IT was way back in 1952 that Gene Kelly made the song Singing In The Rain famous. I felt a bit like that this past week as I spent some wet, wet days in Lourdes.
Of the six days I spent in France, we had rain on five - not just any kind of rain, but torrential, even biblical torrents.
‘Twas my thirteenth winter trip to the Shrine in the shadow of the Pyrenees in the South of France. In fairness, over that period of time I’ve often been shirt-sleeved whilst walking in glorious winter sunshine. In truth, last week wasn’t without sunshine - for a few hours on a few days.
I remember back in 2007, when I returned to Lourdes after an absence of 36 years, someone told me, ‘You can get the four seasons in one day here’. At the time I thought it was a strange statement, but I soon learned the veracity of the words.
One year, in early June, we had a hard, bitter frost overnight followed by sleety flurries down from the mountains, still snow-capped. Then, in the afternoon we couldn’t go outdoors as sheets and floods of rain cascaded down the hilly streets of Lourdes. By 5pm, the sun was splitting the stones?!
Yes, Lourdes is truly an enigma, a mystery of sorts that I am still endeavouring to fully understand!
At half-five in the morning, Mary drove me to Cork Airport for a flight to Stansted. I never saw it so crazily busy at 6am of a Sunday morning. The plane to London was full.
Two hours later, I was in the air again for the onward flight to Lourdes. landing after 2pm on a sunny but cold afternoon. I’d say 90% of the passengers were heading for the nearby ski slopes.
There’s a regular bus service from Tarbes Airport into Lourdes - a distance of about 11 miles. I just missed it so rather than waiting for35 minutes for another, I hailed a taxi. He must have seen me coming! I was heading for the Lebanese Convent on the road to Pau. We were there in less than ten minutes - nearly €50!
For more than a decade each winter, I’d stayed in the Spanish Convent on Rue Bagneures, but when I emailed the Convent two weeks ago, I was sad to get a reply stating they were closed.
In fairness, the Recd. Mother of the Poor Clare Convent sent me a few alternatives and the Lebanese Convent replied that they had a room. In effect, they had plenty rooms.
Up 31 steps I went, where there were seven guest rooms looking out on a magnificent plaza - all literally overlooking the Grotto and Domain of Lourdes. The other six rooms were unoccupied during my stay.
In fairness, Lourdes in November or December is so different from the ‘summer season’ when tens of thousands throng the streets and holy places each day.
The nun in charge showed me the dining room where I ate breakfast alone, all alone for the next six days. She provided me with a key fob by which I could gain entry into the sanctuary area 24 hours a day.
There were about 100 people at a 3pm Mass when I arrived down at the Grotto. Normally one would come in St Joseph’s Gate, down by the Crowned Virgin Statue, across the Basilica square, through the 32 trees to the Grotto - today I came from the other side - where the baths are.
I always smile and cry when I arrive back at the Grotto after an absence of even a few months. So much comes to my mind - 1962, when my father was to come, but he died in September, 1961; 1971, when I came as a freckly-faced, foxy-haired youngster; 1996, when Mam made her last trip here; and then 2008, when I ‘returned’.
Little did I think 16 years ago when I came, in June, 2007, as an interested and inquisitive pilgrim, that I’d be drawn back here so often - again and again.
Sitting there in front of the statue of Our Lady, the faces of friends like Jim Conway, Tony O’Brien, Jack Foley, John Hannon, Aine Byrne, Tom Fitzgibbon, Eily Prendergast, Sean Clifford, John McCarthy, Con Ahern, John O’Connell and so many others are in my mind’s eye. They seem to be looking down at me, smiling as if to say ‘Welcome back, John’.
My first afternoon and evening I spent just at the Grotto and over to the Crowned Virgin. After all the travel and sitting in planes and airport lounges, the hip was giving me some grief, so having spent a quiet hour in darkness by the river, I headed back for the Convent early -sound asleep by 9pm.
In June, when in Lourdes with the Cloyne Pilgrimage, there’s a daily programme of ceremonies and events planned out which takes up most of our daylight hours. In November, time is my own, but I still like some semblance of routine.
So, for five days I had a Mass in English each morning in the upstairs Church of Sts Damian and Cosmos, Rosary at the Grotto followed by a 5pm Mass in the Church of the Poor Clare Convent.
On Monday evening, Sr Fatima, the ‘doorkeeper’, had a great welcome for me and a handshake, though she says ‘No English, no English’ we can still communicate without a problem!
For me, that evening Mass is always so special. Even though it’s celebrated in French, there is such an amazing sense of peace and harmony and closeness to God there.
The Poor Clare Community in Lourdes is about 12 now, and nine or ten attended the daily Mass, with maybe 15 to 20 laypeople. The delicate singing of the nuns is exquisite -so like fine china or porcelain or dainty lace.
As usual, I ask Sr Fatima for the cemetery key to visit the grave of Sr Marie Therese O Connell, the only Irish-born nun to have been in the Lourdes community. She was born a century ago, in June, 1923 and died in 2025. I always sing The Banks for her there by the bank of the River Gave.
Since I last visited in June, 93-year- old Sr Marie Collette Marche had died - I pray for her and all the Sisters at rest in this sacred place.
Nearly every day on this visit, I spent time sitting and praying in the cachot on Rue des Petits Fosses - the cachot was the old, dirty, disused prison where the Soubirous family were forced to live in poverty in 1857. It was from this little building that young Bernadette walked in search of firewood on a cold morning in February, 1858. I love retracing her steps, across the bridge and down Rue de Grotte.
In her time, what we now call the Domain was no more than a marshy, boggy area. It was here that this little illiterate and asthmatic girl was to see the Virgin Mary.
Another place I adore in Lourdes is that special spot across the River Gave - looking over at the Grotto. On Friday, July 18, 1858 Bernadette Soubirous stood here. She had been ‘banned’ from going to the grotto itself - in fact, it had been boarded up to stop visitors.
On that Friday, Bernadette saw the Virgin Mary for the last time. Eight years later Bernadette was present when the Crypt was blessed and opened - Our Lady had told her, ‘Tell the priests to build a church here’.
A year later, on July 4, 1867, Bernadette again stood on this spot across from the Grotto on the day she left Lourdes forever - she spent the remainder of her life in the convent of Nevers.
This spot across the river from the Grotto is so special to me for another reason. It’s here, over the years, that we have thrown stones into that river. These are special stones from the Irish graves of members of our ‘Lourdes family’.
The Book of Ecclesiastes says there’s a time to gather stones together and a time to throw stones away’ - so we have done for so many loved ones.
So, I spent a week walking and praying in the rain, it was a peaceful and quiet week, truly an indescribable few days. Oh, it was great to be there.
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