The Grotto at Lourdes
South of Paris, The Way of Sainte-Bernadette
In 1858 fourteen year old Bernadette Soubirous reported 18 apparitions of "young woman in white with a blue sash" at a grotto of a massive rock formation on the backs of the Gave de Pau river. Since then the sleepy town of Lourdes in the Mid-Pyrenees became a world-famous pilgrimage site, especially for devout Catholic Filipinos. Without meaning to, yet given the opportunity, my wife and I headed to Lourdes for a three-day visit - even as we undertook a day-long trip to Nevers in Burgundy to see the remains of Bernadette, now a saint. It appears that my last trip outside Paris prior to the end of my residency is a re-connection to the Catholic culture, from whose pool of ritual and faith my boyhood (hence my point of departure as a man) took shape.
The decision to go to Nevers and then to Lourdes was fermented in Chartres the previous week and an episode in Notre Dame where we attended the ceremony of veneration of the Holy Crown of Thorns. Also, the subject of my research - churches - had led to unexpected numerous encounters with relics, sacred sites and religious history in and around Paris. It was inevitable that even being decidedly aesthetic in my intentions, I was reminded again and again of Catholicism - the religion of my childhood. This Sunday Marguerite invited me to hear mass and also to be introduced to the community of St.Merri. It was a remarkable experience: Unlike the ceremony-focused masses back home, the service at St. Merri includes a community meeting after the communion, where various groups supported by this particular church could speak about their conditions to the rest of the community. St. Merri, I was told, supports various causes- from the indigent to immigrants- and even allow the homeless to take shelter in the church. It made me realize once again how the large spaces of churches and cathedrals are in fact a COMMUNAL locus, and explains why instead of fixed pews churches here have movable, even modular (as in the case of Notre Dame de Paris) chairs. At St. Merri, the people hearing mass are not shy to move closer to the center, even moving chairs to the effect. The church, I've understood finally, is the people and the building is an edifice to house the community - as it is then in the 12th century until now.
When my wife asked Marguerite if she is Catholic, her reply gave me an insight. She said yes, she was baptized as a Catholic and although she doesn't practice it, she acknowledges it as part of her culture. It was an epiphany: Catholicism is a factor to my own vernacular culture; it is the community I grew up in (despite my latter dissatisfaction and my present indignation to organized religion); and the practice of veneration of images and saints is still the origin of my own craft of rebulto-work. Even though I do not agree to its hierarchical structure and its dogmas and traditions, I can acknowledge that Catholicism, especially Filipino Catholicism, is part of my culture, and therefore of my lifeworld.
Thus reasoning that it would be unlike a Filipino to ignore a visit to Lourdes, we went to Nevers to see the incorrupt body of St. Bernadette and thus mentally prepared ourselves for a possible pilgrimage. Thus it came as a serendipitous event when Alliance Francaise de Manille told me that they were sending me additional funding to cover the costs of my balikbayan box in the previous week. (Having kept within the grant fund - plus my own personal fund - within activities in Paris and nearby cities, a trip to Lourdes was not in the works.) I decided to give this pilgrimage a go, perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Nevers
The only reason we took a two-hour train trip to this small city in Burgundy is the Chapel of Bernadette where her remains are kept on display. A artist friend in the Philippines had told me how his father, a cardiologist, was immensely affected when he saw the body of the saint- who died in the late 19th century - looks like she just expired yesterday. Wanting to see this for myself and also to see how medieval churches looked like in Burgundy, we went to Nevers on a morning train. Unlike the northward passage to Normandy with all its quaint towns and houses, the landscape to the southwest was a continuous streak of flat fields with intermittent clusters of ancient forests and small, brick train stations. Nevers itself was an equally simple, quiet, almost rustic city, if not for its modern buildings and boulevards. The streets wind up, ascending and descending, on its hilly location and almost rushing towards the banks of the Loire, whose tributaries and arms flow nearby. The cathedral in the centre-ville is a block-like variation of the Gothic. Its stained glass windows feature more reds and yellows and almost a minimum of the blue that made Chartres famous. Most of the buildings are streaked with the bloom and patina of the industrial age: stripes of soot black and dull gray run down the walls from windows, corners and towers.
