11.09.2013
When you are in Lourdes you feel some sort of a special energy. I am not sure if it is the place itself, the people who are around you, their faith or belief in why and what for they are there, your own ideas about the place or a mixture of everything and more. Regardless, when you are there, you feel this inexplicable energy. I have attended the majority of religious celebrations that take place in the Sanctuary. Their timetable is impressive and busy. Almost always there is something happening or something that is about to begin. And I was there not during the period of time with the most important celebrations. At one moment, when walking on the other side of the river that goes next to the Sanctuary, I heard a song that sounded familiar. After I got closer to the group and talked to them, it turned out that they were indeed singing a song called in Polish “Barka”. A song associated, for the majority of Polish people, with Pope John Paul II. The extraordinary part of the story is that they were a group of people from Taiwan taken on a pilgrimage by a French missionary working in this Asian country. They were singing the song in their own native language! Having said that, after the second night in a hostel in Lourdes I set off for the Pyrenees early in the morning. Without much hope for a proper hot shower during the next days but with more than excitement about starting the second pilgrimage of my project, the Pyrenees.
When you are in Lourdes you feel some sort of a special energy. I am not sure if it is the place itself, the people who are around you, their faith or belief in why and what for they are there, your own ideas about the place or a mixture of everything and more. Regardless, when you are there, you feel this inexplicable energy. I have attended the majority of religious celebrations that take place in the Sanctuary. Their timetable is impressive and busy. Almost always there is something happening or something that is about to begin. And I was there not during the period of time with the most important celebrations. At one moment, when walking on the other side of the river that goes next to the Sanctuary, I heard a song that sounded familiar. After I got closer to the group and talked to them, it turned out that they were indeed singing a song called in Polish “Barka”. A song associated, for the majority of Polish people, with Pope John Paul II. The extraordinary part of the story is that they were a group of people from Taiwan taken on a pilgrimage by a French missionary working in this Asian country. They were singing the song in their own native language! Having said that, after the second night in a hostel in Lourdes I set off for the Pyrenees early in the morning. Without much hope for a proper hot shower during the next days but with more than excitement about starting the second pilgrimage of my project, the Pyrenees.
This is the view you see when you enter the grounds of the Sanctuary through the main gate:
Taken: Lourdes, the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes
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