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- Lourdes Pilgrimage
Lourdes Pilgrimage
A personal journey of faith, peace, and the grace of arriving at the last sacred stop
Lourdes was the last stop. After Portugal and Fatima, after Santiago de Compostela and the Cathedral of St. James, after Covadonga and Garabandal and the Monastery of Santo Toribio de Liebana and Loyola — after all of that — the road brought us here. To the foothills of the Pyrenees. To the grotto where a fourteen-year-old girl named Bernadette knelt in the cold and saw a light.
I did not go expecting a miracle. I went because the road led me here, and because every step of this pilgrimage had been teaching me the same thing in different languages — that God meets you where you are willing to be found.
Lourdes found me ready. Tired, yes. Open, yes. And quietly grateful for everything that had already happened on the road that brought me to its door.
Where the Road Began
Before Lourdes there was Fatima. Our Lady appeared there to three shepherd children in 1917, asking for prayer, penance, and the Rosary. Standing in that place — where the sun had danced in the sky and seventy thousand people had witnessed something that changed them forever — carried its own quiet weight.
I have no separate page for Fatima yet. But I want to leave this moment here, in the Lourdes story, because the two belong together — the same Lady, the same message, the same invitation to come closer to her Son. This video was filmed at Fatima. Let it be the opening prayer for everything that follows.
Filmed at Fatima, Portugal
The Ave Maria — where Our Lady first asked us to pray the Rosary.
Through the Pyrenees
Traveling by bus through the Pyrenees was both beautiful and humbling. The winding roads led through quiet, majestic landscapes — mountains rising on either side, the air changing as we climbed. These moments of silence on the road helped me slow down, disconnect from the pace of everything that had come before, and prepare my heart for what was ahead.
When we arrived and I heard the church bells for the first time, something settled in me. This is what Lourdes sounds like — not grand or ceremonial, but constant and faithful. The same bells that have been calling pilgrims to prayer since Bernadette knelt at this grotto.
Lourdes, France
The bells that call pilgrims to prayer — as they have for over a century.
Pilgrims from Every Continent
One of the most powerful things about Lourdes is witnessing the universality of the Church. Pilgrims from every continent — young, old, strong, frail — walk side by side in faith. Some in wheelchairs, others walking slowly, many holding Rosaries. Yet all there for the same reason: to meet Our Lady at the Grotto and to bring their prayers to Jesus.
There was something profoundly beautiful about seeing complete strangers help one another, offer smiles, or share quiet tears during prayer. The Church is not just global — it is deeply united by love. Lourdes makes that visible in a way that is impossible to forget.
Even though the sights are breathtaking and beautiful, it is the experience that is felt when one visits Lourdes. You carry it home differently than you arrived.
If Someone You Love Needs Help Getting Here
I mentioned pilgrims in wheelchairs above because I saw them everywhere at Lourdes — in the lines to the Grotto, and again among the candles at the evening procession. If you are trying to work out how to get yourself, or someone you love, to Lourdes when getting around is hard, I wrote a separate page about exactly that: who helps, how it works, and what I would ask before going.
The Grotto of Massabielle
The heart of any Lourdes pilgrimage is the Grotto of Massabielle — the site where Our Lady appeared to Bernadette. This is where I spent the most time in prayer. Just being there, surrounded by people kneeling in silence, was a holy experience I will never forget.
We were able to light candles of all sizes — some the size of walking sticks. The shrine staff tend the flames so they keep burning. I lit candles here in memory of my mother and father, both now gone. I prayed for their souls and thanked them for the faith they passed down to me. I wished I could tell them about this holy place. I believe somehow they already knew.
Though the traditional healing baths were not available to me on this visit — my dear friend Linda experienced them on her earlier pilgrimage and they moved her deeply — pilgrims are invited to take part in a Water Ceremony. Water is poured over your hands, then you use it to wash your face, then you drink it. A simple and reverent act. Grace coming through the smallest gestures, as it always does.
The High Stations — Espelugues
Time at Lourdes is precious and finite. When I had to choose, I chose the High Stations of the Cross — the Espelugues — carved into the hillside above the sanctuary. It was the right choice for me. Walking the path upward, station by station, with the whole of Lourdes spread out below and the mountains framing everything above — it carried its own quiet power.
The stone sculptures at each station are breathtaking in their detail and their feeling. Jesus standing condemned at Station I — innocent, wrongly judged — I have looked at that image and recognized something true about my own life. That is what sacred art does when it is done well. It does not explain the mystery. It holds it open long enough for you to walk inside.
Walk the High Stations With Me
If you cannot make the journey to Lourdes, you can still walk the Espelugues. Every station, every sculpture, every moment of the climb is available here as a virtual pilgrimage.
The Lower Stations — The Prairie
Time did not allow me to walk the Lower Stations — the Prairie Way of the Cross — on this visit. But a fellow pilgrim on our trip, Theresa, walked them and generously shared her photographs. I am so grateful for that gift, because the stonework of these stations is simply breathtaking. The art holds the Passion of Christ with a tenderness that stops you.
That is something pilgrimage does that we do not always expect — it teaches us through other people. Theresa walked the path I could not walk, and brought it back for all of us. That is its own kind of grace.
Images of the Lower Stations courtesy of Theresa, a fellow pilgrim.
