I visited Lourdes in 2004. I was walking the Via Turonensis with a Christian friend and she couldn't pass up the opportunity of a side trip to Lourdes. We got a morning train from Dax and spent a day there. In the afternoon we got a train back to Peyrehorade where we then had a 15km walk up the hills to Bidache.
Yes, the busy, frantic, touristy town is like a Mary and Bernadette Disney World, with souvenir gift shops full of religious trinkets, plastic water bottles in the shape of Mary, pictures of Mary and Bernadette on everything from ashtrays to aprons and Christ being crucified with eyes that blink. There was a constant stream of large luxury busses bringing in tourists and pilgrims, jamming the narrow main street.
But, once you cross over the river into the sanctuary, there is a completely different vibe. It has a sacred air about it but I found it overly businesslike with volunteers hurrying up the queue at the grotto, (no time to tarry or pray) people filling their plastic 'Marian' bottles with water from the taps, queues at the confessional boxes and a general air of a well run, business like organisation. There are three chapels and a huge underground basilica where up to 25,000 people can take mass.
And then there are the thousands of ill, dying and disabled. I have a child in a wheelchair and have been involved with disability groups for over 30 years. The look of hope on the faces of those in wheelchairs as they were being wheeled in the procession really upset me. Officially the Catholic Church says there have been only 65 miracles at Lourdes which means that many, many millions go away disappointed.
I think that the miracle of Lourdes is that a lot of people with disabilities learn to accept their disability - they have made the journey, tried the scared water and even though it didn't work, they are happy that they went there.
