Lourdes: Second most visited place in France after Paris

Many, many pictures at bottom.

Mother’s Day number two—Today is Mother’s Day in France. I really got some “mileage” out of this one since I got to celebrate the US version two weeks ago. And next year, we’ll still be in France so I’ll also get two Mother’s Days….AGAIN. By then, we will well be in the habit….so perhaps we’ll just continue two Mother’s Days from here on out. No objections on my part.

After our Church Service, the Primary-aged children (3-12 years old) sang in Church today and then handed out a very nice homemade card with a heart ornament or the like to hang in our homes. They were such a joy to watch them skip and bound down the aisles handing out their gifts to all the Mothers and the Mothers to be.

Our missionary work—We made several visits this week to various members and investigators. We have a few with serious health challenges and some are alone. Naturally, we have our regular teaching appointments with the young Missionaries and we just love being with them and sharing in the teaching of the Restored Gospel.

Earlier, we had Jenny over to dinner with the Missionaries. She is a delight and just drinking up everything she hears and gets her hands on to read. We have a phone App called Gospel Library which is chock-FULL of books, instruction manuals, literature for each auxiliary group (men’s group, women’s group, youth, primary ages, missionaries, Seminary/Institute, the bi-annual General Conference talks for the past 12 years) and of course the Holy Scriptures (4 Standard works—The Bible: Old and New Testament, The Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and The Pearl of Great Price).

The Gospel Library App (free on Play Store) is also available at the touch of a finger in 118 languages (so far). In our branch, we profit by it for French, English, Spanish, Romanian, Cambodian and Slovakian. Gospel Library is an impressive and very full selection of materials and resources. Jenny is reading them....ALL it would seem. And, including the Book of Mormon. She comes in with just short of a dozen questions from what she is reading. What a thirsty student!

Lourdes, France— We visited the town of Lourdes with our younger missionaries on Monday, 21 May. It happened to be Pentecost Monday (Lundi de Pentecôte), or the day after Pentecost Sunday in France. Since Lourdes is a modern town and more world-famously a Catholic Pilgrimage Site, and we are seeing it through "Mormon" eyes, we will be consulting Wikipedia to help us explain concepts less familiar to our LDS friends.

Pentecost Monday-- The Christian feast day of Pentecost, commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and other followers of Jesus Christ while they were in Jerusalem." (Wikipedia)

The setting: The town of Lourdes is nestled in the foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains and along the river, Gave de Pau. There are 3 main summits in Lourdes. The natural setting and beauty are quite picturesque as you'll see below. We had a beautiful, warm, summer-like day that added to the already breath-taking surrounding scenery.

The History (very condensed): Here we have several time periods including Pre-Historic findings, Roman Times, The Middle Ages and Modern Times. As more archaeological findings come to light from the fortress, it is now thought that Roman findings (pottery, statuary and some walls) date back to the first century BC.

During the Middle Ages, suffice it to say the area was dominated by many…barbarian invasions, Muslims, French counts and local lords, the English during the Hundred Years’ War for about 50 years, then back to local feudal lords. Until Charlemagne laid siege, followed by Napoleon and on to the French Republic.

The Legendary name of Lourdes—“For 46 years, up until 778, the city of Lourdes was possessed by Muslims of Al-Andalus. However, during the 8th century, Lourdes and its fortress became the focus of skirmishes between Mirat, the Muslim local leader, and Charlemagne, King of the Franks. Charlemagne had been laying siege to Mirat in the fortress for some time, but the Moor had so far refused to surrender. According to legend, an eagle unexpectedly appeared and dropped an enormous trout at the feet of Mirat. It was seen as such a bad omen that Mirat was persuaded to surrender to the Queen of the sky by the local bishop. He visited the Black Virgin of Puy to offer gifts, so he could make sure this was the best course of action and, astounded by its exceptional beauty, he decided to surrender the fort and converted to Christianity. On the day of his baptism, Mirat took on the name of Lorus, which was given to the town, now known as Lourdes.” (Wikipedia)

The Pilgramage Site—“Up until 1858, Lourdes was a quiet, modest, county town with a population of only some 4,000 inhabitants. The castle was occupied by an infantry garrison. The town was a place people passed through on their way to the waters at Barèges, Cauterets, Luz-Saint-Sauveur and Bagnères-de-Bigorre, and for the first mountaineers on their way to Gavarnie, when the events which were to change its history took place.

