"Caring for the sick is not an 'optional activity' for the Church."Caring for people with disabilities: a perspective on the meaning of life.Czech "Lourdes", a symbol of reconciliationThe Church celebrates the 31st World Day of the Sick on the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, February 11. "God's style is closeness, compassion and tenderness," Pope Francis notes in his messageThe Pope said, looking at "the shrine of Lourdes as a prophecy, a lesson that is entrusted to the Church".
The lesson is from Heaven, from the Virgin Mary, who in 1858 appeared eighteen times in the grotto of Massabielle, in Lourdes (France), to the 14 year old girl Bernadette Soubirousfrom February 11 to the afternoon of July 16.
Since then, millions of people from all over the world come to Lourdes every year to discover the grace of this place. The sanctuary is above all a place of healing of bodies and hearts, where people come to pray to the one who revealed her name to St. Bernadette Soubirous: "I am the Immaculate Conception"".
But the lesson also belongs to the sick, emphasize leaders of the Hospitality of Our Lady of Lourdes from Madrid. The Hospitality will go to the grotto of Massabielle next May and October, in what will be the 99th and 100th pilgrimages since its foundation, in 1958, by a group of women who wanted to follow in the footsteps of St. Bernadette and accompany the sick to the grotto.
"We are all sick"
"Our goal is to accompany and bring sick people to Lourdes, but we are all sick people who are thirsty for God and we have to ask Our Lady for help," the president of the Hospitality of Our Lady of Lourdes told Omnes, Myriam Goizuetawho entered the Hospitality at the age of 17, and who now, at 62, notes that "in Lourdes there have been thousands of conversions, conversions of faith".
"The sick and disabled people have God in their souls and they teach us many things. In these years we have learned to place ourselves at the same level, and to learn from them," adds Goizueta. St. Bernadette said that Our Lady looked at her as a person, and we have lost our fear of looking at people with disabilities".
The testimony of Marta, 22 years old
"My name is Marta, I am 22 years old and I had the opportunity to go on pilgrimage to Lourdes for 5 days, from October 12 to 16 [2022]. It was my first pilgrimage with the Hospitality of Madrid and I would define it as a real gift from Heaven. When I found out that we had Gema in the room, I felt dizzy to death, I'm not going to lie. Gema barely speaks, can't swallow liquids and is 100 percent dependent on % for all daily tasks.
This is how Marta begins her account of the pilgrimage to the Marian shrine of Lourdes in which she participated in October last year, with the Hospitality of Our Lady of Lourdes in Madrid. There were around 900 pilgrims, close to a thousand, from the three dioceses of Madrid, Madrid, Getafe and Alcalá, including the sick and disabled, the hospitallers (volunteers), and a few other pilgrims, explains Guillermo Cruz, the consiliary of the Hospitality of Madrid, who emphasizes how "the Hospitality has already had quite a long journey. The first thing is to remember what we were born for. We were born to bring the sick to Lourdes, pilgrims. That is what we were born for, for the sick.
"Every sick person is Jesus in disguise"
Marta continues with her testimony: "I am used to contact with sick people because I am very lucky (although it may sound strange) to have a brother with cerebral palsy. His name is Manu and he is 20 years old. He's the most cheerful, cheerful and friendly guy I know. We could say that I live in a constant Lourdes, although on a smaller scale and very often falling into the mediocrity of routine".
"I had hardly had any contact with Gema during the trip and the first contact we had was when we arrived in Lourdes. To put it bluntly, I was afraid of not measuring up. Not knowing how to understand her or doing it badly. That she would not be at ease. I am very devoted to Our Lady and for many years I have been asking her to educate me and to make me like her," says Marta.
"After going to the grotto and going to confession, I understood two things. First, that I am nothing. That I am like the donkey carrying Jesus on Palm Sunday. The second thing I understood is that I did not come to this pilgrimage to serve to the sick, but to serve God. It was clear to me that I was also on pilgrimage and that I came to serve, but it was hard for me to understand who do I serve? God. And this is when a phrase of St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta came to my mind, "Each one of them is Jesus in disguise" and the priest confirmed it to me, telling me the Gospel passage of the works of mercy.
"I still get emotional," Marta concludes, "when I think of the moment when I was consoling Gema, I repeated to myself this phrase 'each one of them is Jesus in disguise' and I saw myself, the biggest disaster on this planet, consoling Jesus himself."
"It leads us to the mercy of God."
Marta's story is the background of what Guillermo Cruz tells Omnes, commenting on the meaning of the task, of the work that the Hospitality does. "We, God willing, will make the 100th pilgrimage of the Hospitality in October. In May it will be the 99th. We were born, for the sick, and I have pointed it out. Secondly, it is a matter of discovering that when we go on pilgrimage to Lourdes, that we all go on pilgrimage, both hospitallers and the sick and the disabled, in the end what we are doing is an experience that teaches us to live, so to speak, that leads us to the mercy of God" by the hand of Our Lady.
"And then, this pilgrimage also has to lead us to renew our life in Madrid," he points out, because "we have been born for the whole diocese. We have gone from the famous Train of Hope, which was a well-known pilgrimage that could be done on trains, and was very well publicized, to having to change it to buses and so on," but the meaning is the same.
Officially, as described on its website, the Hospitalidad de Nuestra Señora de Lourdes de Madrid is a lay organization dependent on the archbishopric. Its main mission is to accompany sick and disabled people to Lourdes.
All of us who are part of the Hospitality are volunteers who, after five years of service, consecrate ourselves to Our Lady and to the service of the sick and disabled, they explain.
In its letter this week, Cardinal Carlos Osoro, Archbishop of Madrid, said that "in the trips that, during my episcopal ministry, I have made with the sick to Lourdes, I have seen in their lives and in the lives of those who accompany them the faith and strength that sustains them in the midst of difficulties. On every occasion I have invited them to find support and consolation in the Lord, through the intercession of our Mother the Virgin Mary. I always have an immense desire in my heart to place myself and the sick before the mystery of God.
Seville, Zaragoza
Devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes is widespread in Spain. In Seville, for example, the diocesan Hospitality has organized a triduum in honor of Our Lady of Lourdes, which has been celebrated these days in the convent church of Santo Angel. On the 11th, the acts are presided over by Carlos Coloma, consiliary of the Diocesan Hospitality. Seville-Lourdes.
In Saragossa, the Hospitality of Our Lady of Lourdes has celebrated its 30th anniversary. After the pandemic, a pilgrimage to Lourdes took place in July 2022, led by the archbishop, Monsignor Carlos Escribano, and the president, Purificación Barco, with several hundred pilgrims.
Some key dates
The apparitions of the Virgin Mary to Bernadette Soubirous took place in 1858. Four years later, in 1862, the Church officially recognized the apparitions of the Virgin Mary. In 1933, Bernadette Soubirous was canonized. And on the centenary of the apparitions, in 1958, Cardinal Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII, consecrated the Basilica of St. Pius X.
The Hospitality Notre-Dame de Lourdes is an archconfraternity created in Lourdes (Hautes-Pyrénées - France) in 1885 and under the French law of associations of 1901. Its members are the hospitallers, volunteers coming from various countries of the world. They welcome and accompany the thousands of pilgrims, especially the sick or disabled, who make the pilgrimage to Lourdes.
