THE FIRST of over 3,000 people from Dublin left for Lourdes yesterday on two separate charter flights that took 180 people who are ill or disabled, many in wheelchairs, and their helpers, to the shrine.
What is believed to be the largest such pilgrimage ever from Dublin to Lourdes continues until Friday and will include 700 helpers, eight doctors and 55 nurses. Fifteen secondary schools will be represented by pupils and teachers.
This year is the 150th anniversary of the apparitions at Lourdes to St Bernadette.
Pope Benedict is due to visit the shrine later this week, beginning on Friday. He will be there for three days.
The Dublin pilgrimage is being led by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin.
He will be accompanied by his predecessor, Cardinal Desmond Connell, and 50 priests of the Dublin diocese.
Archbishop Martin said yesterday that "the Lourdes pilgrimage is a great event for the entire diocesan family".
"The sick recall all of us to the fact that we need to build a caring society and that care is mutual. These young man and women who travel with us this week to help are very talented and with a great future ahead of them.
"Yet, they are often fragile and insecure in the face of the hard and increasingly competitive world in which they will have to live. They learn intensely from the wisdom of the sick that have come to see that there are other values in society than just being among the top elite."
