LOURDES

It was in 1858 that a 14-year-old miller’s daughter from the town of Lourdes in southern France received 18 visions of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Bernadette Sobirous described a beautiful lady wearing a white veil and a blue girdle; she had a golden rose on each foot and held a rosary of pearls.

During one of the visions Our Lady, with her arms down, raised her eyes to heaven and then, folding her hands over her breast said, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” Millions of pilgrims each year visit Lourdes often with the intention of helping the sick or to receive healing from the spring waters that emerged during the visions.

UPCOMING PILGRIMAGES TO LOURDES

OUR PILGRIMAGES TO LOURDES WILL RE-START IN 2022. PLEASE CHECK BACK AGAIN IN THE FUTURE FOR MORE INFORMATION.

AGLOW IN LOURDES

Our set up here is simple yet reliable and effective, working closely with a select group of hotels that we have visited or stayed in personally. Lourdes is Aglow’s one and only non-guided pilgrimage destinations. The beauty of the organisation within the sanctuary allows pilgrims to go to Lourdes and get to grips with the programme almost instantaneously. Having led parish pilgrimages to Lourdes, we can cater for individuals, to groups, to entire dioceses and can tailor-make itineraries accordingly.

WHAT YOU MIGHT DO IN LOURDES

EUCHARISTIC PROCESSION

“Go and tell the Priests that a chapel should be built here and that people should come here in procession”, the Virgin Mary asked Bernadette during an Apparition. Every day from April to October at 5pm the Lourdes pilgrims respond to the request of the Virgin Mary by gathering for the‘Eucharistic’Procession.

WALK IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF BERNADETTE

Discover the relevance of the Message of Lourdes through the life of the one who saw the Virgin Mary and visit the museum of Saint Bernadette, The Boly Mill, Bernadette’s birthplace, The Cachot, (where Bernadette lived during the Apparitions), The Parish Church of Lourdes, where you will and Bernadette’s baptismal font.

HEALING BATHS

Each year about 350,000 people use the baths in Lourdes where water flows from a spring in the Grotto at the same spot where it was discovered by Bernadette. The immersion lasts around a minute, during which you will have time to pray for your intentions and venerate a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

PRAY THE WAY OF THE CROSS

Join one of two ways of the cross, walking in the footsteps of Christ during his passion. The Upper Way of the Cross of the Espélugues winds its way around a steep and forested site. In its size it reflects the magnitude of the Sanctuary of Lourdes: 115 figures in patinated cast iron depict the fifteen stations on a path 1,500 metres in length.