I started this weeks ago. Returning now to finish months after we returned from our trip to Europe means I have already forgotten much about the trip and my immediate reaction went unrecorded since I didn't journal very often during this trip. Not only was I exhausted at the end of each day, but I thought I might type up my reflections afterward in all the time I was to have between our trip and our move in the month of June. Silly me!
When I edited this early in September, this is how I was feeling:
Our day in Lourdes was quite different from the rest of our trip. Following 24 hours in this city devoted to St. Bernadette and her vision, we went to Italy for the wedding for 4 days. Then we flew to Germany for a visit with Dan's brother for 3 days before returning to the states to pack up the house. I'll note some highlights before going on to write about our moving experience. All I can say is that moving was tiring. I'm still tired. I still haven't found things I need. I still haven't recovered from the stress of moving and then doing a renovation, of uprooting and starting over. I just feel lethargic and brain dead half the time. The other half I'm charged up on coffee to teach and grade and get from place to place. But I have let some things slip. For example, today, tonight really, I checked my email and discovered I had missed a mentorship meeting with a professor I was really looking forward to meeting. I completely forgot about it. I didn't even realize I forgot about it until I finally checked my email at 10:30 at night. How did I miss the email he sent 15 minutes after the meeting start time seven hours earlier? How did he remember I was coming, and I forgot? I need to do a good calendar reset - if only I could find my wall calendar!
*****
Today:
I am happy to report I feel much more rested! I can navigate around town without maps to get to most places I go regularly. Our lives have a routine, our bathrooms are finished, our pantry is full, we've have hosted multiple sets of guests. My husband told me that I seem happier than I have been in years and that this move seems to have upset me least. Maybe because we have family much nearer, including our little granddaughter. Maybe because I knew where we were going. Maybe because I had both a job and friends before I arrived. Maybe because I've finally, mostly, given up dreaming of a dream house and accept that this house is fine, good, maybe even wonderful. Or maybe because the prayers we made begging for grace at Lourdes and in Rome were answered.
So now: Lourdes. We arrived exhausted late at night and found our appartement-hotel in the dark. It looked a bit shabby - just a door to a stairwell between shops. Everything looks worse at night. But when we finally climbed up the stairs and entered the apartment, we found that it was actually quite appealing and spacious. I wished we had had more time to enjoy drinking coffee on the balcony and lounging around the breakfast table. We spent little time in the apartments we rented, but it was nice to have a space to gather and lounge in the evening and the ability to go between each other's rooms easily to borrow things and check in. As a party of five, we would have needed 2-3 rooms per hotel.
After a great night of sleep, we woke, admired the river Gave, which is fed by a mountain spring, and sipped some coffee before dressing for the day and finding a luggage storage place around the corner to stash our bags since we were staying all day, but not staying the night. I didn't realize how mountainous the area was. Apparently, besides coming to Lourdes to make a pilgrimage, people come to Lourdes as a place to start fly-fishing trips through the Pyrenees.
After dropping our bags, we proceeded to the sanctuary. Our plan was to begin the day with Mass in English at the underground church of St. Pius X. However, we arrived to find no one in the massive church, It turns out we had arrived on a vigil day before the Feast of the Ascension, so Mass was postponed until the feast day. So instead we went to Confession in a nearby building. Following confession we headed to the Grotto, where, lo and behold!, Mass was just beginning (in French). Providential! We worshipped with other pilgrims and malades, and then queued to enter the grotto itself, which was beautiful and moving. In college we regularly prayed at a replica of the Grotto, and we were married at Our Lady of Lourdes. Song of Bernadette was a favorite family movie. We've always felt a draw to this place, and to finally arrive was a bit overwhelming, especially with so much to be grateful for, as well as so many intentions to pray for. I didn't realize that water continued to seep from the rocks there, and touching the cold, wet rocks brought St. Bernadette's experience to heart. We prayed for a number of special intentions before continuing to make room for other pilgrims. The line moved regularly and consistently throughout the day.
