Lourdes is the best of France, as Fatima the best of Portugal
BORDEAUX, France — The best of France is not the Eiffel Tower, nor the Arch de Tromphe, not even the just renovated Cathedral of Notra Dame. The best is the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, as the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fatima is the best of Portugal, with more grandeur than the majestic Monastery of Jeronimos and with more glory than the ancient Tower of Belem. Lourdes, located quite remotely at the foot of the high and rugged Pyrenees mountain ranges, was eight hours of grueling tourist bus drive from Barcelona, Spain. We crossed the border from Spain to France and entered a charming little town called Oluron, which can compare to Austria's Innsbruck, or to Portugal's Santarem.
Lourdes started as a very far flung and insignificant village in the south of Paris, until a 14-year-old asthmatic girl witnessed the apparitions of the Lady of the Immaculate Conception 18 times, starting at 11 in the morning of February 1858. She was questioned, interrogated, persecuted and jailed for her testimonies. She persisted even when the authorities pressured her to recant and abandoned her stories. But Bernadette, sickly and facing a family destitution and poverty, due to the bankruptcy of her father's mill business, persisted and remained steadfast in her faith. Today, Lourdes with only 16,000 residents receives no less than eight million pilgrims each year.
Today, there are more than 150 hotels in Lourdes, and tourist buses make the traffic in this small town almost comparable to our proverbial EDSA. The whole Christendom recognizes Lourdes as the world's third most important and most popular pilgrimage centers, next only to the Vatican in Rome and the Basilica of our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico. We visited the house of Saint Bernadette, and the Grotto in the mouth of the cave where the apparitions first took place. There were hundreds of pilgrims from all over the world. Hourly masses were held in more than 50 languages, including Pilipino.
Our pilgrim chaplain, Fr. Rey, celebrated a mass in the side Chapel inside the Upper Basilica, and was deeply touched by the holy ambiance of the whole sanctuary. In the grotto, thousands of lame, blind and all sorts of sick people in wheel chairs and in crutches were there with their caregivers, praying for healing and for good health. From the Saint Michael's gate to the Cross of the Sick, and around the monument of the Crowned Virgin, the sanctuary was filled with all kinds of people, Germans, Italians, Spanish, Portuguese, Americans, Canadians, Australians, south Americans, and even Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, and most of all, Filipinos.
Because of Lourdes, supplemented by Paris and other tourist destinations, tourism contributes the second largest contributions to France's national income and gross domestic products. Hotels, transports and gifts shops are making a lot of billions annually and workers, including OFWs, have secured jobs and livelihood. Amazing indeed how the Lord used Saint Bernadette to make Lourdes a top tourist site and France as a very prosperous and strong nation.
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