HCPT Blog 1 - Setting out for Lourdes

The HCPT (Hosanna House & Children's Pilgrimage Trust) has commenced its Easter pilgrimage to Lourdes during Easter Week. A regular helper with a London group is writing a daily blog.

We are HCPT Group 144 - with members from North West and West London - and we set off for Lourdes in the early hours of Easter Monday, but some of 104 groups going this year started arriving from Easter Saturday. Activity has been building up these past few days with the HCPT HQ setting up in Lourdes, the Irish Region's Lourdes cyclists arriving, and various groups visiting the Grotto - clearly visible on the Grotto's webcam in matching, brightly coloured tops.

Easter Sunday Mass from St Bernadette's Church ended with the unofficial HCPT anthem 'Rise and Shine'. There was an Easter Bunny up the front leading the actions! So I've been participating already online, along with several hundred others.

With such a youthful pilgrimage - more than 50 percent of participants are under 30 - web feedback and facebook, instagram and X (twitter) posts are numerous. Already on the HCPT twitter page we can see Group 131 from Leeds visiting the Grotto for the first time and two former and two current Caritas candidates from St Andrew's and St Bride's High School in East Kilbride meeting up with the HCPT Scottish youth group in Lourdes. In the outdoor photos it's great to see those blue skies and blossoming trees around the domain area.

Excitement is building in our house too, with three in our family going tomorrow and son James a group leader. Husband Gerry has been going since the 1960s - he was very young when he started! Both of us went 10 years in a row in the 1980s and then, with all three sons newly involved as helpers, my husband and I picked it up again after a two-decade gap. So, for nearly 70 years, HCPT has been taking disabled and disadvantaged children to Lourdes and we've been involved in a good many of them, as have a seasoned group of very experienced helpers, group leaders and chaplains. For us, every year it has been an intense and joyful spiritual experience, which completely outweighs the hard work involved.

HCPT founder, Dr Michael Strode, loved Lourdes from his first visit in 1951, especially the Grotto with "its silence and the wonderful opportunity for deep prayer." In 1954, he took a small group of disabled children to Lourdes. "It's a pilgrimage with a serious side, but it is also a holiday" he said; "that's what keeps the children fresh - the sing-songs, the outings - and the children can then take a measure of more serious matters." The Trust got going in 1956. The years since then have seen HCPT attract international groups, and the establishment of Hosanna House at the nearby village of Bartres where Bernadette spent time as a young girl. It hosts pilgrimages all the year round.

This year, around 2,200 are involved in the HCPT Easter pilgrimage, including more than 1,000 disabled and disadvantaged children. Sixty clergy include one Archbishop and seven bishops. HCPT Scotland is coordinating liturgies this year and I'm quite sure we'll be hearing bagpipes around the town. Most groups wear distinctive clothing so that they stand out in the Lourdes crowds and anyone wandering off can be spotted easily. Our group wears bright green - a nod to our Irish roots.

It's sure to be a refreshing week, although we won't feel too lively early tomorrow morning! Those snow-capped hills and fresh Pyrenean air cheer the spirits, but the week is also an inspirational experience of the Kingdom of God. It challenges HCPT pilgrims to carry away from Lourdes an Easter message for the world: a message of new life, love, hope and joy. We are looking forward to joining in tomorrow.

LINKS

HCPT Facebook: www.facebook.com/HCPTpage/

HCPT Easter 2024: www.hcpt.org.uk/easter-2024

On the pages above you can watch the livestreams of the major HCPT events and of people passing through the Grotto.

At 9pm every night join on Facebook or YouTube for Prayers on the Stairs, an online version of the night prayers which pilgrimage groups hold in their hotels.

Also don't miss:

- Torchlight Procession |- 2nd April at 8pm UK time
- Trust Mass - 4th April at 9am UK time
- Blessed Sacrament Procession - 4th April at 4pm UK time