'We are all on a pilgrimage'

By Jeff Graham

Also See: Archbishop Miller prepared and eager for new post

Blazing hot weather tends to be par for the course for the annual pilgrimage to the Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto in Mission, the most popular annual event in the archdiocese. In years past pilgrims braved blazing heat to trek up the hill from Heritage Park in Mission to the grotto, but this year the weather was slightly overcast, so the afternoon was pleasantly cool as Archbishop Raymond Roussin, SM, offered Holy Mass and carried the monstrance up the hill.
 

Jeff Graham / The B.C. Catholic

“When reflecting on this event, it struck me that we are all on a pilgrimage,” the archbishop said in his homily in the park, which was transformed into an outdoor church for the Aug. 18 event, with the gazebo made into a makeshift sanctuary for the day.

Life itself is a pilgrimage, Archbishop Roussin explained.

“The purpose of the pilgrimage is to leave behind what is keeping us from being free; the purpose of the pilgrimage is conversion,” he said.

Each year the pilgrimage commemorates the feast of the Assumption of Mary, and appropriately, Archbishop Roussin asked the crowd to consider what Mary might be asking of them for this particular journey.

Jeff Graham / The B.C. Catholic

Jeff Graham / The B.C. Catholic

“Today is a day that Mary asks us to look at our lives and ask, ‘Do I see my life as a pilgrimage?”

After his homily, the prayers of the faithful were said in a variety of languages, and after Mass the crowd processed up the hill to the grotto with The Blessed Sacrament and a statue of Our Lady. Once at the grotto, the crowd was treated to some time for adoration of the Holy Eucharist, as well as the Rosary and Benediction.

As the Rosary was prayed, helium balloons were released into the sky to represent the different prayers ascending to heaven. After the Rosary and Benediction, the crowd headed back to the gazebo for live entertainment and a picnic.

The 2007 celebration is just the latest instalment of the legacy of the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes in Mission. Originally built in 1892, the grotto has been a popular pilgrimage site for decades. It was so prominent that Mission got its name from St. Mary’s Mission, on the site of which the grotto was built.

The first grotto fell into disuse and was torn down in 1965, but in 1988 the Knights of Columbus and the Mission Heritage Association began a fund to rebuild the grotto, and it was reopened in 1997.
 

Jeff Graham / The B.C. Catholic