Slug: d22-around-lourdes Summary: A curious visit to Lourdes
We visited Lourdes, France.
It's just about an hour's bus ride down-valley to Lourdes, so why not? Yes, as a good Catholic boy of course I've heard of Lourdes--I've was fascinated by the little glass bottle of water my grandmother kept that said "LOURDES" on it. Not entirely sure what she did with that liquid, but it made her happy to have it; I asked her what perfume it was and she said "It is Holy Water! " and didn't explain more.
So we arrived in Lourdes and stopped just before the train station, walked up to the tourist office, then next door to the market... and were struck by how flat it was, and how many shops and stalls were for lease or vacant. This is a major pilgrimage site?
But then we walked north, following little bronze discs in the sidewalk that said "Bernadette", saw a sign for the Chemin de Bernadette, past a cinema showing movies of her life, crossed a bridge over a street of trinket-sellers and cafes and we found it. This must be the street, and we clambered on down to it.
This is the place, where it's not just the spiritual side of things, but something you must have to show that you've been to Lourdes. Not just Virgin Mary or Bernadette stuff, but holy candles (of course) and water (of course) and rocks and postcards and baseball caps and t-shirts and placemats and yes, everything, including all sorts of knives, because nothing proclaims "I've been to Lourdes" like a switch blade.
Down the street some more--filled with still more tatty shops and decaying buildings, and across a bridge to a view of the basilica, a gaudy blue-gray hulk accented with gold bling and odd flying staircases. My first impression was "wow, this is really garish", as we got closer there was some procession with colorful banners and wheelchairs, a few hundred people, who arrayed themselves on the lower level of the layered-church thing for selfies and videos.
It felt just strange, not religious really, more like a set-piece in Game of Thrones, supplicants following some procedure because that's how it's done here at Lourdes in 2026, take good selfies and post something for everyone back home.
Off to the side--perhaps, where Disney would put some minor attraction like "Mr Toads Wild Ride"-- was an large entrance to a dark ride called "Confessioni", and I it was about then that I started to notice the many many donation stations scattered about, as well as the plentiful security presence, and for some reason Indian families, quite a few.
We got in line for La Grotte. Signs said "Silence" in English and French and Spanish and Basque and what's that Indic script? Google Translate said it was Tamil. Oh, yeah, didn't France have a little colony in India? Pondicherry, yep, where they speak Tamil. There we go.
Walked into the grotto, I declined to touch my left hand to the wall because it looked dirty and grimiy and oily, saw the little trickle of water in the back behind the small altar, and walked past the drinking/washing stations. Having had a horrible GI parastic infection just a few of months ago that knocked me back for six to eight weeks, I wasn't interested at all in drinking this magical unfiltered water, but Chris made me take a sip. OK, it's water.
It was roughly around this point where I started to think that Lourdes is just a Catholic expression of the "healing waters" fervor of the mid 19th century, where increased incomes and the ability to tourist made small journeys possible for the rising middle class, and recent tech innovations like the telegraph and widespread newspapers made it possible to hear news from far away much easier. Was Bernadette an influencer? Possibly, especially if she was able to convince the local church authorities of her holiness.
So after the grotto, we crossed the river to the strange Brutalist side of Lourdes, watching people at the self-checkout tap-to-pay machines buying candles, seeing some revival tents with lots of wheelchairs, and realizing that if your a teenager in Lourdes you'll get a lot of work just pushing old people around. A brief peek inside the Brutalist church of Bernadette (empty of worshippers and feeling like a temporary airport terminal that should've been demolished 20 years ago), then back to the church-basilica layercake.
Walked in the first chapel, and it was all priests just blessing people in line. OK, but hey,
what a dull task that is for the priest, and can't the worshippers just ask God to bless them in
the comfort of their own home (God is everywhere!)
and then do the sign of the cross? Or do priests have some special exclusive franchise with the
Almighty for blessing? It's always confounded me about Catholicism--from confession to communion
that it's not at all about the personal religious enlightenment experience, however it might
arrive to you, it's
about following
the rituals that have been decided centuries ago, and those rituals are the One True Way of
worshipping God because that's what He wants.
There was one Hot
Priest
though, so we gawked at him for a few moments.
OK, this is mildly interesting, what else? We climbed the stairs to the basilica proper, and huh, it's kinda small, but off to the side are some 'relics' of Bernadette, but what we saw were just statues, though I did learn that she really didn't like any of the statues or paintings or drawing of her apparation, and said the one that looked most like her Lady was some 14th-ish century Byzantine icon. OK, curious, or is it just a piece of trivia?
Walked back a different way. So many shops. And then over to the Musuem of Bernadette.
There was something about the Lady telling her "you must pray for the conversion of sinners" (sigh) but nothing particularly notable about her life, other than she was very poor, and then in the same panel mentioned she brought a pen and paper so she could write down what the apparition told her.
Huh, very poor, yet literate? That didn't really add up to me, and added to even more questions about her story, I was writing them down throughout the morning.
- Why did Bernadette decide to stop visiting the grotto to see the apparition?
- What was the role of the local church authorities in promoting the apparition?
- When did the "healing powers of Lourdes water" become known? There's nothing on any of the signage around the sanctuary (and yes a fair bit of English signage). Who promoted that story?
- Lourdes is on the way to Cauterets, known then for its natural hot springs. Bernadette herself spent a year in Cauterets trying to cure respiratory ailments. Had often had she visited before the visions? Where did she get the money to visit?
- Why didn't Bernadette stay around Lourdes? She quickly decided she needed to go into a convent, remained there, and didn't return.
Anyways, I shoved all that aside. The point of Lourdes is not telling a consistent story, it's about a spot for pilgrims to believe in something and draw strength other believers.
It was time for lunch--good food--and a haircut for Chris before getting back on the bus and enjoying the company of an orange cat back at the gîte.
All in all, it was curious day, and it made me recall our dinner with the American mendicant walking the Camino de San Martin several days ago, north from somewhere (Pamplona?) to somewhere (Tours?) . I still haven't decided what to think about her, but my reaction today is similar: a curious glimpse into a cultural system that's definitely not mine. That culture isn't really anything I care to spend time engaging with, but it's not one that's repellant, it's just a alternative lifestyle, and I don't need to approve or disapprove, or spend much of my mental energy parsing their beliefs and practices.