Pope Concludes his Apostolic Journey to France

(15 Sept 08 - RV) Pope Benedict XVI is resting at the papal retreat at Castelgandolo this evening after concluding his 4 day Apostolic journey to France.Earlier in the day the Holy Father celebrated a special mass for the sick on the steps of the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary in Lourdes. Philippa Hitchen reports..

From tears to smiles. From suffering to solace. That was the essence of Pope Benedict’s homily at a very moving Mass for the sick in front of the Basilica in Lourdes on Monday morning. Tens of thousands of pilgrims gathered with the Pope and other Church leaders from around the world for this last event of his four day pilgrimage to France, a visit which bishops here hope will reawaken a new sense of faith and encourage greater cooperation between religious and secular institutions.
After being welcomed by President Sarkozy and meeting with political, religious and cultural representatives in Paris on Friday, the Pope travelled down here to the Marian shrine at Lourdes where he walked the Jubilee Way marking the 150^th anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady to the young girl Bernadette Soubirous. Visiting the parish church where she was baptised, the small, damp room where she lived with her family in poverty, the chapel where she made her first communion and the rocky grotto where Our Lady appeared to her a total of 18 times, the Pope underlined the vey contemporary message of this most popular place of pilgrimage: that God’s love is shown to us often through the weakest and most rejected members of society. Far from the false idols of our consumer culture, the message of faith is shown through those who may be materially poor, sick, or suffering, yet who feel themselves richly blessed with spiritual gifts.
At first sight, this small town at the foot of the Pyrenees, with its flashing neon signs and rows of shops selling all sorts of kitsch souvenirs, seems an impossibly far cry from the spiritual message of Marian devotion. Yet a short walk down to the river by the grotto, where crowds gather each day in prayer and the baths where those suffering all kinds of physical and mental illness come to wash in the waters of the nearby spring, reveals an entirely different face. In some mysterious way, the quiet and prayerful atmosphere of this place helps many people to step back from the hectic pace of their daily lives and put problems into a different perspective. In a very visible way, the disabilities and deformities of some of the sickest pilgrims, wrapped in blankets on stretchers or huddled in the distinctive blue wheelchairs pulled by volunteers, enable others to accept more easily their own forms of pain or anxiety.
From tears to smiles. From the tears of Mary, the distraught mother at the foot of the cross where her son was dying a tortured, humiliating death, to her beatific smile, revealed to Bernadette and so perfectly captured by medieval artists, as the Pope recalled in his homily on Monday. Mary’s smile is that of a loving mother to her child, he said, but it is especially directed to those who suffer so that they can find solace therein. When words no longer suffice – as was seen so poignantly in the face of the previous pope who made his last earthly pilgrimage here in 2004 – that loving smile can offer some serenity and strength to face even the worst torments of pain, bereavement and death.
During Mass the Pope anointed a number of sick pilgrims, elderly men and women in wheelchairs and younger people who stood in line to receive the sacrament that Bernadette herself received four times during the course of her short and sickly life.
Finally Pope Benedict also had words of thanks and encouragement for all healthcare workers, doctors, nurses, carers and volunteers of all kinds who look after the sick and bring so many of them on pilgrimages here to Lourdes each year. To them he said, you are the arms of the servant church. And that is the other striking feature of this town – something that president Sarkozy described as ‘the miracle of compassion’ that is to be found in all the hospices, clinics and care homes that have grown up around the shrine. Volunteers of all ages and every nationality making their own pilgrimages here in a spirit of service and sharing with others.
It’s a place which attracts and fascinates every believer – as the Pope noted before heading back to Rome on Monday – a place which charms but also challenges us in a profound way. The Pope’s pilgrimage here was aimed at galvanising the Church here, to encourage Catholics to play a more positive and courageous role in this very secular society. But his words and the message of this shrine at Lourdes is a call to each one of us to reassess the priorities of our lives, to be open to Our Lord’s voice – even in the most unexpected places and to give generously in the service of others.