The Espace Bernadette is housed in the convent of the Sisters of Charity. It is here where Bernadette, physically sick and resolute to evade public exposure brought by her fame, had taken refuge from Lourdes and here he died as a nun of the order. A replica of the grotto in pink and reddish sedimentary rock stands in front of the chapel and features a stone that came from the original site of the Lourdes visions. The Chapel was virtually empty when we entered it by 2pm (its afternoon winter opening time). Bernadette's quite small corpse is encased in a glass and ornate wood display case, and she is posed in an equally smaller gesture of private prayer. The wax layer on her hands and face gave the body a lifelike warmth, and she does look like she just died yesterday, despite the fact that this body had lain in the same space since 1925! (She died decades before). When we left I asked myself why I am not affected when two decades ago I would have been waxing ecstatic at such an encounter...
Lourdes
In a documentary on the miracles associated with the town, Lourdes was described by its host, Leonard Nimoy, as a "Catholic Disneyland", with all its garish shops and hotels catering to the needs of pilgrims for lodging and souvenirs who come in numbers of 3milion a year from March to October. Lourdes is second only to Rome as a chosen destination of the Catholic faithful, often due to the thousands of reported healing caused by drinking or bathing in the waters fed by a spring which was discovered by Bernadette herself, through the directions of the Virgin Mary. This is a surprising number of visitors, given that the population of the town is only a mere 17,000. But I was not to see this horde of pilgrims: it is winter. Instead of crowds and noisy streets I arrived in Lourdes almost a ghost town. All hotels and shops save for a handful are closed shut, boarded even. Without exaggerating, I can tell you that the stretch of hotels along the Gave de Pau river are all closed, without even staff to attend to say no. Our room even costs less than a fourth of its original price, when it had an excess of three beds in two rooms and with a kitchen. The sight of all these closed establishments is made even gloomier by the fact that Lourdes has the second-most number of hotels in France, following Paris.
Having missed our train in the morning, we took the afternoon TGV train to Tarbes (plus surcharges) and arrived in a rainy evening in Lourdes. The trip took close to six hours. It was so late there were no taxis at the station and we walked to the hotel for ten minutes, getting lost because of the lack of clear and visible street signs at night. We walked to the famous Grotto at first light the following day. What I did notice immediately is the massive stone outcrop and the small alcove where the apparition was said to be seen standing. Every "grotto" replica in the Philippines, popular in the gardens and backyards of churches, erroneously depict the alcove as a cave. Even more erroneous is the popular image of the Virgin herself. The original image made by an artist in the late 1800's had to work with the taste of the Catholic church to represent her as a woman, when Bernadette herself said the apparition was of a "girl of her age" (read: 14).
The whole area is collectively called the Sanctuaries, and its grounds are called the Domain. The Sanctuaries feature three Basilicas in addition to the Grotto (Grotte de Massabielle): The basilica of the Immaculate Conception (built on top of the grotto), the Basilica of the Holy Rosary (built beneath the first) and the Basilica of Pius X, a massive stadium-like subterranean structure that can hold 25,000 people at a time. Aesthetically I found the neo-gothic, neo-byzantine and neo-baroque style of the churches a bit contrived. The three spires of the Sanctuaries, eerily reminded me of the Gothic castle of Cinderella, giving the comparison with Disneyland a spoonful of truth. The underground basilica - modern in every sense - is more authentic in spirit and design. Yet despite these misgivings I found the ambience of the grounds both serene and refreshing. The view of the snow-capped Pyrenees completes this breathtaking vista, highlighted by the presence of Chateau-Fort, a decidedly medieval fortress atop a hill, in existence since the Romans first built an outpost there. (I declined the idea of going to the Chateau, now a Museum, due to the ugly fact that it was used as a prison for centuries...and I am not one to relish looking inside a prison). Besides it was beautiful to look at from below...with an imaginary row of trebuchets laying siege on the fortress! When we left in the afternoon of Saturday I took with me vials of its famous healing water, which is also quite nice to drink for its perpetual refreshing coldness. We also heard Mass at the Grotto and explored the Sanctuaries and walked along the Gave River where I swore I saw a fish leap twice into the air.
Impressions
After Lourdes I found myself, like Emile Zola a century ago, by the faculty of reason, "unable to believe". That seems harsh, but it is an honest impression. I did however like the experience of being in the real Grotto, and relished having to discover a laminated print of a Philippine flag stuck on a wall along rue dela Grotte. There was even a Filipino family who conversed with us on the platform of Gare de Lourdes and we briefly exchanged stories of what we both discovered in this journey. My wife said it was refreshing to be able to speak in the vernacular again. I agree: to think and speak in the vernacular is like slipping in one's comfortable old slippers. As my weeks now turn into a few days, I begin what a "ceremony of goodbye" to Paris...to France itself. My last report will be written on a KLM plane to Amsterdam in seven days, even as I type this essay on board a TGV back to Paris.
