Pope leads pilgrims in Mass at Lourdes shrine
Enlarge
By Jean-Pierre Muller, AFP/Getty Images
Faithfuls attend mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI at La Prairie in Lourdes on Sept.14. More than 150,000 people were expected to attend the open-air mass given at the shrine.
USA Today
9/14/2008 5:43 AM
LOURDES, France (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI led tens of thousands of people Sunday in celebrating the 150th anniversary of a peasant girl's religious visions in Lourdes, where believers in miracles have since prayed for physical or spiritual healing.
Benedict was giving a late-morning Mass at the Lourdes shrine during a three-day pilgrimage to the sanctuary.
SHRINE VISIT: Pope drinks water from Lourdes spring
About 50,000 pilgrims, singing hymns and some shouldering a life-sized crucifix, streamed through the rain-soaked countryside near the Pyrenees to attend the Mass on a grassy expanse known as the Lourdes prairie.
MESSAGE: Pope speaks of secularism in first France visit
The spot is visited each year by 6 million pilgrims who believe miracles can be delivered by Bernadette Soubirous — the 14-year-old daughter of peasants who in 1858 told local clergy she had seen the Virgin Mary 18 times.
Benedict spent the night at a hermitage, after praying at the Lourdes grotto where a spring of water broke through the ground during the months Bernadette saw the apparitions of Mary.
On Saturday night, the pope drank some of the water in the grotto.
He had said Friday night he was not coming to seek miracles at Lourdes, which he has likened to a citadel of hope.
more...
posted by Dr. Denice Hanley, DPM, M.Div. @ 8:24 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home