On 11 February 1858, a 14-year-old local girl, Bernadette Soubirous, claimed a beautiful lady appeared to her in the remote Grotto of Massabielle. This lady later identified herself as "the Immaculate Conception" and the faithful believe her to be the Blessed Virgin Mary. The lady appeared 18 times, and by 1859 thousands of pilgrims were visiting Lourdes. A statue of Our Lady of Lourdes was erected at the site in 1864.

Since the apparitions, Lourdes has become one of the world's leading Catholic Marian shrines and the number of visitors grows each year. It has such an important place within the Roman Catholic church, that Pope John Paul II visited the shrine twice: on 15 August 1983, and 14–15 August 2004. In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI authorized special indulgences to mark the 150th anniversary of Our Lady of Lourdes.” (Wikipedia)

Our experience in Lourdes—VERY nice! And topped off as this was a special week for soldiers. Coming through the modern town towards the Statue of Our Lady of Lourdes, we saw many different Nation’s flags flying. In the streets many soldiers in fatigues and Cadet Officer’s uniforms were walking on the sidewalks entering in and out of the shops. It was such a heart-warming site to see soldiers of all nations milling around together and gathering to a site to pay homage and revere a sacred site dear to them. Rather than televised soldiers of war, and for that moment, these were international soldiers united by their faith. What a unique moment to see so many, in the hundreds. Earlier in the week, it was in the thousands. At that time, streets were blocked off to accommodate all the soldiers marching through the town and towards the Pilgrimage Site. We imagine it was a very hallowed experience for them.

There was a wonderful feeling and an open friendliness among strangers. Many international barriers were broken down just by location. Many people spoke to us, we imagine because of our name tags and because they were so ready and eager to interact with other people of faith. And we spoke to several at length: an Irish cadet officer and his friends coming out of Mass, 2 visiting Chinese film-makers, 3 women from Malta and a man from India who has been coming to Lourdes for the last 12 years. We met travelers from Philadelphia and Texas who heard fellow English-speakers and stopped us to chat. There was a notable connection and acceptance each sharing their own personal pilgrimages to Lourdes. Some would ask us “What pilgrimage are you on?” Even though ours was very likely different from most, they wanted to hear about our “journey” and what brought us to Lourdes. So we gladly shared why we are on our missions.

Our very own Elder Vera is fluent in 4 languages (yes, at 21 years old) and in this order—Spanish, French, Mandarin, English. He intends to study Arabic along with a degree in Law when he goes home. As we passed by the Chinese film-makers, he heard Chinese as we were heading toward the fortress. Each surprised by the other, he struck up a conversation with them. Mind you, he is Hispanic wearing a French name tag and speaking Mandarin. Oh, and fluent English.....when the conversation switched….when we 3 other Americans started chatting in our broken French and they in their broken English. It’s amazing how well we all did. They read our name tags and asked about our Church and why we were there. Elder Vera explained that we were missionaries and explained about the Restoration. We presented them with a pass along card and invited them to find out more from the website on the card. Since they were truth-seekers, they were eager to make sure of the website.

We invite any of our Catholic friends to clear up and/or correct anything we may have unknowingly misstated in error as we try to explain the sacred Catholic site of Lourdes through our LDS eyes and with the help of Wikipedia.

Likewise, here is the LDS Church website if you would like to understand any LDS doctrine: https://www.lds.org or www.mormon.org

Or feel free to contact us at: marcmeg.mm@gmail.com

A la prochain!

Modern side of town welcoming many nations

The Fortress

The Catholic Sites

Irish Regiment of Cadet Soldiers just leaving Mass

Rhododendron

Celtic Cross

"Our Missionary, Elder Rees

"Our" Missionary, Elder Vera

Elder Vera with a Chinese film make just back from "

the World-Famous Cannes film festival

Two Chinese film-makers, from Mainland China

The LDS Church does not proselyte in China

Currently, any person from Mainland China wanting to know about the Church

needs to be introduced to it by a direct family member (can be inside China) or learn about it outside of China. Any person from Mainland China desiring baptism are baptized outside of China (often Hong Kong). When they return, they are allowed to meet in homes inside China.