Pope Benedict XVI celebrated Mass today in memory of the 150th anniversary of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary to a 14-year-old girl in the southern French town of Lourdes, one of the most revered Catholic shrines.
Some 150,000 pilgrims, singing hymns and some shouldering a life-sized crucifix, gathered on a rain-soaked field for the Mass marking the anniversary.
Millions visit the spot each year to pray for miracles of physical or spiritual healing.
The Catholic Primate of Ireland, Cardinal Seán Brady represented the Irish Bishops' Conference, while Bishop of Meath Dr Michael Smith headed a delegation of 1,400 people from his diocese.
The pope urged the pilgrims to remain hopeful in the face of evil and hardship.
"The power of love is stronger than the evil which threatens us," Benedict said.
The pope is making a three-day pilgrimage to the sanctuary, which is visited each year by 6 million pilgrims. Many believe miracles can be delivered by Bernadette Soubirous - the 14-year-old daughter of peasants who in 1858 told local clergy she had seen the Virgin Mary appear to her at the Massabielle riverside grotto.
"For 150 years, pilgrims have never ceased to come to the grotto of Massabielle to hear the message of conversion and hope which is addressed to them. And we have done the same," Benedict said, reading his homily from a platform.
The Catholic church's liturgy on September14th is focused on the symbol of the cross.
Benedict told the crowd that the cross initiates the faithful into the mysteries of Christian faith, including that "there is a love in this world that is stronger than death, stronger than our weaknesses and sins."
Jesus in his death by crucifixion "took upon himself the weight of all the sufferings and injustices of our humanity," the pope said. "He bore the humiliation and the discrimination, the torture suffered in many parts of the world by so many of our brothers and sisters for the love of Christ."
The 81-year-old pontiff said the faithful should live their lives in "invincible hope, refusing to believe those who claim that we are trapped in the fatal power of our destiny."
Benedict spent last night at a hermitage, after praying at the Lourdes grotto where a spring of water broke through the ground during the months Bernadette saw the apparitions of Mary.
The pope drank some of the water in the grotto. But he had said on Friday he was not coming to seek miracles at Lourdes, which he has likened to a citadel of hope.
Countless believers in the water's healing power come to Lourdes to drink or bathe in it, and bring home flasks and plastic containers of the spring's water.
Reuters