I delivered a nice talk last evening about my pilgrimage to Lourdes last year. That was spring, the first week in May. I’ve had some good time to digest it by now.

Remembering how hard it was to blog about when I first got back. It takes time to break down anything that subtle. I had to gnaw on it for many hours. My old friend Jim says to understand some poetry you have rub up against it like those smooth shinny boards in the horse’s stall that only get that way over time. Yea, like that.

I gave the folks at my parish the my true blue account of my encounter with the situation there in Lourdes. It was actually hard for me to do in a faithful way. I wanted to do it only like Felipé could do it, through Felipé’s eyes. And I didn’t want to ruffle too many feathers at the same time.

To begin my talk to the parish I had to thank them for the warm welcome that they have given me over the last six years. There was a woman in the audience that also came in that same year so that was good to see her and to see how our presence as converts has been totally accepted. You know not that they wouldn’t but here I was going to deliver this report on a pretty sensitive area and I wanted it to be truthful and acceptable.

What I am getting at is that I had to admit that I didn’t see people “throwing down their crutches” or experiencing any exceptional sensations. But life always seems larger,deeper, broader, more brilliant, more exceptional than my expectations. And Lourdes was like that.

Let me list a few of the perceptions that one could come away with. One could get outside oneself. One could get beyond the “why me?” One could see plenty of others that have bigger problems than they have. One could see suffering in others and relate to it, relate to them. One could start to understand suffering as Christlike. One could understand Christ better because of their own personal suffering. One could start to understand the purpose of suffering. One could also become closer to Mary as I was striving to do.

Could be endless really what goes on there that to me would be in the catagory of healing and not curing at all. We understand the situation better and therefore live more joyfully and at peace with our problems. And time will tell. God has a totally different feel for time than we do. We want everything yesterday and when things take time we may not even recognize their significance.

We are talking about it right? Of course it is the world according to Felipé but still. Let me know if you have something to add to all that.

Peaceful loves, Felipé.