Words fall short when trying to describe Lourdes - Fr Chris O'Donnell

OFTEN, we have experiences that we can’t exactly describe or fully capture in words.
It is hard to pinpoint what made the experience so meaningful or magical. This is how many of us feel when we try to describe the Limerick Diocesan Pilgrimage to Lourdes to family, colleagues, neighbours or friends. Words fall short when trying to describe such a wholesome and heartwarming experience.
The main pilgrimage is spearheaded by Canon Frank O’Dea, Karen Kiely, Chris Culhane, Dr Hannon, Eileen Hannon, Criona Horgan, Carmel Sheridan and Bishop Leahy to name but a few.
For six days in June, Lourdes was visited with incredible love from the diocese of Limerick. For those few days it feels like the love and goodness of Limerick is on tour in the south of France.
The focus and the motivating source of this love are the assisted pilgrims. Lourdes brings perspective to our lives and reminds us of what is important. And so, it rightly puts those who are sick or who have needs at the heart of the diocesan pilgrimage.
The assisted pilgrims stay in a hospital on the grounds of the sanctuary and the few days fittingly revolve around them.
So many Limerick people volunteer in various working groups to ensure the assisted pilgrims have the time of their lives. Nurses, doctors, handmaidens, scouts and brancardia, youth volunteers, musicians, bishops and priests put themselves at the service of these people, caring for their physical, emotional and spiritual well-being.

READ MORE: Photos from the Limerick Diocesan Lourdes Pilgrimage
The largest working group was the youth group, which was led by James Connery and Karen Kiely. They were aided greatly by a team of loving leaders focused on ensuring that the 71 young people from throughout the diocese would have the experience of a lifetime.
The young people generously volunteered to help with the assisted pilgrims and their kindness, warmth and joy was infectious. The pilgrimage provides them with a great opportunity to give expression to their innate goodness and their willingness to help.
The working groups spend their days caring for the assisted pilgrims, wheeling them to various ceremonies, chatting to them, laughing, singing and dancing. For a place that holds a lot of sickness, it also holds an awful lot of joy and hope and faith. The various ceremonies bring their own inspiration and comfort.
The Mass where the sick are anointed is always both a high point and a humbling experience.
While in Lourdes we see life as it is. Nobody has to pretend to be well or have everything sorted. It is understood that everyone, the general pilgrims, the volunteers, the assisted pilgrims, everyone has their own struggles, and everyone is seeking healing or peace, meaning or acceptance.
People may not necessarily receive the cure they sought out but many are healed in some way as they often return to Limerick a little lighter, a little more loving and a little more hopeful.
After all the giving and the singing, the dancing and the laughing, the praying and the serving there are some lonely farewells and for many, especially the assisted pilgrims, the countdown begins almost immediately to next year’s pilgrimage!
Lourdes is wall to wall goodness. Aside from the goodness of the general pilgrims and the assisted pilgrims, the volunteers (both past and present) are the most inspiring people you will meet.
To be in the company of so many good people, doing such good work is good for the soul. We see our church and our faith at its best, working together in a great spirit of joy and love and togetherness for the benefit of others. Lourdes reinforces for us that, ‘It is in giving that we receive’.
And as well as all the giving and love, this year we learned that Bishop Leahy knows a thing or two about Taylor Swift!