Lourdes

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30302, 30 November 1963, Page 3

Lourdes

Tile Voice of Lourdes: a pilgrimage in vision and recorded sound. By Illtud Evans O.P. Hutchinson. 54 PP.

More than a century ago the 14-year-old peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous reported seeing the apparition of “a Lady" on 18 separate occasions. In response to Bernadette's request for her name, "the Lady" declared herself to be the Immaculate Conception in accordance with the new dogma defined by Pope Pius IX only a few years before. In 18S2, the Bishop of Lourdes concluded thait Bernadette had been telling the truth and already pilgrimages had begun and miracles of healing claimed. In 1933 Bernadette Soubirous was canonised. Today Lourdes is a place of pilgrimage for Roman Catholics from al! over the world. Its essential message, the author declares, is one of prayer and penance. The sick hope for healing but are primarily concerned to do the will of God. No sick pilgrim ever goes to Lourdes in vain and it is their faith that sanctifies Lourdes. • The story of Lourdes, its message, its pilgrimages, its complex of churches built over the site of Bernadettes apparitions, the torchlight processions, the new Basilica of St. Pius X which accommodates 25.000 people, the life-size figures of the Stations of the Cross and the city of the poor are described in a text lavishly illustrated byphotographs. many of which are in colour.

In addition, two small records are .ncluded totalling 20 minutes playing time. These contain excerpts from episodes in the pilgrimage and from the dedication of the new basilica by the late Pope John when he was Cardinal Roncalli As might be expected, the records are at their best when reproducing the sound of hymns and pealing bells; they are at the worst when reproducing the sound of personal devotion and the wax falling from the candles in the grotto. The time of fervent persona! prayer does not suggest piety so much as the possibility that tne record is flawed and the needle stuck.

Lourdes means much to a great many Roman Catholics who will appreciate the storv of a town which has become a centre of pilgrimage and devotion