Day 5

Monday, Angela and I started work at 7:30, which means leaving the Villa Marie Bernadette at 7:00. Our journey consists of a short walk to two sets of stairs, which total a whopping 112 stairs. From there, there is a hilly walk to where we eat breakfast...French bread, jam and hot drinks. This is in a lower level room, so up 35 more steps, and another 5 minute walk along a hilly street. Each day it gets easier, and we've come to consider it as our time at the gym.

The first set of stairs.and the second

We are done at work with 8 minutes to spare before 9:00 Mass at the Cosmos and Damien chapel. They have English Mass here every day at this time, and it's one of my favorite places to get Mass here. Today ther is a visiting American bishop celebrating, with two British and a South African priest. After Mass, we talked to the bishop who is in charge of the US military diocese and the US embassies and consulates in Europe and Asia. Quite a big diocese,eh? (Photo of the chapel later.)

We decided to go to confession after Mass. They have a large building, just for this purpose with priests in at least French, Italian, German, English, Dutch, and Spanish for part of every day. They have an outstanding pamphlet to help you prepare for confession. I love it, so I am bringing it home. There was a long but quick moving line for the 3 English speaking priests. I chose to go to Fr. Paul who is the South African priest. I have been going to confession with Fr. Paul since I have been
coming to Lourdes in 2003! I love having confession with him. I learned he will be leaving Lourdes
this year which makes me sad. He thinks he will be going to the UK, but, he really didn't know for

sure. He said he really shouldn't have come to Lourdes all those years ago. But, I for one am so very
grateful God placed this priest in my life! He has helped me so much, personally through some very difficult times, and really taught me to be thankful for our priest confessors.

Later, we had a meeting for all the ladies who serve on the Notre Dame service. There are different ways to serve at Lourdes, and my service is Notre Dame. This is a women's service. We can do many
things. In the past, and this year, I have worked in the Notre Dame Accueil (Accueil is a French word meaning a place of welcome, and it the place where sick pilgrims stay in Lourdes. It is like a hospital, but with no staff. Each pilgrimage group brings its own medical and support staff-mostly. There are cooks, maintenance staff, and of course, volunteers like us to help the pilgrim groups). I have also helped with the sanctuary flowers, worked in the kitchen for the volunteers, ironed priests' albs,
assisted at the Grotto, and accompanied pilgrims who were on their own in Lourdes. I also spent one
week doing a bit of everything: working in the baths ( this is a separate service called "The Piscines"
which is French for "baths") going to the airport and train station to welcome pilgrims (this is usually
done by the men in the St. Joseph service), and helped with crowd control once, which is also done
by the St. Joseph service.

At the meeting we meet some new friends!

From left: Justina and Cindy from Singapore and Ester, who is originally from The Philipines, but now lives in San Francisco. What a story she has! Amazing!

After work that night, Angela, Denis, Linda, George and I go to the Casa Italian for a drink. The Coke is cold, the company is great and the WiFi is free. God is good! As we leave, the drizzle begins again, and it seems our sunny weather may be a thing of the past.