first night, they were all in line to go into the baths. When you went in you could just bless yourself with the water or there were medical personnel who would place you in the baths. The faith in that line was immense.
Let there be no doubt, Lourdes was a bucket list item. I have absolutely no idea though how some of those people got there. There were so many elderly (a lot older than me) and so many frail and ill. We counted at least 4 times that someone fell and needed help getting up. Fortunately, I was not one of them. But it was a difficult trip to get there. It was a trans-Atlantic flight; it was a 5-hour train ride from Paris. Many came through tours, on buses. But there were many who just came, like us. Plus, there were many who had backpacked into the mountains and came over as part of that adventure. Am I glad I went? Absolutely. Would I ever come again? I doubt it. But I won’t say no because I don’t know. I might need to. Not for me, but the need might be there. There was a man who had on a t-shirt that said he had been there 100 times between 2010 and 2020.
Of course, I don’t have to go back. I hope to think I’m taking more of it with me back home besides holy water and rosaries. And, of course, I can die. Now. I’ve been there. I’ve seen the grotto. I drank the water. I washed my face in it.
