Our Lady of Lourdes, healing and love.
In 2018 I took my first pilgrimage to Lourdes. I was expecting – as many people had told me – the Disney Land of the Roman Catholic world.
A place rammed full of souvenir shops and tourist traps – not a place of prayer and healing.
‘Many people’ were entirely wrong (as they often are). From the moment Fr. Sam and I arrived in this tiny Pyrenees town we felt the powerful sense of prayer.
Prayer that has happened for so long and so hard that it had worn the world between this one and the next thin.
A sense that God was listening, that Our Lady was there with Her hand held out to take us to Her son.
Each evening we would gather for the Rosary walk. This procession had thousands and thousands of people – all praying the same prayer in their own language. It gave me a real sense of the world-wide faith of Jesus Christ and it was powerful!
On Friday we offer Mass for Our Lady of Lourdes and we give thanks for all of those people who have traveled there and found healing in the waters, who have found healing in the prayer, who have found healing in the peace.
This week I head off on my own pilgrimage to Walsingham. Another place worn thin through prayer.
I will be praying for you all and for your health and vitality as we face a new and exciting future post COVID.
Fr. Matthew
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We’ll be renewing the Prayer list at the end of this month with a new list for March (as will be our pattern for the future). If you would like to remain on the list, or if there is someone you would like to add please speak to Susan (contact details on the front page of the pew sheet).
Fr. Matthew is away during the week over the next two weeks (but here on Sundays) – pilgrimage to Walsingham next week and a half-term holiday with his family in the second week. The usual schedule of weekly prayer will be maintained by Susan and our dear friend and visitor Fr. Angus.
Lent will soon be upon us. Fr. Matthew will be running a series of lent talks after Thursday Mass called ‘Holy Habits’. They’ll last for about 20 mins with discussion afterwards – as well as some suitable Lenten cake, tea & coffee.