“It is a return to normal,” Father Sébastien Anthony, the president of the pilgrimage, told a French radio station.
“Our teams have mobilized to make this possible, so that we can welcome the sick and pilgrims with dignity,” he added.
During the pilgrimage, which lasts from Aug. 12–16, the swimming pools will be open from 7:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. with more than 3,000 people volunteering to enable as many pilgrims as possible to wash in the baths and take part in the processions, according to the pilgrimage organizers.
The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes is one of the most visited religious shrines in the world, attracting more than 5 million visitors each year. It marks the site where a young St. Bernadette Soubirous witnessed 18 Marian apparitions beginning on Feb. 11, 1858.
During the ninth apparition, the Blessed Virgin Mary told Bernadette: “Go and drink at the spring and wash yourself there.” The miraculous spring that appeared after Bernadette humbly dug in the dirt with her hands resulted in the healing of a woman with a paralyzed hand in the presence of more than 1,500 people in 1858.
Since then, doctors on the International Medical Committee of Lourdes have certified 70 medical cures from the spring as being “unexplained on the basis of current medical knowledge.”
The most recent medical miracle at Lourdes took place in 2008 when Sister Bernadette Moriau was cured of total paralysis resulting from cauda equina syndrome, a disorder of the nerves and lower spine.
The Marian shrine also places an emphasis on spiritual healing through the sacrament of reconciliation, offering confessions in French, Italian, English, Spanish, German, Dutch, and other languages in response to Our Lady of Lourdes’ request to Bernadette to pray for the conversion of sinners.
More than 7,000 people have reported that they experienced a physical healing because of a pilgrimage to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes.
Courtney Mares is a Rome Correspondent for Catholic News Agency. A graduate of Harvard University, she has reported from news bureaus on three continents and was awarded the Gardner Fellowship for her work with North Korean refugees.
