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August 17, 2008

Lourdes, sweet Lourdes While 190 Chicago pilgrims journeyed to France with Cardinal George, thousands more participated “at home”

By Michelle Martin

ASSISTANT EDITOR

Jeffrey Novak went to Lourdes hoping for a miracle. Novak, 44, had been diabetic for 30 years and has suffered a litany of complications: kidney and pancreas transplants, amputated toes, triple heart bypass surgery. Now his kidney is failing again, he’s having heart trouble and he suffers from neuropathy, causing pain and swelling in his legs.

When he signed up to join the Archdiocese of Chicago’s pilgrimage to Lourdes for the site’s 150th anniversary he was hoping “more for a physical cure,” said the St. Juliana parishioner.

But during a week spent where the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to Bernadette Soubirous in 1858, his thoughts began to change.

“I started thinking more in terms of spiritual healing,” Novak said. “And I found that.”

He was one of about 190 pilgrims who traveled to Lourdes with Cardinal George. The grotto there is the most visited Christian shrine in the world, attracting more than 6 million pilgrims of all faiths each year.

Before leaving Chicago, the pilgrims participated in a special Mass Aug. 1 at Queen of All Saints Basilica. Activities in Lourdes included a welcoming Mass Aug. 4; a procession to, and liturgy, at the Massabielle Grotto, where Mary appeared to the young St. Bernadette; a candlelight rosary procession; Mass in the Basilica of Pius X and eucharistic adoration; a penance service; anointing of the sick; a eucharistic procession; and a Way of the Cross procession.

For members of the Couri family, who traveled with their daughter, Cecilia, who suffers from a disease in which her immune system attacks her brain and central nervous system, the pilgrimage was a success. Asked if it was as good as they hoped, Cecilia’s father, Brian Couri, said, “it was even better.”

On Aug. 6, 25 young adults who traveled with the Archdiocese of Chicago pilgrimage took part in a diocesan “twinning” ceremony with young people from the local French diocese of Belley-Ars. The ceremony was led by Father Wayne Watts, pastor of St. John Berchmans Parish and pilgrimage director. Watts, who has led both youth and adult pilgrimages to Lourdes for several years, was named an honorary chaplain of the shrine, and Cardinal George received the Medal of the City of Lourdes. Then the Chicago young people prepared to assist the sick -- “les malades” from Belley-Ars.

As Watts noted in an e-mail, they had plenty of practice helping sick and disabled pilgrims from the Chicago archdiocese.

That spirit of helpfulness delighted Sister Maria Paulina Sterling, who is part of a religious congregation for women now being formed in the archdiocese. Sterling, who has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair, traveled with Sister Kathleen Marie Marshall, also a member of the Sisters of the Real Presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ, but worried that her companion would not be able to handle the chair on the hilly terrain.

She needn’t have been concerned.

“The men and the boys were so helpful,” Sterling said.

The pilgrimage group also united in prayer around the cardinal, she said, making for a different spiritual experience than when she traveled to Lourdes in 2006 with the North American Volunteers.

“It was wonderful to see how everybody wanted to pray together,” she said.

Catholics throughout Cook and Lake counties who did not travel to Lourdes were encouraged to participate in “At Home Pilgrimage” activities at sites throughout the archdiocese between Aug. 4 and Aug. 8. The activities included Masses and processions to help unite Catholics in Chicago with those in Lourdes.