Lourdes - Easter Sunday
The square in front of the basilica buzzed with the pleasant chaos of any great celebration. Sixteen thousand of us stood there—every age, every race, Christians of different professions. From seventy-five countries across five continents.
Banners distinguished us—their painted and embroidered cloth rippling in the wind, bright with color. They announced the names of communities and homelands: Sweden, Canada, Brazil, Martinique, Japan, Ivory Coast. And cities: Prague, Bari, Moscow, Rome, Oslo. And smaller towns: Abano, Monopoli.
Folding chairs everywhere, wheelchairs of every kind; cameras and film equipment; colorful scarves and blue ponchos for everyone, like the sky above us with its mantle of Mary and a sun more summer than spring.
Beside each banner, faces bright with smiles and eyes wide with joy; dark skin and light, sallow and flushed, marked by age or fresh with youth. Hands stretched out to greet and embrace, to offer gifts and memories and Easter sweets.
Many waved musical instruments of every kind—some handmade—keeping rhythm with music that invited all of us to dance and sing.
- See the photo gallery: The Children at Lourdes
A bit of confusion, yes; but who minded? I stood there amazed, watching in wonder. Because I am small in stature, I could see only up to the waists of those around me—but this gave me something unexpected: the chance to see the children. Babies just months old in slings; bigger ones on their fathers' shoulders or their friends'; and others running around the wheelchairs of their disabled friends.
They did not speak the same language, but that did not stop them from talking—with glances and waves and meaningful gestures: trading candies and toys, small dolls and little flags. Some offered an Easter egg, then pulled a bigger one from behind their backs. Others slept peacefully in their strollers, unmoved by the noise and the crowd.
Never before, at gatherings like this, had there been so many children—some disabled, with their parents. Many were the children of parents who had become parents while staying faithful to the movement Fede e Luce. Some of them had come to Lourdes in '81, as teenagers. After twenty years of commitment, they had wanted to bring their families here—to show that marriage had not changed their dedication, only deepened it.
Their presence, so full of meaning, opened our hearts to a hope we thought had died long ago. People used to say: "Just wait. When they marry and have their own families, they'll disappear." And heads would shake with a kind of resignation.
But no. They were there, more joyful than ever, assuring all the parents of disabled children and adults that the friendship born from shared experience in those earlier years remained solid, as faithful as before.
The cost of travel was no small thing for young couples, and I know of many who, with sadness, had to stay away for that reason alone.
I may be wrong: but I believe that the presence of these children at Lourdes—disabled or not—gave courage and hope back to so many families, to so many grandparents who were there looking back at all the steps taken with difficulty and pain. Now they did not shake their heads, fearing abandonment in the future. Now they could—and I hope they still can—look once more toward Mary, who gathered us around her in '71, in '81, in '91, in 2001. The mother of that Jesus who held up children as the example we must follow. To thank her for a miracle unexpected, as always happens at Lourdes.
- Mariangela Bertolini, 2001