Today is the feast day of Our Lady of Lourdes, a day when Catholics celebrate the anniversary of the apparitions witnessed by 14-year-old Bernadette Soubiros on February 11, 1858.
Irish people seem to have a special affinity with Lourdes which attracts pilgrims in their thousands every year. Recently I made my first visit to Lourdes and asked everyone I met why they thought people kept coming back, but no one could quite articulate it for me.
''It is great to be able to do the pilgrimage on behalf of people who are not able,'' one couple from Newry tells me.
Peace
''I think it is the peace that attracts me the most,'' says Mary Fitzpatrick, from Mallow, Co. Cork. ''The last time I came to Lourdes was 33 years ago. I don't know why it took me so long to come back, but I have caught the bug now and I know that I will come back again.''
I met Mary during a tour of Lourdes, 'Footsteps of St Bernadette', which covers the town itself and follows the life of the peasant girl who saw an apparition of a ''lady dressed in white'' and turned her village into a pilgrimage site receiving six million people annually. The story of Bernadette's simple life seems to speak to everyone on the tour, with people feeling an admiration for a humble girl who became a conduit for the mother of God.
''Bernadette is an example of holiness for our time,'' says Msgr Kevin O'Callaghan from Cork. ''In a busy, rushing world, where so much depends on passing examinations, achieving a higher income, surrounding oneself with comforts and luxuries beyond the dreams of two-thirds of the world, Bernadette lives poorly, asks for nothing but God's love, achieves nothing but her response to that love.''
Lourdes itself is a pretty town of narrow, medieval streets dominated by a hillside castle. As you make your way to the sanctuary the streets become very crowded and noisy, with tourists trawling through the shops filled with all conceivable types of souvenirs using images of Our Lady.
Sick pilgrims
But then on passing through St Joseph's gate, you leave all that craziness behind and get the first glimpse of the real Lourdes, where hundreds of sick pilgrims are being pushed through the sanctuary on stretchers and carts by the broncardiers and handmaidens.
Thousands of volunteers come to Lourdes each year from the doctors and nurses who fill the hospital, to the people pushing wheelchairs and working in the sanctuary. ''The permanent miracle of Lourdes is the volunteers,'' says local woman, Christine Duarte. ''You don't hear about them very often, but they give up their time to come here to help the pilgrims and they are the most important people.''
Approaching the Grotto itself for the first time, I feel the hair at the back of my neck rise as I take in the atmosphere of silent prayer and devotion. For the first time I get my own sense of the mystery of Lourdes, a feeling that something special is here.
Having underestimated the necessity to queue early for the baths, I have to make do with washing my hands and face at the taps and I am reliably told by an elderly wheelchair user that I have missed out on a wonderful experience. What had most amazed her was that she came out completely dry after being immersed in the water.
Healing
The water in Lourdes is thought to have healing abilities since St Bernadette dug up the spring under instructions from Our Lady, but Msgr O'Callaghan says the healing people receive here is often not physical. ''In the beginning people come here because they are in need of some healing, whether it is a sickness or a disability, they have a particular reason. It may not appear externally but they do receive a kind of spiritual healing and they will come back for that again and again.''
From the baths to the blessing of the sick, the Stations of the Cross and the candlelight procession, the one thing that stands out is the camaraderie among the pilgrims and the volunteers, and it seems that Lourdes reinforces people's sense of being part of something and sharing a sense of belonging within the Catholic faith.
Like the others I struggle to express exactly what this feeling is, but in the words of Derryman Fr Martin Moran, the Coordinator of English language pilgrimages in Lourdes, I come away ''with a sense that there is something out there that is bigger than me.''
Mags Gargan travelled to Lourdes with Joe Walsh Tours. For more information visit www.joewalshtours.ie or call 01-2410800.