Walk the Prairie Way of the Cross
The Lower Stations offer a different experience of the Cross — open sky, the Pyrenees in the distance, the Way of the Cross laid out across the prairie. Walk it here as a virtual pilgrimage.
The Candlelight Rosary Procession
Every evening, thousands of people gather in front of the Basilica for the candlelight procession. Rain or shine, the crowds come. Lines stretch for what feels like miles. People pray the Rosary aloud — in Italian, French, English, Spanish, and many other languages rising together into one sound.
When the sun sets and thousands of tiny flames glow in the darkness, it feels like heaven is near. We were each given a candle with a protective cone to hold. As I stood there I reached over to light a stranger’s candle — and someone behind me did the same for mine. That small act was deeply moving. A quiet, holy connection between people who would never know each other’s names.
Filmed by my sister
The candlelight Rosary procession at Lourdes — thousands of flames in the dark.
My Sister Came With Me
At the Grotto — together at the last sacred stop.
There is something I want to say that has nothing to do with the history of Lourdes or the sacred geography of this place. It has to do with the person who was beside me when I walked through it.
My sister came on this trip. It was her first time outside the United States — her first time on a plane across an ocean, her first time navigating foreign airports and winding mountain roads and stone villages where the signs are in languages neither of us could read. We left on June 24th and landed on June 25th — her birthday. To cross an ocean and arrive in a sacred place on the day you were born is not an accident. That is a gift only God arranges.
The first hours were the hardest. Jet lag, a long wait, bags still with us from the plane, no hotel yet in sight. All the unglamorous reality of a major pilgrimage circuit pressing down at once. It was on the bus finally heading toward the hotel in Fatima that she said something I have not forgotten. She looked at the little backpack she had been carrying all day — through airports, through transfers, through the exhaustion of arrival — and she said quietly that it was her cross.
She got it. In the hardest moment of the trip, before we had even reached the first shrine, she already understood what pilgrimage asks of you. I thought that was one of the most significant things said on the entire journey. She named her suffering and offered it, without ceremony, without being told to. That is faith living inside a person — not performed, just present.
She had told me before we arrived in Lourdes how much she had been looking forward to it. And I could feel that from her when we got there — something in her opened at this place in a way I had not seen anywhere else on the trip. Lourdes did something to her. I watched it happen and I was grateful to be standing close enough to see it.
On the last evening, we walked the candlelight procession together — she, her husband, and I — among thousands of pilgrims from every country, holding our small candles in the dark. The Rosary rising in Italian, French, English, Spanish and languages I could not name. The Basilica illuminated above us. That is the image I will carry from this trip for the rest of my life — not a shrine or a mountaintop, but the three of us walking together in the dark with a flame between us, praying the same prayer.
To travel somewhere sacred with someone you love is a grace. To do it for the first time together — across an ocean, in a language neither of you speaks, on her birthday — is something even more. It is a gift you did not know you were being given until you are standing inside it.
If she reads this page one day — and I hope she does — I want her to know: I am so proud of her for saying yes to this trip. I am proud of her courage, her faith, and the quiet way she carried her cross without complaint and named it for what it was. I am grateful for every moment we shared on this road, even the hard ones. Especially the hard ones.
Our mother would have been so proud of both of us. I believe she was watching. I believe she still is.
Adoration and the Three Basilicas
Lourdes is not just busy processions and crowds. There are also peaceful moments of personal prayer. I visited the three main churches on the grounds — the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, the Basilica of the Rosary, and the Underground Basilica of St. Pius X.
Each was beautiful in its own way, but my favorite time was spent in Adoration. Just sitting with the Lord in silence reminded me why I came. I lit candles in memory of my mother and father — both now gone — and prayed for their souls, thanking them for the faith they passed down to me.
The Underground Basilica of St. Pius X
A vast underground church carved beneath the earth — filled with candlelight, silence, and thousands of pilgrims praying as one.
A Pilgrimage of the Heart
This Lourdes pilgrimage was not just about visiting a holy place. It became a journey inward. I didn’t experience any dramatic miracles, but I came home with something just as important: peace. A renewed trust in God. A stronger devotion to Mary. And a deepened love for the Rosary that began so long ago with a gifted set of beads and a grandmother’s dream.
Pilgrimage is not always about receiving something — it is often about becoming someone. Someone more open to grace, more aware of others, and more rooted in faith. I came home more myself than when I left.
March 2, 1858
“Go and tell the priests to have a chapel built here. I want people to come here in procession.”
— Our Lady to Bernadette
If you have ever thought about making a Lourdes pilgrimage, I encourage you to pray about it. You do not have to be ill or seeking a miracle. Go because your heart is being drawn closer to Christ. Go to pray. Go to rest. Go to let Our Lady lead you.
And if you cannot make the journey, bring Lourdes into your life where you are — light a candle, pray the Rosary with intention, sit in silence. Mary’s message is always the same: come to her Son. And she always walks with us.
Lourdes Was the Last Stop
The pilgrimage circuit ended here. But the journey it began continues in prayer, in the Rosary, and in everything that RosarySeeds was built to offer.
Underground Basilica
Carved beneath the earth — vast, silent, and filled with the prayers of millions.
Garabandal
The mountain village where the Pines hold something holy and the Eye of God watches from above the altar.
All Pilgrimages
Return to the pilgrimage hub to explore Medjugorje, the full story of how this journey began, and every sacred place on this path.