From the

Official News Magazine of the Diocese of Spokane

Scout pilgrims can volunteer in Lourdes, France, next summer

by Father Terence Tully, for the Inland Register

(From the Aug. 22, 2002 edition of the Inland Register)

Among the millions who will visit the Shrine of Our Lady Lourdes in southern France in 2003 will be Boy Scouts and Venture Scouts on a pilgrimage organized by Venture Crew 2000 of Boxford, Mass. Unlike most visitors to Lourdes, the Scouts and Venturers will volunteer as transporters — that is, strong young persons carrying the sick and handicapped to the Shrine. The transporters will likely carry sick persons on stretchers or push the sick persons as they ride on gurneys or bring the sick in other ways as they move to the Shrine from hospital or hotel.

The Shrine at Lourdes has attracted youth ever since Bernadette Soubirous, age 14, saw a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1858 at Lourdes. Mary appeared to Bernadette 18 times between February and July of that year as Our Lady stood in a grotto, or shallow cave. She told Bernadette to ask the local pastor and the local bishop to build a church near the grotto so that large numbers of people could gather and pray for the teachings of Christ on faith and morals to be obeyed throughout the world.

Not surprisingly, the Church authorities were slow to believe that Mary would contact them by appearing to a teenage youth. To help persuade, Mary directed Bernadette to dig a little near the grotto and uncover a new spring of water, which continues to flow to this day, 144 years later. This water proved to be a healer when used by some sick persons, not because of its chemical content of the water but from the miracle power the Lord sometimes confers upon it. The healings have made the Shrine of Lourdes famous.

The request of Mary for a church to be built at the Lourdes Grotto was answered by the building of churches, first, a small chapel, then a large church, and finally in 1958, the anniversary year, by a modernistic underground church large enough for 20,000 people. That was the year I went to Lourdes and other shrines in Europe in a group led by Spokane’s Bishop Bernard Topel. I do not remember miracles but I felt the atmosphere of the place, and the piety of the pilgrims made it a place of spiritual favors.

I am grateful for my visit to Lourdes in its 100th anniversary year, 1958. It was then I learned the conditions a cure must meet for the Church to call the cure miraculous:

• The sick person must obtain a doctor’s signed statement that he or she is really ill.
• The cure must occur instantaneously.
• After the cure there must be no relapse back into the sickness within a year of the cure.
• There must be no natural explanation of the cure.

I remember speaking to a man from Ireland who was working at the Shrine as a transporter. He said that all workers at the Shrine are unpaid volunteers, except the police who patrol the large Shrine area. I think he was speaking in answer to a complaint that the Shrine had been commercialized. It is true that a nearby business district is crowded with hotels, restaurants, and souvenir shops, but they are necessary to serve the thousands of pilgrims that keep coming.

In the Spokane Diocese, “Our Lady of Lourdes” is the name given to our cathedral church, to the parish in West End, and to the Catholic hospital in Pasco.

According to Joseph O’Brien of Melrose, Mass., who is organizer of the Lourdes pilgrimage for Venture Crew 2000 of Box-ford, Mass., this pilgrimage is “to give the individual Scout an opportunity to say ‘Thank You’ to God for all the blessings he has bestowed on him/her.”

Information from Joseph O’Brien includes the following:

“We will be leaving from Boston on or about July 11 and returning on Aug. 2, 2003. The cost of the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity is approximately $3,100. We will not know the final price until we know how many Scouts will be going. This price quoted here is the high end of the price range.”

The pilgrimage is open to all Boy/Venture Scouts 14 years old and over. For more information on this Pilgrimage please e-mail Joe O’Brien at jobie725@attbi.com.

Or call him any day after 4 p.m. EST at 781-665-3690; or write him: Joseph O’Brien, 106 Ashland St., Melrose, MA 02176-1201.

In less than a month, our Catholic Camporee will be held at Camp Cowles on Diamond Lake. For information and registration, phone Camporee Director Sam Richart: (509) 328-8448; or write to him at 5512 N. “F” St., Spokane, WA 99205.

• Catholic Camporee, (Scout retreat) Sept. 13-15, 2002, Camp Cowles, Diamond Lake.
• Bishop’s Recognition Day, Sunday, Feb. 9, 2003, 2 p.m., Cathedral of Our Lady of Lourdes, 1115 W. Riverside Ave., Spokane. Bishop Skylstad will confer religious medals on Scouts and other youth who have earned them.

For information on the Diocesan Catholic Committee on Scouting and its activities, contact Father Terence Tully, diocesan Scout chaplain, 221 E. Rockwood Blvd., Apt 308, Spokane, WA 99202-1200; phone (509) 458-7674; or Joe Schmitz, chair of Diocesan Catholic Committee on Scouting, 400 S. Jefferson St., Suite 112, Spokane, WA 99204, phone (509) 747-7499.

For the National Catholic Committee on Scouting’s web site, click here!

Home