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Virtual Pilgrimage to Lourdes p 6 Chairman’s message p 7 Archbishop Kevin McDonald’s welcome
by SOLL21
SOLL Virtual Pilgrimage 2020
Prevented by lockdown restrictions in both Britain and France from mounting our annual pilgrimage to Lourdes this year, Council decided instead to organise a virtual pilgrimage. Led by Archbishop Kevin McDonald in his welcoming and encouraging guidance on the Sunday, our pilgrimage priests contributed reflections appropriate for celebrations we had intended to hold each day in Lourdes. These were followed by contributions from pupils of St Michael’s School.
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We give below the texts of our Chairman, Dave Farrow’s message and Archbishop Kevin’s welcome address. However, the whole of the virtual pilgrimage remains online at www.solllourdes.comto allow those who could not participate at the time to access it through the medium of a friend or helper.
22nd May, 2020
Message from our Chairman, Dave Farrow
Today we should have travelled on SOLL’s annual pilgrimage to Lourdes. Many I suspect may pause to reflect on what they might have been doing during this week.
This is the second time in our history that the Society has not travelled to Lourdes, and the first time it is not attributable to human conflict.
Amid a plethora of stats and forecasts, debate on cause and remediation in an age sometimes described as post Christian, the challenges faced by those with existing conditions, isolation and hardship have been to the fore and have been met overwhelmingly with a kind and empathetic response in Britain and around the world – a spirit even.
So many have responded: people are willing and want to help, whether assisting with fetching and carrying, having a chat, or showing appreciation for the work of others.
For those of us who have been on pilgrimage this is not new. We do all these things every year in the south of France –even the clapping. This year, though, we have not gone to Lourdes; Lourdes has come to us.
Some have grown their faith during lockdown, others have lost it or will not miss the pilgrimage experience. One year I did not go and didn’t miss it, to the obvious disappointment of the many who asked. But when I came back, the welcome and the break renewed my enthusiasm and I was pleased I was there. If you are one of those who conclude “that’s it”, please come back one more time next year and if the reset button doesn’t work for you, maybe let Our Lady know what you think down at the Grotto and see what she says.
In 2021 we prepare to return to Lourdes. Arrangements for travel were a challenge anyway, especially from the West Country, they are obviously even harder in the future. So the Society needs your support and the support of those you know because we want to go back BIG and tap that spirit – that desire to help others – that has been so evident in 2020 in our homes and communities.
You are invited to join the events during our pilgrimage week. The theme this year is "I am the Immaculate Conception." Dave Farrow
Archbishop Kevin McDonald’s Welcome
At this time, we should of course be in Lourdes for the annual pilgrimage of the Society, but, for reasons we are all well aware of, that is not happening. The theme or the theme that would have been ours this year is the words of Mary ‘I am the Immaculate Conception’ and I want to share with you some of the things I might have said at the opening Mass had the pilgrimage gone ahead. One of the most important moments of the series of visions that Our Lady granted to St Bernadette came on the 25 March 1958, when Our Lady, speaking in Bernadette’s own language, which wasn’t French but the local patois, said to her the words: ‘I am the Immaculate Conception’. But of course, Bernadette had no idea what this meant; it is interesting to remember that point as we are quite familiar with the words ‘I am the Immaculate Conception’. That meeting took place just four years after Pope Pius IX proclaimed the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception that Our Lady was born without the stain of original sin. But what does that mean? Well essentially it means that in the human person – this is what original sin is – there is a certain tendency to evil, it’s part of the human condition. This doesn’t mean of course that people are completely evil, but it means that, in the human condition, there is a certain propensity to selfishness that’s inherent in us and sadly when we look at history and at the world, there is plenty of evidence for that. And so Our Lady was free from that; but you may say that’s OK for Our Lady, she was free of sin, but what about us? To which I would be inclined to reply that what was given to Our Lady at the outset from the moment of her conception is given to us gradually and progressively by the grace of the Holy Spirit throughout our lives. Through prayer, the sacraments and the Holy Spirit, we grow; we become better people, we change, we are called to go beyond our tendencies to selfishness and to learn to live in love, love of God and love of others. And so life itself is a kind of pilgrimage, a journey to a deeper and more abundant life.
I am sure that many of you, during lockdown, during this strange time we live in, have
had something of a pilgrimage yourselves with more time for prayer. I have been going virtually to the Pope’s Mass; and that’s a bit like a retreat for me, hearing his words of wisdom. I do hope you are using this time to allow the Holy Spirit to work in your lives gradually and progressively as it worked in Our Lady. Our pilgrimage to Lourdes would have been a great opportunity to open ourselves to the gifts of the Holy Spirit and to the growth in new life that the Spirit offers. But this year it won’t be that way. I am confident that the Holy Spirit has been at work in your lives, healing, forgiving and calling you afresh to take time during these days to consider and to ponder how the Holy Spirit has been working in your life.
I want to read a prayer to the Holy Spirit, which is today’s prayer in the novena to the Holy Spirit, which you are invited to say. if you have it with you can say it with me, otherwise just listen:
O Heavenly Father, You have called me to be a member of the mystical body of Your Son, Jesus Christ, and to be a temple of the Holy Spirit. I ask You to give me these gifts of the Holy Spirit: Wisdom, that I may understand the follies of this world; Understanding, that I may grasp more fully the meaning of my existence and the purpose of all things in the world; Counsel, that I may always choose the proper way; Fortitude, that I may remain faithful to You under the pressure of temptation; Piety, that I may revere You in all I do, think or say; Fear of the Lord, that, should the motive of love fail me, I may quickly be awakened to the eternal consequences of my deeds. Visit me by Your grace and Your love and grant me the favour I so earnestly seek in this novena…
What are we looking for from God at this moment? Just ask God what you are looking for...
Come, O Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, and kindle in them the fire of Your love.
