(ZENIT News / Lourdes, 20.08.2024).- The baths of the Marian Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in France have completely reopened, after four years, coinciding with France’s National Pilgrimage on the Feast of the Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary.
In the pools, volunteers of the hospital accompany the sick with little mobility and bathe them, pouring spring water on them. The rest of the pilgrims can drink the spring’s water, wash their hands and bathe in the pools. During the pandemic, pilgrims’ complete immersion in the pools of Lourdes was substituted by the ”gesture of water.”
Some 30,000 pilgrims took part in the Solemnity of August 15, celebrations that were prolonged for a week and culminated with the Mass and Rosary procession by candlelight, in which thousands of the sick in wheelchairs were at the head of the procession.
Lourdes’ immersion pools were closed since 2020 because of the pandemic and then for remodelling works. Meanwhile, the pilgrims were invited to take part in the “gesture of water,” reduced to washing their face, hands and forearms with water of the miraculous spring.
The return to total immersion in the water was welcomed with approval by thousands of patients, especially the disabled and the volunteers who supported them in France’s 151 National Pilgrimage on the occasion of the Solemnity of the Assumption.
“It’s a return to normality,” said Father Sébastien Anthony, the Pilgrimage’s president, to a French radio station. “Our teams mobilized to make it possible, so that we could welcome the sick and the pilgrims with dignity.”
During the pilgrimage from August 12-16, the pools opened from 7:30 am to 8:00 pm. According to the Pilgrimage’s organizers, 3,000 volunteers attended the greatest possible number of pilgrims in the pools and in the processions.
The Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes welcomes some 5 million pilgrims every year. Remembered in Lourdes are the 18 Apparitions of the Virgin Mary to the young Saint Bernadette Soubirous.
