I was ordained as a Deacon in the Church of England on Saturday 30th June, 1984, in Wakefield Cathedral. I worked as Curate of St Giles’, a market-place church in the centre of Pontefract. My Training Vicar was Fr Godfrey Higgins whom I had come to know at his previous parish of Marsden: I was friendly with a fellow ordinand at Mirfield Theological College, Mike, whose home was in Marsden and I had done my ‘parish placement’ with Godfrey there.
This sabbatical was not arranged specially to coincide with this fortieth anniversary but the coincidence is forming something of a theme: what really changed for (or in) me back then, and what has changed for (or in) me in the meantime? How should I go forward with gratitude and hope from here?
Chapter 1. Lourdes – where the river flows.
Holy Week, as it is wont to do, found me out. It was especially busy. A 9-session course based on watching all 19 episodes of Rev came to its conclusion on the Monday evening, with (the Venerable) Alan Jeans in attendance, Archdeacon of Salisbury, with whom the writers consulted in order to ensure the realism with which this comedy rings so painfully true for parish clergy. Easter being early this time, school term continued until Maundy Thursday, so a hectic round of school activities also took place during the week. Meanwhile the countdown to my sabbatical kept ticking – and then leapt forward an hour with the clocks changing the night before Easter: so the 6am Vigil Mass felt like 5am. It was as always rather wonderful, but by 7.15am I was in Gary’s car as he kindly dropped me and my case to Bournemouth to catch the National Express bus for Heathrow and then Luton.
Arriving at the airport, I soon noticed others clearly bound for Lourdes. The ‘Handicapped Children’s Pilgrimage Trust’ week draws a remarkable kaleidoscope of groups, perhaps eight or ten thousand adults and children in all. HCPT was founded in the 1950s by Michael Strode, a doctor who became a monk after he retired, and who by all accounts was a Very Good Thing (he is currently a nominee for sainthood among a supporters’ group keen to promote his case once the required five years have elapsed since his death.) Our Group 9 (‘Let it Shine’) comprised 15 members. The others had left by bus at 3.30am whereas I travelled later, a complication that confronts all groups with parish clergy wishing to accompany them on this pilgrimage. But sitting alone now in the airport and noting others dressed in brightly coloured hoodies and beginning to operate in that ‘group-mode’ that is natural and perhaps necessary, in such circumstances, made me – I admit it – shrink. I wrote in my notebook lines that don’t evidence any talent for poetry but do reveal well enough something of my personality:
I’m an introvert, outed:
solitude, my solace, shorn from me.
I’m counted among the colours,
the Lourdes rainbow arcing around me.
I want to hide, divest,
dive into the quiet, the corner,
back to the wall,
looking on, looking in.
But the sun is up, the stone is rolled.
Out there is hope, in here is cold.
And sticking to my guns was no fun,
when all’s told.
Others were, thankfully, less detached and more committed. Although ours was a specially chartered plane for Lourdes, access to the departure gate entailed descending a long staircase, and thus a lengthy, and unexpected, detour for those with impaired mobility. Take off was therefore unavoidably delayed. Even when those with restricted mobility emerged onto the tarmac, accessing the plane presented a similar challenge in reverse but without any alternative. One boy, while his wheelchair was stowed, slowly and painstakingly climbed the steps from the runway on his hands and knees. I looked on from my front row seat and felt humbled and awed. It was Easter Day, and Christ is risen indeed.
Lourdes is not an easy place for detached observers(such as I was when I previously visited during a tour of France and Spain by Interrail in 1980 – and such as I struggle not to be even now.) Lourdes’ founding story involves an extraordinary series of apparitions granted in a riverside cave (the ‘Grotto’) to a 13 year old girl, uneducated and poor, in 1858. Despite official discouragement at the time, it drew crowds, and Bernadette’s simplicity and steadfastness began to convince even the sceptical authorities, civic and ecclesiastical. Its growth to something like its present scale took place rapidly. The enormous basilica and processional areas were begun in 1861 and completed a little over a decade later. People came, and continue to come, in droves, in their thousands and tens or hundreds of thousands, especially during the pilgrimage season that extends from Easter until around the end of October.
An abiding memory of my visit in 1980 was soon confirmed this time too. In Lourdes, the sick and the disabled take centre stage. Here, people who may elsewhere be overlooked, or patronised, or ‘helped’ are in fact the most important. Lourdes, one might reasonably say, needs to exist even if for that reason alone: as an important message that runs counter to the usual way many of us see the world as a venue in which we take our own access and priority for granted, and complain when circumstances inconvenience us. Lourdes may help to heal us of such arrogance and complacency: a miracle indeed if so. In other ways of course a pilgrimage to Lourdes works its grace as in other such places: strangers become friends and friendships are deepened, prayer becomes possible and penitence brings its healing salve.