In 1858 fourteen year old Bernadette Soubirous reported 18 apparitions of "young woman in white with a blue sash" at a grotto of a massive rock formation on the backs of the Gave de Pau river. Since then the sleepy town of Lourdes in the Mid-Pyrenees became a world-famous pilgrimage site, especially for devout Catholic Filipinos. Without meaning to, yet given the opportunity, my wife and I headed to Lourdes for a three-day visit - even as we undertook a day-long trip to Nevers in Burgundy to see the remains of Bernadette, now a saint. It appears that my last trip outside Paris prior to the end of my residency is a re-connection to the Catholic culture, from whose pool of ritual and faith my boyhood (hence my point of departure as a man) took shape.
The decision to go to Nevers and then to Lourdes was fermented in Chartres the previous week and an episode in Notre Dame where we attended the ceremony of veneration of the Holy Crown of Thorns. Also, the subject of my research - churches - had led to unexpected numerous encounters with relics, sacred sites and religious history in and around Paris. It was inevitable that even being decidedly aesthetic in my intentions, I was reminded again and again of Catholicism - the religion of my childhood. This Sunday Marguerite invited me to hear mass and also to be introduced to the community of St.Merri. It was a remarkable experience: Unlike the ceremony-focused masses back home, the service at St. Merri includes a community meeting after the communion, where various groups supported by this particular church could speak about their conditions to the rest of the community. St. Merri, I was told, supports various causes- from the indigent to immigrants- and even allow the homeless to take shelter in the church. It made me realize once again how the large spaces of churches and cathedrals are in fact a COMMUNAL locus, and explains why instead of fixed pews churches here have movable, even modular (as in the case of Notre Dame de Paris) chairs. At St. Merri, the people hearing mass are not shy to move closer to the center, even moving chairs to the effect. The church, I've understood finally, is the people and the building is an edifice to house the community - as it is then in the 12th century until now.
When my wife asked Marguerite if she is Catholic, her reply gave me an insight. She said yes, she was baptized as a Catholic and although she doesn't practice it, she acknowledges it as part of her culture. It was an epiphany: Catholicism is a factor to my own vernacular culture; it is the community I grew up in (despite my latter dissatisfaction and my present indignation to organized religion); and the practice of veneration of images and saints is still the origin of my own craft of rebulto-work. Even though I do not agree to its hierarchical structure and its dogmas and traditions, I can acknowledge that Catholicism, especially Filipino Catholicism, is part of my culture, and therefore of my lifeworld.
Thus reasoning that it would be unlike a Filipino to ignore a visit to Lourdes, we went to Nevers to see the incorrupt body of St. Bernadette and thus mentally prepared ourselves for a possible pilgrimage. Thus it came as a serendipitous event when Alliance Francaise de Manille told me that they were sending me additional funding to cover the costs of my balikbayan box in the previous week. (Having kept within the grant fund - plus my own personal fund - within activities in Paris and nearby cities, a trip to Lourdes was not in the works.) I decided to give this pilgrimage a go, perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Nevers
The only reason we took a two-hour train trip to this small city in Burgundy is the Chapel of Bernadette where her remains are kept on display. A artist friend in the Philippines had told me how his father, a cardiologist, was immensely affected when he saw the body of the saint- who died in the late 19th century - looks like she just expired yesterday. Wanting to see this for myself and also to see how medieval churches looked like in Burgundy, we went to Nevers on a morning train. Unlike the northward passage to Normandy with all its quaint towns and houses, the landscape to the southwest was a continuous streak of flat fields with intermittent clusters of ancient forests and small, brick train stations. Nevers itself was an equally simple, quiet, almost rustic city, if not for its modern buildings and boulevards. The streets wind up, ascending and descending, on its hilly location and almost rushing towards the banks of the Loire, whose tributaries and arms flow nearby. The cathedral in the centre-ville is a block-like variation of the Gothic. Its stained glass windows feature more reds and yellows and almost a minimum of the blue that made Chartres famous. Most of the buildings are streaked with the bloom and patina of the industrial age: stripes of soot black and dull gray run down the walls from windows, corners and towers.