We did not sign up to take the baths. Perhaps we should have entered to beg for a miracle healing of arthritic feet and torn ACLs and other ailments. Our thinking was we did not want to prevent someone more ill than us from having time in the baths. But perhaps my faith was weak. Perhaps the greatest healing of this trip is that, after years of slipping further away from the fervor of faith in my youth, I find myself feeling newly restored. I could attribute this return of faith to this pilgrimage, or to the Catholic presence in our new home, or to the prayers at other holy places, or to the renewal Pope Leo is inspiring. Whatever the reason, my faith seems to have quickened - I started to write "from ashes to embers to flames - small flames to be sure, but flickering." - but "ashes" is an exaggeration - I certainly felt the love of Christ strongly while teaching at our school in Texas, especially at Mass and Adoration. But a seed of skepticism had rooted in my heart that needed weeding.
Our trip may have helped weed that patch a little bit. After confession, Mass and praying at the Grotto, we headed back into town to get brunch and to find a little store to buy bottles to bring back Lourdes water. Our lunch was not exceptional, but I did get a salad with Pyrenees trout, and Dan got a trout crepe. We did a little tourist shopping, found plenty of tiny bottles, cheap rosaries, and badly painted statues of Mary and St. Bernadette, and then visited the museum of the house of Bernadette lived as a young woman just before entering the convent. This was after her visions and more spacious that her childhood home. Lots of photographs and a replica of the room where she slept were the highlights of the museum, which also had a gift shop. Many little mementoes of healing were hung around the bed where she slept.
After the museum, we made our way up the hill to a fort that had spectacular views of Lourdes and the surrounding area. This had nothing to do with St. Bernadette, but it was a way of giving the kids another bit of the history of the area and a sense of what it was like for St. Bernadette. The walk up to the fort was beautiful, as were the gardens and the view. Had we planned a little better, we might have done a little more walking around the sanctuary instead of up the fort, because we were too tired to do the stations of the cross or to visit the other museum across the stream that runs through the sanctuary.
As it was, we had time to do a little more shopping, picking up a gift for our nephew and his fiancee, and a handful of medals, and little stained glass ornaments for our mothers. Then we returned to the Sanctuary to visit the three churches built on top of each other. I'm sorry we didn't do the stations after this, but no one had the energy to climb the hill, and we wanted to attend the Eucharistic procession. After time in prayer and admiration and adoration, we returned to the Grotto for the Eucharistic procession and the procession of malades. This was very moving and perhaps the most touching part of the day, as people knelt and sang while the malades made their way behind the Eucharist back through the sanctuary to return home. Our son said this is what touched him the most.
After one more stop for prayers at the grotto and splashing water at the fountains, we gathered our belongings to hike back up hill to the train station. We had a quick dinner of doner kebabs before taking a train to Toulouse where we would catch a flight to Rome early early the next morning. Another long walk dragging bags from airport to shuttle to hotel in the dark. A short night of sleep. And then a 4 am cab ride that cost more than our flight on Ryanair to Rome. Despite the travails of travel, this pilgrimage stop was much needed revitalization. I wish we had more time, but we were at last on our way to the biggest event of the year - the wedding!
These photos are out of order but give an impression of our day in Lourdes.
The crowded train to Lourdes
We made it!
The view from our apartment.
The AirBnb - I didn't photo everywhere we stayed, but I'd return here.
The hill above St. Pius
The empty church. No Mass!
In the Sanctuary
Bernadette's family's home where she stayed a brief time.
I love plants that grow through rocks
Visiting the farmers' market for baked treats.
Entering the churches.
View from the fort.
Lovely gardens at the fort.
Resting in the sanctuary.
The precariously built basilica. It's enormous, but supported on a wall of rock that seems too steep and narrow.
The Grotto!
Lunchtime!
We were not supposed to do this, but we had a few moments of refreshment before the security detail - a couple teen boys - told us to move on.
Candy!
Where Bernadette slept.
Garden photos - out of order
On the road again.
To Roma!
I am very grateful we made this pilgrimage!!!
