Graces of France

This morning we will celebrate a group Mass at the Grotto, before meeting our guide for a walking tour of Lourdes including the Sanctuary area: Upper & Lower Basilicas, the Grotto, and the Baths where hundreds of miraculous cures have taken place. We continue our visit of the main sites associated with St Bernadette including the Boly Mill where she was born in 1844, the original parish church and the Cachot (prison) where the family was forced to live due to misfortune during the time of the apparitions.

We will return to Lourdes to enjoy a peaceful afternoon to rest or wander at your own pace or take the time to pray the Stations of the Cross with the life sized copper images which overlook the Holy Grotto. Spend some quiet time perhaps reflecting at the Grotto with its chapel built over the place of the apparitions.

Optional Blessed Sacrament Procession and evening candlelight procession.

Lourdes overnight (BD)

We aim to celebrate an International Mass this morning with pilgrims worldwide in the immense Underground Basilica of Pius X (schedule permitting) followed by a visit to the little village of Bartres, and the farm where St Bernadette was nursed and later returned in adolescence to help her foster mother. We will visit the Sheepfold and the Parish Church where she spent so many hours in prayer.

Free time this afternoon for a visit and prayers for the sick at the miraculous Baths where the water has continued to flow since 1858. During her 9^th apparition to Bernadette, Our Lady said “Go drink and wash yourself at the spring”.

Optional afternoon Blessed Sacrament Procession and Blessing of the Sick before a final evening candlelight procession after dinner.

Lourdes overnight (BD)

We depart Lourdes today travelling north-east towards Rocamadour. En route we will visit Toulouse, the ‘pink city’, including the Church of the Jacobins which is also the burial site of St Thomas Aquinas, the great theologian and philosopher.

This afternoon we arrive into Rocamadour, the sacred city built stunningly against the side of a cliff.

According to legend, Rocamadour was the home of an early Christian hermit named Zaccheus of Jericho. It is believed that he died in about 70 AD and had conversed with Jesus himself. After the hermit’s death and burial in Rocamadour, and even more so after the statue of the Black Madonna was brought here several centuries later, the site became a place of pilgrimage. The shrine is accessible from the town via an elevator or the Grand Escalier, a stairway of 216 weathered steps. From the Middle Ages many pilgrims have made the climb on their knees in penance. Along the way are 14 Stations of the Cross culminating in the Cross of Jerusalem at the top.

Rocamadour overnight (BD)

We will visit the Shrine of Rocamadour. Our group Mass will be celebrated at the Chapel of the Black Virgin where we have the opportunity also to pray before the miraculous Black Madonna statue. Other sites we will see include St Michael’s Chapel with its 12th century frescoes and St Amadour’s crypt.

Departing Rocamadour we continue our French immersion travelling on north to Paray-le-Monial, the place where St Margaret Mary Alacoque experienced visions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the 17th century. In revealing His Heart to her, Jesus said: “Behold the Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing but has been poured out totally and consumed as proof of its love”.

Paray-le-Monial overnight (BD)

This morning in Paray-le-Monial, we embark on a guided visit featuring the Chapel of Apparitions, the room of the relics of St Margaret Mary, the Diorama of St Margaret and the Eucharist Museum. Other highlights include the Basilica of Sacre Coeur and the Chapel of St Claude in honour of St Margaret Mary’s Spiritual Director, St Claude de la Colombiere.

We then visit Ars, the village where St John Vianney, known as the ‘Cure de Ars’, was based as a holy priest and where pilgrims from all over Europe flocked to see him. We will visit the small church contained within the Basilica that the Cure built himself. View the incorrupt body of the saint and see his living quarters, as we learn of his extraordinary apostolate.

Paray-le-Monial overnight (BD)

After some time at leisure this morning for personal prayer at the shrine, we farewell the city of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and journey west to the lovely town of Nevers nestled within the picturesque Loire Valley. Here we will celebrate Mass and visit the Convent of St Gildard where St Bernadette’s incorrupt body reposes and may be viewed. After she was blessed with the eighteen apparitions of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes, St Bernadette retired to Nevers where she died at the age of only 35.

Departing Nevers, we travel on to the great Cathedral city of Chartres where upon arrival we will enter inside the magnificent thirteenth-century Chartres Cathedral. This is a medieval architectural wonder and home to the Holy Veil, said to be worn by the Blessed Virgin Mary when she gave birth to Jesus. Pilgrims too will see the most famous labyrinth in the world, built around the year 1200 and sometimes called the “Chemin de Jerusalem” or “Road of Jerusalem”.

Chartres overnight (BD)

As we leave Chartres, we continue by road to the saintly village of Lisieux, one of the world’s premier pilgrimage sites and home to St Therese, the ‘Little Flower’, whom Pope Pius X called ‘the greatest saint of modern times’.

This afternoon we enjoy a pilgrimage tour of Lisieux, visiting the family home of Les Buissonets, the Carmelite Convent Chapel with its reliquary of the saint and St Therese’s Basilica, where we will celebrate our memorable Mass.

Lisieux overnight (BD)

What looks like a castle out of a fairy tale is actually one of Christianity’s major pilgrimage sites. Surging from an infinite expanse of sand and waves, Mont-Saint-Michel is a marvellous work of both nature and mankind. In 1979 it was the first location in France to be designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Today more than two million pilgrims and visitors travel to behold this awesome work of the Middle Ages, the Abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel.

On arrival this morning, we will meet our guide for an amazing tour of the holy island.
A climb up the steep narrow flight of steps called the Grand Degré is a prelude to the tour of the abbey. Once we have admired the construction, we can contemplate the incomparable beauty of the bay by going back down via the rampart walk. A highlight of our visit here will be the Benedictine Abbey, which during the French Revolution was turned into a prison. We plan to join the community here for an inspiring chanted Mass. During our tour we will also see the Chapelle de Notre Dame sous Terre (Underground Chapel of Our Lady). It was built in the late 10th century in the very place that St Aubert erected the oratory in the 8th century.

Return to Lisieux for some free time before dinner.

Lisieux overnight (BD)

Departing Lisieux this morning, we proceed directly to Paris, the ‘City of Lights’.

While Paris is renowned for housing some of the world’s greatest treasures, we will come to discover too the spiritual riches on offer to pilgrims in this amazing city of contrasts.

Our afternoon in Paris will include a special visit to the Cathedral of Notre Dame, the iconic heart of Catholic Paris. Restored following the 2019 fire, this majestic Gothic masterpiece continues to inspire pilgrims with its soaring spires, sacred history, and timeless witness to faith on the Île de la Cité.

We then come to the Daughters of Charity in the Rue du Bac. This is the site where Our Lady appeared to Catherine Laboure in 1830, with the first Miraculous Medal being struck in 1832. Her incorrupt body lies under the altar of Our Lady in the chapel here and adjacent to the altar of St Vincent de Paul displaying his incorrupt heart.

Paris overnight (BD)

Our pilgrimage concludes this morning after breakfast.
(B)