The Espace Bernadette is housed in the convent of the Sisters of Charity. It is here where Bernadette, physically sick and resolute to evade public exposure brought by her fame, had taken refuge from Lourdes and here he died as a nun of the order. A replica of the grotto in pink and reddish sedimentary rock stands in front of the chapel and features a stone that came from the original site of the Lourdes visions. The Chapel was virtually empty when we entered it by 2pm (its afternoon winter opening time). Bernadette's quite small corpse is encased in a glass and ornate wood display case, and she is posed in an equally smaller gesture of private prayer. The wax layer on her hands and face gave the body a lifelike warmth, and she does look like she just died yesterday, despite the fact that this body had lain in the same space since 1925! (She died decades before). When we left I asked myself why I am not affected when two decades ago I would have been waxing ecstatic at such an encounter...
Lourdes
In a documentary on the miracles associated with the town, Lourdes was described by its host, Leonard Nimoy, as a "Catholic Disneyland", with all its garish shops and hotels catering to the needs of pilgrims for lodging and souvenirs who come in numbers of 3milion a year from March to October. Lourdes is second only to Rome as a chosen destination of the Catholic faithful, often due to the thousands of reported healing caused by drinking or bathing in the waters fed by a spring which was discovered by Bernadette herself, through the directions of the Virgin Mary. This is a surprising number of visitors, given that the population of the town is only a mere 17,000. But I was not to see this horde of pilgrims: it is winter. Instead of crowds and noisy streets I arrived in Lourdes almost a ghost town. All hotels and shops save for a handful are closed shut, boarded even. Without exaggerating, I can tell you that the stretch of hotels along the Gave de Pau river are all closed, without even staff to attend to say no. Our room even costs less than a fourth of its original price, when it had an excess of three beds in two rooms and with a kitchen. The sight of all these closed establishments is made even gloomier by the fact that Lourdes has the second-most number of hotels in France, following Paris.
Having missed our train in the morning, we took the afternoon TGV train to Tarbes (plus surcharges) and arrived in a rainy evening in Lourdes. The trip took close to six hours. It was so late there were no taxis at the station and we walked to the hotel for ten minutes, getting lost because of the lack of clear and visible street signs at night. We walked to the famous Grotto at first light the following day. What I did notice immediately is the massive stone outcrop and the small alcove where the apparition was said to be seen standing. Every "grotto" replica in the Philippines, popular in the gardens and backyards of churches, erroneously depict the alcove as a cave. Even more erroneous is the popular image of the Virgin herself. The original image made by an artist in the late 1800's had to work with the taste of the Catholic church to represent her as a woman, when Bernadette herself said the apparition was of a "girl of her age" (read: 14).
The whole area is collectively called the Sanctuaries, and its grounds are called the Domain. The Sanctuaries feature three Basilicas in addition to the Grotto (Grotte de Massabielle): The basilica of the Immaculate Conception (built on top of the grotto), the Basilica of the Holy Rosary (built beneath the first) and the Basilica of Pius X, a massive stadium-like subterranean structure that can hold 25,000 people at a time. Aesthetically I found the neo-gothic, neo-byzantine and neo-baroque style of the churches a bit contrived. The three spires of the Sanctuaries, eerily reminded me of the Gothic castle of Cinderella, giving the comparison with Disneyland a spoonful of truth. The underground basilica - modern in every sense - is more authentic in spirit and design. Yet despite these misgivings I found the ambience of the grounds both serene and refreshing. The view of the snow-capped Pyrenees completes this breathtaking vista, highlighted by the presence of Chateau-Fort, a decidedly medieval fortress atop a hill, in existence since the Romans first built an outpost there. (I declined the idea of going to the Chateau, now a Museum, due to the ugly fact that it was used as a prison for centuries...and I am not one to relish looking inside a prison). Besides it was beautiful to look at from below...with an imaginary row of trebuchets laying siege on the fortress! When we left in the afternoon of Saturday I took with me vials of its famous healing water, which is also quite nice to drink for its perpetual refreshing coldness. We also heard Mass at the Grotto and explored the Sanctuaries and walked along the Gave River where I swore I saw a fish leap twice into the air.
Impressions
After Lourdes I found myself, like Emile Zola a century ago, by the faculty of reason, "unable to believe". That seems harsh, but it is an honest impression. I did however like the experience of being in the real Grotto, and relished having to discover a laminated print of a Philippine flag stuck on a wall along rue dela Grotte. There was even a Filipino family who conversed with us on the platform of Gare de Lourdes and we briefly exchanged stories of what we both discovered in this journey. My wife said it was refreshing to be able to speak in the vernacular again. I agree: to think and speak in the vernacular is like slipping in one's comfortable old slippers. As my weeks now turn into a few days, I begin what a "ceremony of goodbye" to Paris...to France itself. My last report will be written on a KLM plane to Amsterdam in seven days, even as I type this essay on board a TGV back to Paris.
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