Our group was no exception. We ate together and prayed together, laughed together and stayed together. Maria was our Group Leader. Her gentleness and kindness know no bounds but are allied to a keen intelligence: she had prepared well but was able to make sensible, and sensitive, adjustments to the well-laid plans whenever necessary. Kate was Maria’s Deputy: warm and sympathetic. Together they formed a dream team: they provided confident and clear, but never ego-driven, leadership. Maria’s children are delightful and their youthful enthusiasm was complemented but not diminished by a mature and serious regard for their responsibilities toward others. The pilgrimage provides a rare Christian arena for young people of faith (or no, or not sure about, faith…) to bond and meet. In addition to Alex and Rose there was Emma, whose mobility was aided by a simple, wheeled walking-support and whose interest in philosophy, and Anglican affiliation, were encouraging to me. Gemma had the loveliest chuckle that made others want to smile too. Danni herself laboured under a cold but was warmth and wisdom to those around. Pawel was always mobile, Jamie was always smiling, Christina brought a breath of New Forest fresh air, Rita said little but laughed loads, and Charlie dug deep as he always does and he, and we, were well rewarded in the process. John is a Deacon in preparation and surely a Spiritual Lead in the making. With Gary, a former Pastor, I felt a special closeness born of shared ministerial experience and (I sensed) some shared but unspoken spiritual struggles. Fr Cornelius, an ordained Teddy and alter ego, came in my pocket to whisper polite and wise advice that I should but didn’t always manage to heed.
My own role was that of ‘spiritual lead’. ‘Chaplain’ might also have described me, except my being an Anglican in a very Roman Catholic context injected a note of doubt that I couldn’t entirely resolve. Perhaps that in turn heightened my own awkwardness at times. Confidence is key if one is to help others along their spiritual journeys, and I felt most comfortable when leading reflections at some key moments along the route: amid the snow surrounded by the mountains of Gavarnie, or gathered on the hotel’s rooftop terrace one night – the buzz of street life below, the silent music of the stars above.
We attended Mass a couple of times, once with about 150 others from our region of the UK and another with a smaller number when we visited HCPT’s Hosanna House in the hills near Lourdes. At both I felt awkward and – I confess this – a little detached. The mood was ebullient but I didn’t feel it. On the Thursday I went early as preparations were underway for the ‘big one’, the Trust Mass: thousands of us to gather in a huge subterranean basilica, whose architectural style seemed a mixture of underground car park and football stadium. I was directed to a seasoned and leading priest for the Trust. I explained who I was and asked if I should robe and take part or (as I sadly assumed) sit it out as the ‘invalid’ priest I am according to Roman Catholic rules. In 1980, a few days before my train journey brought me to Lourdes on that only previous occasion, I had visited Chartres cathedral on a Saturday afternoon. There, I asked a priest, in my best O Level French, if I, as an Anglican, might be able to receive Communion at Mass the next day. His reply was heartfelt and reassuring: Bien sur! Le chose important est la presence de Jesus!’ Forty four years later I doubt if his equivalent would give such a welcoming reply and my expectation at Lourdes was gloomy. He was busy, but he paused and I felt his real attention: ‘Well, I could give you the official answer which is of course, no (he shook his head, sadly)…but how about this: why don’t you just robe with us, and join in to whatever extent you feel comfortable?’ I felt a weight (of sadness and some anticipated anger) slide away to leave gratitude.
Being gathered before the start with a throng of clergy, all male and all shapes and sizes, felt rather like something in Fr Ted – but also of course not unlike C of E gatherings of clergy prior to the ordination of women. I soon realised that many others like me were unsure what was happening and therefore intent on being in the middle of any queue so as to follow the others. I felt heartened during the entrance singing when Group 9 all cheered me as I passed in the procession. The Mass itself seemed to combine a real depth: thoughtful and profound reverence but also at times uninhibited exuberance. Later in the day, a procession of the Blessed Sacrament led us back into the same basilica, followed by Adoration and Benediction, and this occasion was to me even more remarkable. Among the 10,000 or so gathered there could never of course be silence strictly understood, but the depth of quietness and presence was palpable and powerful. Maria had earlier remarked that ‘this is where the miracles take place.’ I don’t know of any reported on this occasion but the whole event had an aura such that kneeling there one knew that for sure miracles can happen…
On our last day, I wore cassock as we gathered in the hot sunshine on the large area of grass called the Prairie. I had prepared a meditation using the holy water from the grotto that is piped to a series of feeder taps all around. We washed one another’s feet. We made the sign of the cross. We were sprinkled. Then we made our way to a chapel for a time of reflection in which many of the group shared some personal impressions and thanks, and all concluded with an anointing for each person in turn.
It would be nice to conclude this account on that – in fact rather profound – note, but in my end as in my beginning, I struggled. Our coach to Toulouse Airport was boarded by another, larger group, one of whose leaders began loudly enjoining all of us to sing and led off on a series of, to me extraordinarily annoying, chants. The response was partial and, I sensed, unenthusiastic but his determination seemed strong. I asked if we might enjoy some quiet for reflection, rest and conversation. He didn’t, I think, hear me but he did give up shortly afterwards. I was relieved, but also repentant. One can be critical and sometimes should say it as one thinks, but one can also be arrogant and that does no one any good.
As I now reflect on those six days my thoughts return to where and how it all began, with a young girl whose illiteracy and indigent family placed her on the margins, stumbling her way barefoot through streams that in those days were diverted from the fast-flowing, icy River Gave, the trees murmuring though no wind blew, and a beautiful lady appeared and spoke kindly and most courteously to Bernadette – and today through her she speaks to millions and reminds even me: to talk less, listen more, take off one’s shoes, and in place of declaiming from afar walk barefoot in humility, for ‘I came to heal the sick, and the lame, and the broken-hearted.’
Pip the Vic 