August 31 – September 1, 2019. Typical of traditional Catholic Filipinos who find themselves visiting France, a trip to the town of Lourdes is a must. It was a necessary pilgrimage for my mom who was a devout Catholic.
We took the TGV (‘train à grande vitesse’ / high speed train) from Paris directly to Lourdes, far south of France, near the Spanish border. The distance was more than 600 kilometers but it took us a little less then five hours to get to the town.
Few icons of religious faith are as divisive as the Virgin Mary, central object of disagreement among various Christian faiths. But to devout Catholics, she is venerated. She is said to have appeared to the young St. Bernadette in a grotto in Lourdes in 1858. Water from the spring at the grotto is believes to have miraculous healing powers for those who believe.
We got back to Paris late in the evening and immediately went to bed.
The next day, a Sunday–again typical of Catholic Filipinos–we had to attend mass. I suggested we take a trip to Montmartre and hear mass at the Sacré-Coeur. We didn’t mind that it was in French, as long as we fulfilled the Sunday ‘obligation’. After having lunch at an Italian restaurant in the area, we decided to just head back to the hotel. I, however, made a trip to Surenes to bring half of my luggage to the place I would be staying at for the rest of my studies. I found two young Filipinos through Facebook who offered a bed in their shared apartment in the basement of a family’s house in Suresnes, a suburb just west of Paris.
