Holy Mother of God...

There are two basilicas behind me.  Not one...two.

     I'm in Lourdes!  Honestly, I had no idea what I was getting into when I came here, I just knew that it was one of the biggest Catholic pilgrimages in the world and that it was too close to my route to pass up.  So I boarded a train from Pau and rode the 30 minutes to Lourdes thinking I would spend 24 hours here and then head back to Pau to continue my pilgrimage.  Wrong.  So first of all a little geography:  Lourdes is large, there are something like 5 million pilgrims a year, so there are lots of hotels and shops and whatnot.  And then there's the Sanctuary, or as I call it, The Complex.  Within a surrounding wall is the Grotto, where our Blessed Mother appeared, 3 basilicas, a church, and at least a dozen chapels, plus a bookshop and all that stuff.  It's Catholic Disneyland, except without all the commercialism.  It's amazing.

The Grotto where Our Lady appeared;
 with the Basilica of the
Immaculate Conception built on top of it.

     So my first stop inside The Complex was the Grotto (I mean really, where else?).  I didn't know what to expect there.  Honestly, I felt a little bit like a fake.  I don't have a great devotion to Our Lady, though I'd like to, I don't know a lot about Lourdes or St. Bernadette, I didn't even know what I was looking for on this pilgrimage yet!  If I descended into the waters that flow from the miraculous spring, what healing, what miracle would I be seeking?  I didn't know.  And then I arrived.  I looked up and saw the statue of Our Lady of Lourdes sitting in the very place where she appeared.  And I began to cry, I didn't even know why. I sat on a bench to pray and I looked down and saw a tile in the ground that marks the place St. Bernadette stood and prayed during the apparitions.  And I began to cry again, and I didn't know why.  I watched person after person file through the grotto, passing the spring; touching the walls, kissing the walls, rubbing the moisture from the walls on their hands and faces.  And I began to cry, and I didn't know why.  (At this point you may be noticing a pattern.  I cried a lot yesterday.)
     I prayed a few decades of my rosary there and then went to visit the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary. It's amazing, go to Lourdes and visit it.   They have 15 large murals around the perimeter, one for each of the original mysteries of the rosary.  After praying and visiting for a bit I got lunch so I could get some change to purchase a candle for the grotto.  So I went back to the grotto, and this time I was one of the people filing through the lines.  I touched the walls, I saw the spring, I blessed myself with the water that dripped down.  I went outside the grotto to where the candles burn.  To the place where a lot of candles burn... a lot of candles (get the picture?).  I prayed for Our Lady to show me what I'm looking for, to break through my blindness and help me see what it is that I really want from all this; and I placed my candle with all the others, lifting our petitions up to the Lord in the hands of our Blessed Mother.

The view from my window.  Ridiculous.

     After placing my candle I went to the baths, where pilgrims come to wade into the waters of the blessed spring, seeking healing of one kind or another.  I waited.  I waited with the broken in body and soul, with the old and the young.  I waited and I prayed for Mary to show me what I'm looking for.  And she did.  I want to pray.  I want to feel the Holy Spirit inside me, living in me in a new way, in a life giving way.  I've been desiring this for over a year but had given up on it, believing that I wasn't holy enough, or that it just wasn't God's will for some reason.  I gave up on believing that God wanted to bless me with the very best of gifts.  And I cried, and I knew why.  I cried and I realized that I had been seeking the Holy Spirit in the wrong way.  I wanted to perform great miracles, to do great deeds of faith, to be a canonized saint... I wanted the gifts of the Spirit to make me great.  Pride is a cunning enemy.  For we absolutely should desire great holiness, we are all called to radical holiness; but I wanted to gain glory for myself, and not for God.  Why the desire for canonization?  To give me honor.  And so I prayed: I brought my pride before God and Our Blessed Mother and asked them to smash it.  Let someone else do the miracles, they would only increase my pride.  Let someone else do the great deeds, just teach me how to pray, just teach me how to love.  And I cried.  And I entered the waters... which were absolutely freezing!  I had trouble breathing, that's how cold they were.  So much for praying while I was in the waters, but God's grace was accomplished nonetheless.
    After the baths I prayed for a bit in the Adoration chapel before mass.  After mass I went to the Reconciliation Chapel and received the sacrament of Confession from a young priest from Denver (he's the one that gave me that bit about radical holiness, he gave me great advice).
   Lourdes is a powerful place.  You feel the power as soon as you enter the Sanctuary, it's everywhere, but especially at the Grotto.  You get a sense of awe, a sense that something special is happening here; a sense of power and of grace flowing freely; and for me, at least at first, a sense of something like sadness, an emptiness, a poverty of spirit that I couldn't yet recognize but could feel.  It's an amazing place, go there, see it, experience it.  Let God heal your broken heart, by drawing you further into His, through the gentle and powerful arms of the Father's most Beautiful Daughter, the Holy Spirit's most Worthy Spouse, and the Son's most Blessed Mother, given to us as our Mother, and loving each of us as her most cherished child.