The morning stared out cold, bleak and pouring rain. Rain has been a constant these nearly three days in the village of Bernadette. I went to Confession to a marvelous priest from South Africa, a man who exuded joy and compassion. My experience with him led me to the baths, which I have heard and read so much about.
People from every country come to these waters searching for healing; aren't we all? The entire area is built to make any with a physical disability comfortable and able to attend all services and processions. Talk about inclusivity. But these cold, wet days of January bring few pilgrims. No processions and no lines if waiting people. In a vast courtyard that can hold ten thousand people, I stood with at most six people.
The baths are right next to the famous grotto in which Bernadette experienced 28 apparitions. There are two section: one for the women and one for the men. Since I was practically the only one wanting to enter the baths, I felt intensely vulnerable and alone. I was asked to strip down to my boxers in a changing room , enter an area divided by a curtain where 5 men awaited me. One kind man discreetly held a towel that he stretched out from hand to hand and asked me to take off the underwear. All of the 5heads were turned away giving me privacy and dignity.
He wrapped to towel around my naked body and made sure that I was covered. In this room is a large sunken in rectangular bath filled to the brim with freezing waters from the river. Two of the men help me down one of the steps into the cold water and they pray. I walk down a second step and they pray. Then I sort of plunged which they didn't want me to do. They slowly lowered me down so that I basically knelt down,the waters coming to the middle of my chest. One of the men pouts water over my head and gives me water from a pitcher and asks me to drink the water as he pours it into my cupped hands. We pray to Mary. And they lead me out.
You simply put your clothes back on your very wet and cold body. When they learned I was a priest they asked for a blessing. The five men come from different parts of the world to give a certain amount of time to volunteering in the baths. One young man from Italy was giving one entire year in thanksgiving to God. Remarkable.
I felt called to entire these baths remembering dozens and dozens of names that surfaced lady night as I prayed. Names from st Teresa, and every other parish ; names from family and friends; anonymous people who need some form of healing. The experience was much like the one I had after the camino went I went down into the waters of the Atlantic. Baptism. Death and new life. The pascal rhythm of our lives.
But Lourdes was different for me. Becoming naked after all the surgeries I had and just being self conscious made the experience very difficult but ultimately freeing.
Naked we come into this world and naked we must leave it. We all stand naked in spirit before the God who is absolute and unconditional Love. We need not hide. In today's gospel the evil spirits couldn't bear with the authority of the presence and voice of Jesus. They needed to hide... to go away.
We don't have to hide our vulnerability; we can TRUST in The Lord to embrace is and care for us. The waters of the Atlantic, the waters of Lourdes , the waters that fall from the earth in rain and snow that soak the earth returning a yield of harvest.
The greatest harvest is humanity, with Mary being the one whose witness and love have allowed her to experience the fullness of the Resurrection of her Son. My experience at Lourdes has been a deeply healing one. This is a special place that speaks of God's Presence and I can online imagine what it is like on a typical summer day to see tens of thousands of people suffering from any number of physical or psychological illnesses searching for healing.
It is perhaps easy to dismiss the part of the experience that includes the apparitions. I believe something happened here to a young woman who was obscure and had a difficult time in her studies. In her innocence and childlike faith, she confounded the religious leaders, the theologians, the doctors. No one could prevent God from acting within this humble, unlikely soul. Her experience is like a parable: the Klingon of heaven is like a seemingly ignorant young girl who turns the world of the learned and clever upside down. God's ways are not ours. Buen camino.
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