Lourdes baths have fully reopened as 30,000 expected for Assumption pilgrimage

Rome Newsroom, Aug 13, 2024 / 09:08 am (CNA).

The baths at the Marian shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in France have fully reopened for the first time in four years for France’s national pilgrimage for the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary this week. 

More than 30,000 pilgrims are expected in Lourdes for the Aug. 15 feast day, according to the news station Europe 1. The weeklong celebration will culminate in a Mass and candlelight rosary procession with thousands of sick in wheelchairs leading the way. 

The immersion pools at Lourdes have been closed since 2020 due first to the pandemic and later to renovation work. During the closure, pilgrims were invited to participate in a “water gesture” by washing their face, hands, and forearms with holy water from the miraculous spring.

The Lourdes Grotto in France. Credit: Courtney Mares/CNA

 The return of the possibility of full immersion in the sacred water has been welcomed by the thousands of sick, disabled, and volunteers taking part in France’s 151st national pilgrimage for the Assumption solemnity.

“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.