Order
of Malta
Lourdes Pilgrimage May 2007
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Personal
Reflections
In Manus Tuas Domine…
Into Your hands Lord…
Even while starting to get back to New York time, Lourdes
is lingering. I hear the birds in the yard and think of the
Grotto. I see the Hudson and think of the Gave. I find
myself checking the webcams from the Domain as if I am
missing something. A few long days went so fast.
So what happened?
As a Malade, a sick person, I have a radically different
view of what could easily be another Marian Shrine.
I’ve been to Rome, Santiago de Compostella, Lough
Derg, Knock, Fatima, Guadalupe and Czestochowa. This time,
I was taken to Lourdes. In those other places, I walked
into the place of devotion. In Lourdes, I was brought in a
chariot. Verbs moved from active to passive - which is
becoming a mirror of everything else. The ‘sacred
synchronicity’ of this pilgrimage is the ‘stamp
of approval’ I could never make up. But that’s
for another reflection much later. What Lourdes 2007 became
was nothing I could have reasonably anticipated. Lourdes
2007 was a penitential pilgrimage.
All right, most folks would not describe Lourdes in this
way. The word ‘penitential’ has all the
purple-hued connotations of giving up good things and
taking on difficult things. It is better suited for Lent
than Lourdes. Impressions aside, that is exactly what
Lourdes demanded of me.
The Christian message is a call to echo Christ Himself as
He prayed, “Father, into Your hands I commend My
spirit.” At Christmas, in the Incarnation, His
appearance in Bethlehem was an act of trust as He handed
Himself to Mary and Joseph and the human race. The message
of Lourdes is no different. In faith, hand your life to
God. In love, hand your prayers to Mary. In hope, hand
yourself to the crowd there with you. The first two are
clear; the last is surprisingly difficult.
The Knights and Dames have a system of organization that
should be emulated even if it is envied. Malades are
assigned four or more to care for them. From putting on a
shoe to pulling the voiture, the Malade does nothing. These
‘pod-people’ take our lives into their hands.
There is nothing shocking, distressing or disgusting. They
actively seek to understand the needs and desires,
abilities and limitations of the people they are given.
This is no ‘Catholic Do-Gooders Sodality.’ The
Malade is the target of some serious Christian service and
charity.
And this is what really bugs some one like me. In my
desired universe, it is me who is the charitable man for
others. I am supposed to be the hero who lifts up the
fallen. I mean, I am a priest after all! Before this began,
I was told pointedly one bit of advice: “You
must
let them help you.” What I hear now is: “You
must hand yourself over to them as you hand over your soul
to God and your prayers to Mary.” On the spiritual
level, you must deliver yourself to those around you so you
will have the free hands to take up this cross. You must
surrender control in the Domain and find mastery in grace.
Ugh!!! Don’t I have enough to deal with!?! The slow
progression of MS is taking enough away. Things have the
tendency to get harder once I feel I’ve made the
needed adjustments. I’m doing most things right and
still so much goes wrong. Now would it have really been
such an insult to the order of the universe if I could just
have a few days in the South of France? With Malta, this
was not such an idyllic vacation; this was a pilgrimage and
it was for real. It was not merely a ‘letting go and
letting God’; it was a letting go and letting
God
and
letting others. It was a trinity whose parts could not be
separated. And that is a penance because it demands a
humility from the ego not usually accepting of such a
status. It was a cross because pride says things should be
otherwise.
But please do not start hearing the mournful chants of
lamentations! This was no dour Lent! There was a tremendous
amount of humor (cf, the ‘Malade Minder’ which
too many thought – falsely – was about me!) and
a visible joy as executives gave muscles a workout they may
not ordinarily employ! What we saw was a crowd standing
before God and each other in love and joy even as pain was
so present and so real. And if you check the Book, that is
a good description of heaven.
So this penitential pilgrimage of thousands struggling to
die to self is over. The message of Lourdes is to
understand that while the trip is concluded, the journey is
not. Disability and charity have a more lasting quality.
Service and community are essential to faith. And even if
jet lag and challenges begin to dull that in our lives, the
gurgling waters still flow in the cave, the birds still
nest below the rocks, the candles still flicker in
nocturnal procession.
And we join our earth to God’s heaven as St.
Bernadette smiles and prays to the Lady she saw so long ago
and says, “they got it right!”