Lourdes has answers we seek in a world teetering on brink
IN 1945, in the months immediately following the bitter and destructive war that had torn Europe apart, a very remarkable event occurred. It happened well before the historic political initiatives to rebuild and reconcile Europe. It speaks to our own world; a world transfixed by the very real possibility of a nuclear ‘event’ in Korea and/or the Middle East, and a Europe that is divided.
Soldiers from the German and French armies – joined shortly afterwards by Italian soldiers – together went on pilgrimage to a small town in the French Pyrenees.
The town was Lourdes, where on February 11, 1858, Our Lady appeared to a young shepherdess, Bernadette Soubirious. The message was one of prayer and healing and a rejection of violence.
Since then, tens of millions of pilgrims from all over the world have visited Lourdes, many of them seriously ill and severely handicapped.
The ‘Annual Pilgrimage to Lourdes’ has long been an integral part of the Church in Ireland. People come from every diocese; they come with the pastoral religious orders like the Oblates and the Carmelites. Cuan Mhuire’s work of supporting the homeless and people with addictions begins in Lourdes every year with a pilgrimage led by Sr Consilio.
This year, well over 2,000 ‘assisted pilgrims’ from Ireland, young and old, with various and often multiple disabilities and handicaps, travel with medics and nurses and volunteers, to stay in the beautiful 900-bed ‘Accueil NotreDame Hospital’.
That’s just Ireland: every week from across the world a flow of assisted pilgrims travels into and out of there. The logistics are incredibly impressive. The director, Francois Labadie, to whom I spoke, is warm and welcoming and very professional. He oversees a facility whose ‘care model’ embraces all of the needs of assisted pilgrims.
Some 500,000 have lodged there since it opened. Visiting physicians and nurses (many from Ireland) rotate seamlessly. The Accueil is at the heart of the sanctuary, looking out over the Grotto where Our Lady spoke with Bernadette. The Grotto is the epicentre of Lourdes – its beating heart.
The world looks very different from Lourdes – but, then again, as the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre has pointed out, it’s only from the ‘margins’ that you get a picture of what is real – and what’s not real.
In Lourdes, the horizon is eternity, not the next election. The important people are not those with ‘status’ who drive expensive cars – the important people are in wheelchairs. There are so many of them – spirited down the narrow streets, festooned with shops, by volunteers to the Grotto.
The statue of Mary is on a ledge, etched into an escarpment, over which are the words “I am the Immaculate Conception”. There is no talk of ‘pluralism’ – there are simply no divisions; everyone is coming from the same place. The sense of peace is palpable – and this is no ‘religiosity’ or false piety. The people who come here are familiar with the daily reality of suffering and handicap – except it’s transformational. It resonates with dignity, hope and love. Well, that’s the experience of millions and who are we to second-guess that.
Leave Lourdes, turn on the smartphone and you are jolted back to a broken world aching for peace.
Serious war games are being played out across the Eastern European/Russian borders.
In a recent speech, EU President Jean-Claude Juncker again pushed for a European military union. In the Middle East, well, best not go there – too much pain, too much hunger and injustice.
War is no longer declared. It spreads virus-like across multiplefronts, disseminated by lies, money and hatred. And in Europe, there is a world with no moral vision, cut loose by an ideological elite from its Christian roots. Then there is a UN whose General Assembly resounds to bombastic rhetoric, threats, and little else – impotent in the face of power and unable to deliver the moral leadership and global governance that is demonstrably needed. We also have a US that seeks to impose an inconsistent, incoherent and aggressive agenda on a world that no longer buys into the doctrine of ‘US Exceptionalism’ – a world of nuclear proliferation now including the monstrous North Korea.
Influence has shifted to the forums of the rich and powerful within global capitalism – of high net-worth egos, speculators and influence-peddlers, driving their agendas in the West and in emerging economies. This is not ‘business as usual’. This is the most dangerous geopolitical environment that we have seen since World War II, with all of its horrors. This is a waiting room – a runway – for World War III. Unless…
THE message of Lourdes, and of Fatima, is that war is an expression of a moral crisis – of a rejection of God, a rejection of reason and faith. In the aftermath of WWII, political healing and renewal was led by Christian Democracy, notably in Germany’s first election under Konrad Adenaeur. Some years ago an essay, published by the foundation named after him, spoke of its foundational values in terms of “the Christian understanding of the human person as a creation of God – a creation of equal individuals who, while imperfect, should be treated with equal dignity…meaningful policy-making is anchored to and informed by the values of Christian Democracy – including, it should be added, Christian ethics and the social market economy”.
Since the 1980s that has been crowded out. God was deleted from the proposed European constitution which, significantly, was rejected by the voters of France and the Netherlands – and promptly introduced by the ‘back door’ by the establishment. A culture of aggressive secularism displaced what had been a European community. You will search in vain for a mention of God or Europe’s Christian heritage and political economy in the EU’s recent ‘state of the union’ address.
Stage by stage, Europe has become more centralised and increasingly militarised – profoundly ill-at ease with itself. Christian Democracy – the heart of which is Catholic social teaching’s critique of the dignity of the person, social justice and a rejection of the idolatry of money and markets – has been displaced.
In its place, there is a cult of power-politics and the marginalisation of the weak that is profoundly at odds with the sensitivities of its people. Austerity and military adventurism are among the hardly surprising consequences – and a culture where it is dangerous and politically subversive to proclaim the values of Christian Democracy.
How does Lourdes work...what holds it together, this place of prayer, healing and peace – the very antithesis of the noise of politics, conflict and division? I asked Mr Labadie – after all, he has been here for 20 years. He pointed towards the Grotto: “Our Lady. She invites us here, she makes it happen.” Sr Consilio said the same. A very senior European politician visiting the shrine some time ago said that Lourdes was a sign for what a world, close to the brink, was seeking.
Those French and German soldiers back in 1945 instinctively understood what we may not have too much time to learn.
Europe has become more militarised and profoundly ill-at-ease with itself