Lourdes - Day 3

Sunday morning we had a French breakfast that consisted of…bread. That’s it. Bread, butter, and jelly. Oh, and coffee, hot milk, hot chocolate, or tea. We went to Mass and then headed off to an orientation meeting. We learned about what we were going to be doing throughout the week and what jobs we had been assigned to. After the meeting we had lunch and then Shannon and I went into the rosary basilica to pray and look at the mosaics of the mysteries of the rosary. We headed back for some more meetings and we had formation which consisted of learning proper terminology for the week such as “pilgrim” not “patient”, “service” not “work” and so on.

Fran then shared with us what an experience in the Piscines would be like because our group had an appointment at 3pm. We walked over and all quietly prepared ourselves. We went in and were split up among the different rooms to wait our turn. When I went in the head lady was so sweet. She didn’t really speak English but I knew what she was trying to tell me because Fran had told us what she would say. She told me to give my heart to Mary and then pointed for me to walk down the steps. The water was up to me knees and it was freezing cold. I kissed the statue of Our Lady and then the girls tipped me back into the water and pulled me back up. The water was so freezing cold I couldn’t even breathe. They asked me if I was okay and I told them I was. I went back to get dressed pulled all my clothes on over my wet body. I wasn’t cold at all even though I had just been dipped in icy cold water but I went and stood in the sunshine outside with everyone else. It was a very special experience to be able to take a bath in the water.

We all walked over and visited the grotto and then we were free to do whatever we wanted. I went with Desiree to the Adoration chapel and we spent some time in there. After dinner, we had wheel chair training 101 where we learned how to safely help a pilgrim into a wheelchair, watour, chaise bleue, and broncardiae. We also learned how to maneuver them and when we would be using them. We were all very tired so we headed back to the Ave Maria and got a good night sleep.