Today many people want to go to Lourdes to seek healing because of some particular suffering of their own or a loved-one. Other people go to Lourdes to help those who are suffering, even when they are strangers whom they have never met. Still others go to renew their faith and have special time in a holy place with Our Lord and Our Lady.

What unites all pilgrims and volunteers is that they go to Lourdes as a response to an invitation made to them by Our Lady who, as Our Heavenly Mother, seeks always to bring us closer to Her Beloved Son. In going to Lourdes, we offer the spiritual and temporal work of making a holy pilgrimage, opening ourselves up to Our Lady and the Message of Lourdes and opening ourselves up to God’s grace.

“Will you be so kind as to go there?” 

When Our Lady asked Bernadette if she would be so kind as to return to the Grotto, the young soon-to-be saint did as she was asked. In Bernadette, God gives us a model of obedience, humility, and cooperation.